The Terror at Miskatonic Falls - Update

For those new to the blog show around here, allow me to recap the development of The Terror at Miskatonic Falls.  It started as a pretty simple idea: basically a collection of Lovecraftian poetry that would be something like Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, a collection of epitaph poems from folks in Spoon River whom had all died that served up quirky, humorous, sad, perhaps even....morbid insights into the townspeople's lives.

So an idea was born: a Lovecraftian take on Spoon River, of a small little Massachusetts town next to Miskatonic Falls and the Miskatonic River, where something had been loosed... and all that remained of the townspeople were poems, limericks, even haiku scribbled all over the place: doors, walls, floors....

Submissions and editing took some time.  I got lots of poems, and found very quickly that while editing fiction  - as I did for Shroud's 2010 Halloween Issue - can be a very cut and dry business for me, either the story "grabs me" by page two or not at all, editing poetry was SO much more involved, taking into accounts all the different forms.  Also, I wanted to avoid very OBVIOUS Lovecraftian tropes and images, focusing more on townspeople who were slowly unraveling as they saw dark things flitting to and fro in the shadows.
 
Danny Evarts - Shroud layout guru - is still working feverishly at this thing.  I have to be honest, here, and take most the blame for how long it's taking.  Basically, I pitched this project to Tim Deal, he approved it, I collected poems, worked with the poets, then threw it at Danny and said; "Here's this idea I got in my head.  Can you, like, do it?"

He's doing an absolutely splendid job. The images continue to come in, and they continue to be lovely.  All I know is, I owe Danny a CASE of his favorite beverage when this whole thing is through....