The Whispers of Gaps in My Genre Education, and a night With Tom Monteleone & F. Paul Wilson: P1

Been thinking about a TON of stuff lately.  Most of it regarding my future as a writer.  What I want to accomplish (the crazy, pie in the sky goals), what I'd be happy/content to accomplish (spritzed with a dose of reality), what I want to spend my time doing, where my energies would best be expended.  This is pretty weighty stuff, so I'm splitting it into Part 1 and 2.

I recently stepped down as Shroud's Review Editor.  After over five years of reviewing, I simply came to the end.  Satisfied I'd installed a durable system at Shroud, I realized it was time to leave.  

I'm not done with Shroud, however.  I've pitched at least two more issues to Tim Deal, The Terror at Miskatonic Falls is on its way, and I'll revisit Hiram Grange eventually.   Shroud has become like family, and that'll never change.

Recently, however, I hit a milestone: a phone pitch interview with a senior acquisitions editor at a New York Publishing House. Then, several months later, I met with said editor in person, discussed my pitch, and handed this editor a series synopsis, the synopses for the first two installments plus the first four chapters of each, and a brief overview of the third installment.

I came away changed.   This experience clarified many things.  First of all, since the publication of my first story - for cash - four years ago, I've done okay.  Sold five fiction shorts to decent markets for at least semi-pro pay, six creative non-fiction pieces to very good markets for really good pay.  

Attended Borderlands Press Writers Bootcamp two years consecutively.  Wrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote a pretty decent novella that's gotten good reviews, even notched some Stoker Recommendations, though it fell short of the preliminary ballot.  Edited a very unique anthology in The Terror at Miskatonic Falls, as well as Shroud's 2010 Halloween Issue.  

Along the way, I attended a few cons, met some awesome people who have not only been great help, but also great friends.   I started receiving some short story solicitations, so I geared up to write those, another Hiram novella, some Hiram flash, a novel or two, and then...

I stopped.

Looked around.

Realized that I as happy as I was with what I'd accomplished...I wanted to go further.

So, believe it or not, I actually turned down most of those story solicitations.  They just weren't for me.  I also realized that I'd sold myself a lie.  I'll never be a prolific short story writer with hundreds of short stories to my credit.  Just don't have it in me.

When things started "happening" for me, I got really excited.  Couldn't wait until I published enough stories for my first short story collection.   My credits were decent enough.  Had enough good reviews and blurbs, and here's the quirk that POD publishing has brought the small press horror market, for good or ill:  the acceptance of a novel or short story collection through a small or micro horror press no longer hinges on an author's marketability or selling power.  This sounds like a good thing.  More freedom.  More open doors to new voices and fresh writers.  It MUST be a good thing.

I'm becoming ever more uncertain of this.

Especially in the case of short story collections.  What's the logic behind publishing a collection of a writer's short stories?  The motive?  The more I chewed over this, the less appealing the thought became.

You don't publish a collection of your short stories simply because you've racked up enough "readable", "good" stories published in "good" markets.  In fact, it could be argued (let's leave self-publishing ebooks out of this,  for now), that a writer shouldn't publish his own short stories at ALL.

A publisher - of any kind, specialty, small, or micro - should approach  the writer, say to them: "We love your work.  People love your work.  You've done great things.  Won awards.  Have a name and a following.  We'd LOVE to put together a collection of your shorts."

This past week Tom Monteleone and Paul Wilson visited my Creative Writing students, conducted a workshop with them.  I'll just say this now: I love Tom and Paul.  I love Tom's short work, I love Repairman Jack, and both of these guys have left indelible stamps on my writing, thanks to two years at Borderlands' Bootcamp.  So when they asked me to hang out with them and a friend of theirs who lived in Binghamton, I jumped at the chance.

I can't detail that evening here.  That will be Part Two.  Suffice to say...it was better than any Con I've attended yet, (except Borderlands), I kid you not.  It blew my mind.   Overwhelmed me with how little I knew of genre fiction's past.  Most of all?

It humbled me.  Left me in awe. And from my viewpoint, that has crystallized the undeniable negative that POD publishing has brought to the horror genre.

A lack of humility.  Of patience.  Why commit yourself to a dream that will require hard work, patience, and a thick skin?  Why work to be better?  Why suffer rejection from those big, bad, uncaring New York Houses, when we can just self-publish ebooks or publish collections through small presses?

Understand, I'm not slamming small presses.  Cemetery Dance, Apex, Shroud, Thunderstorm and Maelstrom, Belfire, Deadite...all quality publishers.   And places that I'd be happy sending my work, but....

I've been aiming at the bottom of the ladder (and not in quality, just in size and distribution and marketing and name).    Ignoring the top and even the middle.  Convinced myself I wasn't good enough, maybe.  Maybe impatient, also.  Because to hit the top, I need to do two simple things: WRITE.  AND WAIT (and try and try and try....woops.  That's like five things.)  

Maurice Broaddus once wrote a blog entitled "A Fate Worse Than Being Unpublished".  In it, he shared that if he couldn't be published WELL, he'd rather not be published at all until such a time came that he did publish well.

Of course, there's no guarantee of hitting the top or the middle.  Ever.  Maybe - MORE THAN LIKELY - no specialty house will EVER approach me for a collection of my short fiction.  Very possibly, I'll NEVER land a deal with a New York House.

BUT I WANT TO TRY.  

And I'm willing to wait.  For however long it takes to happen.  I'm willing to weather as many rejections as it takes.  As Norman Partridge asked recently in some BRILLIANT blog posts about publishing for the newbie writer: "Have you tried New York? I mean, really tried?"  

No.

No, I haven't.

So I've slowed things down.  I'm still working on my novel, but have no immediate plans to publish it, simply because of THIS awesome piece of advice, also by Norman Partridge: the only magic bullet in publishing success is the writing itself.

I stepped down from Review Editor, and I've accepted a position as a slush reader.  

Slush reader?  

Isn't this a step backward?

No.  It's a HUMBLING step.  One that will teach me SO MUCH about what makes an excellent short story.  I'm also going back to "bone up" on my horror:  Charles Grant. TM Wright.  Ramsey Campbell.  The Whispers anthologies.  So many others I missed because my focus was too narrow.  

And of course, all my current favorites: Gary Braunbeck.  Rio Youers.  Tim Lebbon.  Neil Gaiman.  Norm Partridge.  Norman Prentiss.  Nate Kenyon.  Ronald Malfi and Mary Sangiovanni.  T. L. Hines and Travis Thrasher.  Of course, Tom Monteleone and Paul Wilson. And I need to check out other folks, like Laird Barron and Tom Piccirrilli.

Looks like I'm going back to school.

I've got lots of work to do.

Seton CC's January Visiting Author: Claudia Gabel - "Romeo & Juliet & Vampires"

The "Visiting Writers' Program" at Seton Catholic Central High School (where I teach) recently welcomed our first visiting author of the year.  To recap: this program was brainstormed two years ago when the administration at SCC expressed their desire for a Creative Writing Class (taught by moi). 

At the same time, a student running for Student Council proposed an initiative to bring in professional writers of all kinds to visit our students.  As educators, we're forever stressing careers in medicine, business, management, law, big things like that.  However, for some reason we often forget the Arts; especially the art of writing.

I decided to "marry" the two initiatives, to develop a Visiting Writers' Program that would serve as the core of the Creative Writing Class.   The class would read the works of many different types of writers, then meet with those writers to talk with them about the craft and the business.  Also, students not in my Creative Writing class would still be eligible to meet with the writers.  They had to read the work, respond to it in a reflective essay, then they'd be excused from class to meet with these writers.

Last year, our program embarked on its maiden voyage with resounding success, bringing in the following authors/writers/poets to visit with our students:

Dan Keohane, Bram Stoker Nominated author of Solomon's Grave

Andrei Guruianu,  poet, professor, and former Poet Laurette of Broome County 

Bryan Davis, bestselling YA/Teen fantasy author, creator of Dragons In Our Midst

Tom Monteleone, award winning author/screenwriter and owner of Borderlands Press

Rio Youers, rising author of Mama Fish and End Times

This year's schedule is jam-packed and ambitious.  Thanks to several grants, we're bringing in seven different authors and at the end of February, two authors will visit SCC for three days to conduct an intensive workshop for my Creative Writing students.  

Needless to say, things are going to be very, busy over the next few months and we kicked things off recently with Claudia Gabel, author of the latest genre mash-up, Romeo & Juliet & Vampires (HarperTeen, a division of HarperCollins).

A graduate of Seton, Claudia has visited us several times in the past, speaking to classes and donating her time to judge at poetry contests and work at book fairs.  This was her first formal visit as part of our Visiting Writers' program, and it was a huge success.

Claudia spent roughly two hours talking about her career path as a writer, (graduate school, MA in English, her positions at Random House and HarperTeen), her other works - In and Out, a teen series for Scholastic and other ghost-writing projects - and shared her inspirations and goals.   She answered questions about Romeo & Juliet & Vampires,  detailing her research, how she approached rewriting a classic work of literature, and how the project came to be in the first place.

Along the way, she offered our students invaluable insight into the writing and publishing process, especially when it came to working with editors and accepting their critique and guidance.   Many of the students were surprised (and perhaps a little frightened) that novel writing wasn't the glamorous, stress-free blissful experience so many movies and television shows make it out to be.

Claudia is a hardworking, dedicated professional. A classic example of that kid who doodled stories in her Mead notebooks all through high school, dreaming of being a writer - and then going out and doing exactly that. 
 

Next month's visiting writer is Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Norman Prentiss.

Shroud Magazine Autumn Issue 10: Halloween Special is now available on Amazon. As guest editor, it was quite a pleasure working with all the writers involved, and I dare say they're a very talented bunch.  A little post-Halloween...but perfect for those folks who love to celebrate it year round.  Contributor copies and pre-orders are being shipped this weekend.

Below is the ever wonderful cover art of Stephen Gilberts, and the TOC following.

FICTION

THREE DOORS, Norman Patridge

LEFT-HANDED RADIO, Rio Youers

1925: A FALL RIVER HALLOWEEN, Lisa Mannetti

WAITING FOR G.P., Justin Gustainis

RED LANTERN, Alethea Kontis

CHILDHOOD GHOSTS, Kelli Owen

VACCINATION, Thomas Phillips

GEORGIE, Robert Ford

THE PROPHET ON THE SAND, Val Muller

THE LOVE STORY OF HENRY VAN PENNYSHAW, Chandler Kaiden

ALMOST PARADISE, Jeremy C. Shipp

LAST HALLOWEEN, Daniel G. Keohane

NONFICTION 

HALLOWEENED BE THY NAME, Nicholas Grabowski

TAMPER (SOST), Scott Christian Carr

SAM HANE IT'S NOT, Jodi Lee

TEN QUESTIONS WITH NORMAN PARTRIDGE, Brian J. Hatcher

EXPLODING PUMPKINS AND POISONED CANDY, Elizabeth Tucker

WHERE DID ALL THE MONSTERS GO?, Kelli Owen

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: RIO YOUERS, Kevin Lucia

MORE...

DEMENTIS MORTUUS, Word Games for the Rest of Us, Victorya & Danny Evarts

BOOK REVIEWS

Art from Danny Evarts & Tyler Hoglund

Cover by Steven Gilberts

My Booklist #6

1. Currently Reading:

The Exorcist and Legion, (Cemetery Dance Limited Edition), by William Peter Blatty.  Okay.  I mean - WOW.  Somehow along the way, I missed both this movie and the book.  Years of my youth misspent solely in science fiction, I'm afraid.  Anyway, ANYONE of faith who loves horror or loves the essential battle between good and evil HAS to get this, even if you find a used copy somewhere.  Thing is, this Cemetery Dance limited edition has both The Exorcist and its sequel Legion in it, plus an extensive interview with Blatty. I'm about halfway through Exorcist, and it DOES NOT disappoint.  This is real horror, written very, very well - and maybe not such a good thing to read in the house very late at night when no one is around...

End Times, (PS Publishing), by Rio Youers.  Also not disappointing, living up to everything I expected.  Like butter, folks - the prose is like butter, and for those who like their horror/speculative/weird fiction to be rooted in real, tangible foundations - like drug addictions, insecurities, obsessions, emotional trauma, personal weaknesses - this is the stuff for you.











 2. Put on Hold for Now:

Slippin' Into Darkness,  (Kennsington), by Norman Patridge.  I put this on hold because of increasing schoolwork and review obligations, but that doesn't mean it's of lesser quality.  Sometimes that just happens: books stack up, reviewing obligations loom, or I get excited about something new, and I pick one of my daily books to take a backseat for awhile.  I chose this one, but it was more of an "ennie-meenie-minnie-moe" sort of thing.  I wish I had time to read everything I wanted, RIGHT NOW.  Anyway - someone asked me at my recent Hiram Grange signing how authors avoid (or try to) writing the same stories others have, and my best answer was this: by consuming as many different types of stories possible, and intentionally zooming in on authors who show a penchant for unusual, out of the ordinary stories.  This is certainly one of those stories and Norm is one of those authors, so this will get finished, I promise you.

3. On the Pile, Waiting:

Riding the Bullet, (Special Graphic Edition, Cemetery Dance), by Stephen King.  I never read the novella or saw the movie, so this is going to be fun, fun, fun.  I've devoured most of everything Stephen King's written, but there are few things out there I've always wanted to read, but didn't, just waited...sort of like depositing a bond in the bank and letting it age and mature.  This looks like a lot of fun, and the artwork looks stunning!

My Booklist #6

Got caught up this morning with some things, so here's today's blog, a little late:

1. Currently reading:

Slippin' Into Darkness,  (Kennsington), by Norman Patridge. This is a new big thing with me; when I discover an author that really HITS me, I go back and start collecting their early works. I loved Dark Harvest, Johnny Halloween and Lesser Demons, so I hit up Norman's first novel on Amazon....and so far, it hasn't disappointed.  It's got that great, terse noir tone, and I like how he's centered the novel so far around a dead girl - how all the characters remember her, how they met her, interacted with her, etc.  This is why every writer should READ as much as possible, should read a wide variety of stories and voices, because of how much you learn.  Any young/newbie writer who says they haven't got enough time to read isn't serious about writing, and that's a fact.

All the Rage, (Tor Books), F. Paul Wilson.  Okay, can I say it again without sounding too gushy? I really, REALLY want my stuff to read like Paul's Repairman Jack novels.  I started this Saturday and I'm already halfway through it.  The pacing is perfect, his sentence structure lean without being terse...and I love the fact that while so many writers are out there trying to create a "mythos" of their own, Paul was busy doing it over ten years ago.  Can't wait to finish and move to the next Repairman Jack gig...









2. Just Finished:

Solitary, (David C. Cook), by Travis Thrasher. Okay, so I'm going to indulge myself here for a moment - you can keep Ted Dekker.  Keep Frank Peretti.  Forget a whole bunch of others.  Travis is the real deal.  This guy can WRITE, and he knows how to create solid, real characters.  I now have TWO favorite CBA (Christian Bookseller Association) authors I'll read at the drop of a hat: T.L. Hines and Travis Thrasher. This is funny, dark, amusing, sarcastic, sad, moving, suspenseful....and like F. Paul Wilson, Travis's prose just keeps you moving.  The "Solitary" series is one I'm going to follow.







3. Just Arrived in the mail:

End Times, (PS Publishing), by Rio Youers.  It's a ghost story.  Of loss, betrayal, pain, hardship...all the things that make us painfully and wonderfully human...oh, and did I mention ghost story....? I can't wait to start reading this...

Pimpin' My Cool Author Friends: Rio Youers

No change to the booklist yet, because I've been reading some really long books. But, I thought of an alternate blog filler: "Pimpin' My Cool Author Friends".  These will be little snippets about folks I know who have written great stuff, and why you should read them too.  Today's Cool Author Friend is none other than Rio Youers.

First of all, why he's cool: he's probably one of the most vibrant, vivacious people I've ever met.  Rio just wants to "live", bottom line, and live out loud.  But he's smooth.  Very "chill".  Unpretentious when he has every reason to BE pretentious.  

And he's British.  Plus, he rocks a fedora like no else (except maybe Brian Keene):

I love this picture, by the way.  Why?  Because there I am - in the background.  Where I should be, for now.  But there Rio is, front and center...right where he should be, also. 

Now.  Why should you read him?  Well, here's this for starters: 

"Rio Youers is one of the most vital, most exciting young talents to come along in this decade."

—Peter Straub, New York Times Bestselling Author

In a way I'm a little worried that I'm going a bit "fan boy" and gushing over Rio, but I guess I'm just so enthused to meet someone who has so many of the same feelings about fiction as I do, and the thing is: most of the fiction I wrote when I first started out - even the first stories that were published - were NOT ones I felt were really ME. My evolution as a writer has moved me in a certain direction, and Rio's played a big part in that - both him and his work.

His prose flows.  Smooth to read.  Probably one of the best endorsements comes from one of my 10th Grade Honors students after reading Mama Fish, something along the lines of: 

"It's funny...the story is complicated and deep, and it's not like he used small words or anything...but it's (Mama Fish) so easy to read, he made it EASY to get lost in the story.  His words didn't get in the way."

I mean, what better endorsement is there than that?  I think what I appreciate most about Rio's work is it's determination to never rest on horror conventions...and it's always about LIFE.

What should you read?
Mama Fish.  Absolutely.  It's like a spooky "Outsiders".

Old Man Scratch.  This is what I've come to think of as trademark Rio: the center of this story is a human drama we can all relate to...but don't forget about that dark thing flickering from the corner of your eye....

  













I'll be getting his novel, End Times, soon.  I'll let you know what I think, but I'm sure it'll be as fine as everything else he's done... 

Next fine friend to pimp is Bram Stoker Nominated author, Dan Keohane.