Saturday, October 19, 2013

Why I just HAD to be in FEAR THE REAPER

Before the end of last year, Taylor Grant had posted an anthology he'd gotten another one of his awesome stories into. (One of the most talented, hard-working, and down-to-earth, nicest guys I've ever met.) Read his work if you haven't, you won't be disappointed.

The thing that caught my eye right away about his post was the cover art, and then it was the title. I took it as a challenge, and for first time ever I felt like, "I HAVE to be in this anthology."

I've never considered myself the "pushy" type and I certainly didn't want to come off as desperate, but I messaged Taylor and asked him about the anthology. He told me to write the editor, Joe Mynhardt who runs Crystal Lake Publishing, and had just put out the anthology, For the Night is Dark, which also has a great cover. Even though I didn't know Joe, I sent a brief bio and introduced myself. But besides my short story "The Eyes Have It" in Horror For Good: A Charitable Anthology, nothing else I'd written had been published yet. I wrote Joe anyway and he told me that the anthology was getting pretty full but he'd look over what I sent him.

I thanked my lucky stars when he said he'd like for me to submit a story to him. The story I wrote that's in the anthology, "Death Squared" has nothing to do with why I had to be in the anthology. That subject is still a little a bit too close to tackle, but hopefully, this very personal blog will explain why.

When my younger sister and I were growing up, we fought nonstop. I was the "nerdy" one who got good grades and awards, was a cheerleader, and for the most part, obeyed my parents. She, on the other hand, skipped school, hung out with the wrong crowd, dropped out of high school, ran away when she was sent to live elsewhere, you name it. She came back to Plattsburgh, when I was in college for nursing. My parents had transferred to Colorado, so each other was all we had, and we tried to care for one another when we could.

Eventually, my sister moved to my parents home in Folsom, California. I'd graduated with my nursing degree and moved to Denver, Colorado where I worked in the Operating Room. It had been about eight years since I'd seen my sister. I went out to Folsom to visit my family in July of 1992. My sister and I hung out pretty much the whole time. My mom even rented cabins in Lake Tahoe where the whole family had fun times. I remember watching ARMY OF DARKNESS with her, and I'm not sure we'd ever laughed so hard. But my vacation ended, and I went back to Denver.

My sister and I kept in touch, though. More so than we'd ever had. She had completed her GED, had registered for college courses, and had just gotten a new job. Things were looking up for her, so I'd send her money when I had it so she could buy books for school. She'd write me letters and tell me about what she was up to. I told her I was going to paint her a watercolor. I taped the paper to my wall and just free flowed what came to mind. The center of the scene was a massive old dead tree. Then I painted a kite stuck in its branches in crimson. In the background, I painted a faint Grim Reaper, complete with scythe. I never told her what I was painting. It was to be a surprise.

About three months later, she was missing. I asked my mom if she wanted me to go out to help look, but she said no. Ten days after that, a surveyor saw bronze rims on a car earlier in the day and went back later to take them off. When he got in the water he realized someone had died in the car. It was my sister. She was nineteen years old, and only two blocks from home. Her car went off the road and hit a tree, then flipped over in the water. The autopsy report stated that she'd had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy that probably had been painful enough for her to veer off, possibly pass out. There was water in her lungs.

My mom called me when they'd found her. I flew out to California.

The whole time was a blur. My mom remembered things that my sister had told her before the accident. She told me that a few strange things happened, and that somehow, my sister thought that she might die.

My little sister's favorite holiday was Halloween. She'd always go out. That year she didn't, and when my mom asked her why, she said it was because she'd been having nightmares about the Grim Reaper. Also, there'd been a black cat that darted out in front of her car.

I've never told anyone about the painting. Especially not my mother. She's really superstitious. When I got back to Denver, I tore it from the wall and threw it in the fireplace. I put all the paint tubes in a box, along with all my brushes, and I haven't painted a thing since. Or ever will.

Do I think that I had anything to do with anything? No. I just miss my sister.

And maybe that free flow thinking had me seeing things I never want to see again. Do I free flow think when I write? Absolutely not.

My little sister feared the reaper. I do not. And so, having a story, a piece of me, in the anthology that I had to be a part of. It was a challenge I took on and don't regret. I look forward to reading the rest of the stories in the book.

Many thanks to Joe, who did more than he ever thought by trusting that I'd do all right by his book.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Vegas Book Signings and Cross Promotion

I had two local book signings this past week. Monday, October 4th, was Books, Bubbles, and Brew, a Meet and Greet for readers and book clubs with national and local authors sponsored by the Vegas Valley Book Festival. It was at the NOW Cafe in City Hall, which is a beautiful building downtown. There was a good turnout, and I met a lot of great people. Many of them are in book clubs and mentioned they might read, The Evolutionist for one of their novel choices.

Friday, October 11th was The Atomic Book Signing at the historic Atomic Liquors on Fremont Street, downtown. It's no longer a liquor store these days and is more of a bar. It was an interesting choice of venue with the loud music, bar regulars, and dimly lit areas. I'll admit that if I didn't drive there myself and knew I'd have to drive back, I'd have had a couple of martinis. Most of the attendees were coming in from the Southern Nevada Writers Convention, so the majority of them were writers. And if there's one thing I've learned from writers conventions is that writers don't tend to buy a lot of books. The best events that seem to sell books are at fan conventions and reader events like book festivals. Aside from my book launch parties, I sold the most books at the L.A. Times Book Festival, and I'm hoping to exceed those sales at the Vegas Valley Book Festival on November 2nd.
On Thursday, October 24th at 7pm at the Clark County Library on Flamingo, I'll be discussing my short story "Reclamation" that's in the Las Vegas Writes Anthology: Progress, Getting Better All the Time. You can read a bit of my story if you click the link and then click on Reclamation. It's going to be interesting explaining how my apocalyptic story of how water reclaiming the Earth relates to progress, but hey, I'm a horror writer.
The highlight of The Atomic Book Signing was getting to see Mercedes Murdock Yardley. We had to get a picture of her with The Atomic sign because her latest novella is a "tale of atomic love." Click HERE to buy a copy. You won't be disappointed.
For the second part of my cross promotion experience with Carl Alves, I did a five question interview with him. Great stuff! Please read it. There are freebie opportunities at the end.
1.     To get an idea of your writing influences, who are three of your favorite writers from three different genres?

In the horror genre, it has to be Stephen King.  Even though I’m not as fond of his more recent work, his early stuff is pure gold.  In the seventies, eighties and nineties he was churning out mesmerizing horror that delivered every time.  He is my biggest writing influence.

 
In the fantasy genre, I would have to go with George R. R. Martin.  I only started reading him recently because I was hooked on the Game of Thrones television show.  Then I started reading the series, and damn, the novels are simply amazing.  His writing skills are off the chart.  His world building and characters are top notch. 

 
In the crime genre, I would go with Mario Puzo.  When I was writing my Mafia chapters in Blood Street, the voice of Puzo would always creep in my mind.  He got that world down so well.  He is the king of gangster writing, and I’ve always had a great admiration for his work.

 
2.     Blood Street has a lot of great Philadelphia mob and city details – did you do a lot of research, or did you use your own personal experiences in regards to the area? And well, if you’ve had any personal experiences with the Philadelphia mob, I’m sure everyone would like to know about them, too.

I was born and raised in Philadelphia, so it wasn’t particularly hard to get details of the city right.  I really tried to incorporate the city into the novel to the point where it was like a character in the story.  As far as mob details, since I don’t have any personal dealings with organized crime figures, I did a lot of research into the history of the Philadelphia Mafia, and what I found was that in the fifties and sixties it was one of the most well run and well organized crime syndicates in the country.  In the eighties and nineties, the organization fell apart in a series of unprecedented violence.  Pretty much everybody who was in the Philly mob during that time period is either in jail or dead.  So what I wanted was to create a mob boss character who was highly educated and intelligent and would run the organization like a business. 
3.     In Blood Street, I was rooting for the mobsters. Do you have any tips on how you made these characters more likable than vampires that most readers seem to be so into?
Growing up in Philadelphia, I had the opportunity to get to know a good deal of Italian Americans and this was the basis for most of my Mafia characters on Blood Street.  I took the personalities of people that I had known and ratcheted them up to ten.  In the end, they are exaggerated versions of real people.  In the novel I intentionally didn’t try to make one side or the other being the heroes or the villains.  Mob guys are inherently bad since they make their way through life committing crime, but I did my best to make them likeable. 
 
4.     Wow, I see you have a degree in Biomedical Engineering. Is science fiction something you plan to explore in your writing in the future?
My next novel I have scheduled for release is entitled Reclamation Mother Earth, which is going to be published by Montag Press, and this is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller.  Based on my educational background, you might think that I would be drawn to science fiction, but what turns me off about the genre is that stories often get bogged down by technological jargon and specific details, which interfere with the telling of a good story.  For me the story comes first.  That’s why I purposely tried not to get overly technical with a lot of the science in the novel.  I want to tell a story, not teach a science class.  I get enough of that in my day job.
5.     What projects do you have in the works?

As I mentioned in the previous question, Reclamation Mother Earth should be coming out in the near future.  The premise of the novel is that aliens take over the Earth.  On the first day of the invasion, my main character who is a Navy SEAL, is there when the aliens invade and is knocked into a coma.  Five years later, he wakes up in the care of a kind alien physician to find out that most of the human race has been killed off and many of the survivors have been enslaved by the alien conquerors.  He starts to heal himself mentally and physically and in the process starts a resistance movement to take back the planet from the aliens.
 
As part of this cross promotion experiment, we're both having giveaways on Goodreads until the end of October. If you'd like to sign up to get a free copy of Carl's Blood Street, or The Evolutionist by me, clicking the book titles will take you there.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

My first ever Dark Delicacies book signing and the WeHo Book Fair in L.A.

 
Saturday, September 28th at 2pm, I had a book signing for East End Girls at the Dark Delicacies store in Burbank, California, along with Lisa Morton and Eric J. Guignard for their Double Down Series Book 2 Smog/Baggage of Eternal Night. Author Edward M. Erdelac was also there, rounding out a small part of the JournalStone author family. And it was Ed's birthday. Glad I made cookies! Christopher C. Payne, the president of JournalStone showed up to keep everybody in line.

It was a lot of fun and great to see everyone, like John Palisano who kindly stopped by to say hello and buy some books. I finally and formally met Del and Sue, which was the best part. I even got to sign some books.
John Skipp showed up and danced a little. Then his director friend, Mike Mendez, of a soon to be released movie - BIG ASS SPIDER - came and had two of my cookies! Better be a good flick, but I have no doubt spider fans everywhere will be crawling all over it.
Afterward, Lisa suggested dinner for some of us at a nearby Thai restaurant, and it was amazing. 

 
Sunday was the West Hollywood Book Fair. I slept in and took my time getting there because I was certain my table slot was at 2pm. Well, I was wrong. After stopping by The Iliad, which is one of the coolest bookstores ever, I headed to the book fair and found out I was supposed to be there at noon to sign with P.S. Gifford.

It was great to see and talk to Brad C. Hodson again.
I'd had more pictures of The Iliad that were really fantastic shots, but they got deleted when my brand new phone died. I'll have to take another trip out there soon for more great pictures and time with friends.

The HWA L.A. Chapter is all kinds of awesome. They always have something going on, are so welcome, friendly, and helpful. Makes me wish I lived just a little bit closer. But what's a four hour drive to be with great friends. It goes by in a flash when I think of the time spent with people I truly enjoy.