Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas,

Happy Hanukkah,

Kool Kwanzaa,

Fabulous Festivus,

and a Happy New Year!

pant pant pant!!

--Misty (Tom and Wilma, too -- but mostly Misty)

Writer's Quote:

"Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living."  

---Gustave Flaubert

The Dog from L.I.G.H.T.N.I.N.G.

Ellen Datlow recently gave my story "Lightning Rod" an honorable mention in her The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, 21st Annual Collection, 2008. I've collected Ellen's TYBF&H series for several years now, always looking forward to reading the stories in these hefty volumes, and scanning her short list of honorable mentions to see what I missed during the previous year. I can't describe how thrilled I am to find my name on this year's list. Ellen Datlow is one of the most respected editors working in the field, and it means a lot to me that "Lightning Rod" got a "thumbs-up."

But what a long road the story has traveled: it was written in the dead of Winter, January 2004, as a remembrance of my dog Windy, who was hit by a car a few months before; accepted for All Hallows September 2005; and finally appeared in issue #43 in the Fall of 2007.

Finally, "Lightning Rod" is being reprinted in another "best of" collection, this one being

Horror: The Best of the Year, 2008, edited by the incomparable Stefan Dziemianowicz and published by Prime Books. Although the book has been delayed, I'm still looking forward to seeing Windy live again in its pages. As you can see by the photos, she occupied a special place in my home.

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And still she occupies a special place in my heart.

Writer's Quote:

"There's a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises, and you might not even be able to uncompromise yourself. If you write for life, you'll work hard; you'll do what is honest, not what pays."

--Toni Morrison

We really poured our Dead Souls into these stories!

Heh! Feast your spider-bitten eyes on the distinguished list of authors (and stories) appearing in Dead Souls, the new horror anthology edited by Mark Deniz and due out March 2009 from Morrigan Books:

Elizabeth Barrette - Goldenthread
Ramsey Campbell - The Dead Must Die
Stephanie Campisi - The Ringing Sound of Death on the Water Tank
Michael Colangelo - Poseidon’s Claw
Brendan Connell - Black Tiger
Tom English - Dry Places
Paul Finch - June
Catherine J. Gardner - When the Cloak Falls
Ken Goldman - Mercy Hathaway is a Witch
Robert Holt - In the Name
Robert Hood - Sandcrawlers
Sharon Irwin - Begin with Water
Carole Johnstone - The Blind Man
Christopher Johnstone - The Unbedreamed
Lisa Kessler - Immortal Beloved
Lisa Kessler - Subito, Piano
Rebecca Lloyd - Contaminator
Anna M. Lowther - The Price of Peace
Gary McMahon - A Shade of Yellow
Bernie Mojzes - The Collector
T. A. Moore - Genus Loci
Reece Notley - Tatsu
James R. Stratton - Your Duty to your Lord
Michael Stone - The Migrant
Simon Strantzas - More to Learn
Ben Thomas - The Pagans
Bill Ward - When they Come to Murder Me
Kaaron Warren - The Blue Stream
Ron Yungul - The Lords of Chickamauga

And yes, that second name on the list is THE Ramsey Campbell. It doesn't get much better than this!

Writer's Quote:
"The chief glory of every people arises from its authors."

--Dr. Samuel Johnson

Be on the lookout for Dead Souls

My story "Dry Places" will be appearing in the new horror anthology Dead Souls, due March 2009 from Morrigan Books.

Get a load of the creepy cover! (Spiders have always creeped me out!)

As I announced back in June, "Dry Places" was chosen for a project tentatively called Blood & Snow. Since then, the book has morphed into the terrifying anthology Dead Souls :

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

--Genesis 1:2

Darkness was first, before God brought the light, yet the light could not cover all, for shadows remain. They grow and fester and infect.

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Dead Souls contains tales that explore the darker side of the soul, those that could not escape the shadows that followed them and even those that embraced them....

(from an early blurb from Morrigan Books)

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What really excites me about this new anthology is its roster of talented writers, including my pals Simon Strantzas and Gary McMahon, both of whom I worked with in Bound for Evil. Definitely two guys to watch. (See my previous post, below.)

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Writer's Quote:

"More people have talent than discipline. That’s why discipline pays better.” --Mike Price

Three Books, Free Books

Three books to read in September:

Beneath the Surface by Simon Strantzas

Strantzas is breaking out from the pack and headed for big things. He recently appeared in Steven Jones' Best New Horror 19 (2008).

How to Make Monsters by Gary McMahon

Lately, this guy has been eating everybody's lunch. He appears in Steven Jones' Best New Horror 19, as well as in Ellen Datlow's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, 2008.

Want a chance to win a FREE copy of the $80 limited edition Bound for Evil? Simply buy a copy of Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster by Mark McLaughlin and Michael McCarty. To be eligible you need to buy the book directly from the publisher (SkullVines Press) and then you're automatically entered in a contest to win some nice horror-related books (including BfE, close to 800 pages of horror, fantasy and SF by some of the best writers in the field).

Writer's Quote:

"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous."

--Peter Benchley (author of Jaws)