NightWriter

My story “The Green Menace” will appear in the anthology Classics Mutilated, edited by Jeff Conner, forthcoming from IDW in October. The collection includes a new novella by Joe Lansdale, as well as new stories by Tom Piccirilli, Rick Hautala and Nancy Collins, among others. The idea for the anthology was to mash up real people or characters from history/culture with a monstrous horror situation. For “The Green Menace” I chose to write about Senator Joseph McCarthy at the nadir of his sorry career. I’m not sure how many people even know who he was now, but McCarthyism is unfortunately alive and well today. I mashed Joe up with a pretty tacky horror movie idea from the early 1970s, and it was fun to write. Click on the cover for a better view.

Bob Booth is launching Necon E-Books next month with Rick Hautala’s WINTER WAKE and Les Daniels’ THE BLACK CASTLE, followed in September by my novel PHANTOM and Alan Ryan’s THE KILL, as part of the new Necon Classic Horror series. I’m excited to be a part of this, and other novels of mine will be forthcoming from Necon E-Books in future months.

http://www.neconebooks.com/

June 27, his birthday, happily noted. He is one of my favorite authors, a master who took the golden age of the British ghost story into completely new territory, transforming what was previously “understood” in words like ghostly, weird and strange. He wrote about 50 stories, and for some of us they’re a kind of gold standard. If you haven’t yet read his work, treat yourself and try a few.

And if you have already read Aickman and are an admirer of his work, please check out Philip Challinor’s various writings on Aickman. Philip understands Aickman’s fiction better than anyone I know. His most recent work, Akin to Poetry: Observations on Some Strange Tales of Robert Aickman, has just been published by Gothic Press. Go for it.

For anyone interested in good new horror fiction, I strongly recommend the work of three friends whose stories, in very different ways, are out on the edge, challenging, powerful and very well-written. They’re flying under the radar — for now.

Sam W. Anderson’s first collection of short stories, Postcards From Purgatory, is available now from Sideshow Press. Erik Williams’ novella, Blood Spring, comes from Bad Moon Books. You can order both of these books from www.horror-mall.com. Erik’s chapbook, “The Reverend’s Powder,” will also be published by Bad Moon later this year.

Kurt Dinan — do yourself a favor and just go look for this name. Kurt’s stories have appeared online and in magazines, and he has a novel in progress. Near-term, look for “With These Hands” in Darkness on the Edge: Tales Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen (PS Publishing), “Into the After” from Horror Library IV, and “Nub Hut” in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Dark Horror 2010 from Prime Books, all forthcoming later this year.

These three writers are very good, and should all be on your watch list.

I love his work, it’s impossible not to watch him, even in bad movies — and in the good ones he was brilliant. Personal favorites: Rebel Without A Cause, Giant, Blue Velvet, Red Rock West. Interesting footnote — Hopper had a long friendship with Vincent Price; they both were serious art collectors.

Dennis Hopper

In production, the Cemetery Dance hardcover.

watch?v=2B435SzgfRk

The current issue of the British magazine SFX includes a piece by the English writer Conrad Williams about my novel Finishing Touches. The text isn’t posted online, at least not yet, but if you see SFX in a good magazine rack, check it out. Here’s the link to Conrad’s site, which spotlights the issue.

http://www.conradwilliams.net/2010/02/sfx.html

The cover is from the original British paperback edition, which features a rather suspect tongue. Be sure to look into Conrad’s own novels and short stories — he is an original.

When I first read The Catcher in the Rye in my first year in high school, it was the perfect novel, the book I needed to read more than anything else at that time in my life. The nuns at Sacred Heart High School told us Not To Read It, the perfect invitation. I loved the short stories, and the novellas that followed before he went silent.

I don’t know if his death will reveal 40 years of novels and stories stashed in a safe that will astonish us, or disappoint, or if the vault is full of drivel, or nothing at all. I revere him, not only for his brilliant prose, but for his abhorrence of the culture of fame and celebrity that prevails and continues to rule. And if these last four decades have left nothing — so what? A body of great work remains, for us all.

Edgar Allan Poe, 201 today!