Blog Blah Blues and News

Blog Blah Blues and News
House hunting, house selling, writing, cleaning and staying up WAY too late made blogging today a seemingly insurmountable task, BUT fear not, my friends, I shall not fail in my Sunday pleasure of visiting with you. With my schedule, our time together is far too short already.

So, on my big ALMOST insurmountable blogging desk is some good news for readers and writers alike. Two new dark fiction/news mags are getting ready to launch.

First in the line-up is Cryptopedia Magazine, launching September 30th.

From their website:
From the folks who brought you The Cryptopedia: A Dictionary of the Weird, Strange & Downright Bizarre (Citadel Books, August 2007) comes a new online magazine of horror fiction, fact, art, comics, news, interviews, reviews and more.

Heading up this fine new mag, is Stoker Award-winning author, Jonathan Maberry, and Executive Editor, David F. Kramer. With this energetic duo, Cryptopedia should be a winner. For the writers, start your engines because the submission period has opened. For the readers, stay tuned for CM's official launch announcement in September.






Next on the new dark fiction hit parade is Noctem Aeternus (Eternal Night). My friend and Bordelines Press Novel Boot Camp buddy, publisher, Michael Knost, will be launching the mysterious and beautiful NA in January 2008.

From the NA newsletter:
The horror genre sometimes gets a bad reputation for being the shock jocks of the literary field,” Editor Michael Knost said. “You can find plenty of blood and guts, but sometimes there is no story among the gore. Noctem Aeternus will be a quality fiction magazine, focusing on the story and its characters.

The first issue will include a short story (and interview) from master storyteller, Ramsey Campbell. Ramsey Campbell is perhaps the world’s most honored author of horror fiction. He has won four World Fantasy Awards, ten British Fantasy Awards, three Bram Stoker Awards, and the Horror Writer’s Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Michael will be offering news and updates at the Noctem Aeternus website and in the NA newsletter. Sign-up now for the newsletter and receive the PDF magazine FREE when it launches in January. Submission for Noctem Aeternus open June 1st.

So there you have it kids, a little fiction news for your calendar, and another blog for the archives. So writers, get writing and readers sign-up for the newsletters and bookmark those websites. Lots of fiction goodies on the horizon.

Now it's time for my much needed siesta. See ya' next week...and I'll try my best to be better rested. Hey, wish me luck with the house hunting. I've got a date with my Realtor in the morning. Looking for that place on the beach...and gawd, do I ever need a place on the beach right now. *snores*

Wickedly Yours,
Fran Friel

Grapevine Horror News

Grapevine News

Today I thought I'd just share little bits of news that have been flowing through the Horror grapevine. Something for everyone, readers, writers and the general horror fan alike. And why am I doing this? Just because I felt like it. I hope you feel like it, too.

So, let's have at it. First on the hit parade, something...

For the Readers

Books from Yummsville
So for you, dear readers, we have a couple of new releases (or almost released) that I, personally, have been waiting impatiently for. Both are book 2 in their respective series.

Borderkind, Book 2 of the Veil,
by Christopher Golden

From Shocklines:
"For centuries they lived amongst us. The frightful and wondrous, the angelic and bloodthirsty. Living in a reality just beyond the Veil, humanity's myths and legends are caught in a struggle for their very survival -- against hunters far more powerful than they are..."

"Christopher Golden's storytelling is spellbinding." -- Boston Magazine

The Myth Hunters, Book 1 of the Veil was one of my favorite reads of the year. If you like a delicious mix of fantasy, horror and mythology, I suspect you'll love this series. Shall we say, Gaimanesque.

Dawn
by Tim Lebbon

From Shocklines:
"In this follow-up to "Dusk," award-winning author Tim Lebbon takes fantasy to new heights in his thrilling new epic...Noreela teeters on the brink of destruction, but at its center pulses a magic grown stronger than ever before. Now the Mages have raised an army of terrifying warriors and unstoppable war machines. Their goal: the annihilation of all Noreela through a reign of bloodshed and death unlike any ever imagined..."

"A riveting work of staggering imagination." — F. Paul Wilson

Mr. Wilson is so right! I felt the same way about book 1, Dusk. Blew my mind and I couldn't wait for book 2. It was a long wait, but that sweet thing should be arriving in my mailbox any day now. Woohoo!

Zineriffic
How about some fine FREE reading? Ready for the taking, Issue 7 of Dark Recesses Press.



Download the FREE PDF version:
HERE at Dark Recesses Press

Fiction, including work from Daniel Braum, Joel Arnold, John Peters and others. Edmund Schubert, editor of the Intergalactic Medicine Show, interviews the fabulous Stephen Mark Rainey...and more. Fine full-color artwork, as always.

For the Fans

Pod People
Pod of Horror is still gracing the podways with the fabulous talents of Mark Justice and company. Episode #37 offers tons of wickedness including interviews with the very talented James Newman and Steven Savile, talking about life, horror and their latest books.




Download Pod of Horror Episode #37 at Horror World - FREE!

Chit Chat
Then be sure to check the chat schedule at The Lost and the Damned for your favorite authors. Chat live online with some of the horror industry's best writers, artist and publishers.

Click Here to check for the chat schedule and to sign-up for reminders.

Visit The Lost and the Damned message board HERE.

For Writers

Storytellers
Many of you know of the wonders to be found at the Storytellers Unplugged blog, but if you're a writer and you haven't been there or you have visited in a while, go now...really, right now!

What is Storytellers Unplugged?

In their own words:
"We're a group of thirty authors, editors, booksellers, and publishing professionals who want to share our love of writing and "behind the scenes" tips with readers who are also interested in the magic of writing. Each day of the month a different columnist will contribute a post - some will be serious, some will be funny, but all will be informative. Join us daily!"

And we're talking some of the best in the business, like Elizabeth Massie, John Skipp, Brian Hodge, Deborah Leblanc and the long list of talent goes on. So much writing and publishing wisdom to be had there, it's mind boggling.

Justice?
On to an issue for you to consider. No matter whether guilty or innocent, everyone deserves a fair and timely trial. Have a read at Paula Guran's, Dark Echo blog - The Man the Horror Community Has Forgotten.

HFNN
From blog interests we move to the news, Horror Fiction News Network. Paul Puglisi has created a fantastic horror news portal with enough info and reading to keep you busy until the end of time. He's just done a complete overhaul of the site and it looks fabulous and is full of wonderful horror goodness, including the new fiction journal, Horror Literature Quarterly. The first issue includes fiction from some of my favorite writers, Kealan Patrick Burke and Nate Southard.

Facelift
And finally, the Horror Writers Association website has undergone a makeover, and boy does she look fine. Bravo to Christopher Fullbright and his website magic minions!

Oh, Yeah...
I almost forgot that I wanted to tell you about the SF writers' con, Context 20. Yeah, I know I said this was a horror blog, but besides the fact that I love sci-fi, this "little" writer's con in Ohio just keeps getting better and better. Workshops include wonderful instructors like, Michael Arnzen, Gary Braunbeck, Tim Powers, Tobias Buckell, Tim Waggoner and many others.

Check out CONTEXT 20, September 28-30, 2007 in Columbus, Ohio

For updates, visit Lucy Snyder at the Context LiveJournal.

Okay, so I yammered on and on, but I hope you found something that interested you. My blogging time is more limited these days so it all just came barfing out on the page at once. I hope you didn't mind the mess. *wink*

Wickedly Yours,
Fran Friel

FEARLESS LIKE LINDSEY!

Buckingham's Palace
I wasn't going to post again until after the WHC, but just had to. Last night, I saw THE best concert of my life. Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac) did a solo concert with his amazing band at a great venue here in Connecticut, The Ridgefield Playhouse. He freakin' ROCKED THE HOUSE. It was a transcendent performance and he tore the hell out of the guitar (several of them!) all night long.

He played for at least two hours full-out without a break, with multiple show-stopping monster tunes. Most musicians would have needed a nap after just one of those killers. Connecticut audiences tend to me a relatively reserved crowd, but by the end of the night, everyone was on their feet losing their minds.

Real Love
I had tears streaming down my cheeks damn near the whole night. Mind you, I'm a new Buckingham fan. It wasn't nostalgia for me, it was the sheer force of his passion and love for what he was doing. This love (and I can't think of a better word to describe it) blasted off the stage into the audience like waves of ecstasy. It became one of those magic feedback loops from the performer to the audience and back to the performer. Amazing. I was a musician for a large part of my life and I've seen a lot of virtuoso performances, but I've seldom felt like I was witnessing something divine and transformative. I did last night.

I know this all sounds like a big old gush, but the truth is, I left the concert with a renewed commitment and love for my own work. I stood there in the audience trying to soak up ever bit of Lindsey's gift to us so I could remember it when I'm writing...so I could pour that same passion into my words. He is a man of superior talent and skill, there are quite a few of those people in the world, but what sets him apart is that he is FEARLESS to express his passion, his essence. Superior talent and skill is a long way off for me, but at least I can be fearless...fearless like Lindsey.

If you get a chance to see this modern master of guitar and rock, run, do not walk! I suspect he'll ignite your life like he did for all of us at his concert here in Connecticut last night.

Wickedly (and Fearlessly) Yours,
Fran Friel

PS - You can check-out Lindsey's tour schedule HERE.

Note: Fabulous photos are attributed to Bob Israel (1st and 3rd pics) and Justin Bailey (2nd pic).

Chatting with the Wickedest Wizards of OZ

There's No Emerald City Here, Dorothy!
That's right! Dorothy and Toto thought the Wicked Witch of the West was scary, but she never met the dudes and dudettes from OZ HorrorScope, The Australian Dark Fiction Web Log. Managing Editor, Shane Jiraiya Cummings and his band of Editors and Reviewers bring a daily dose of the dark stuff from the land of OZ and around the world.

Just last week, HorrorScope and Brimestone Press announced that they have teamed-up with the Australian Horror Writers Association, not only making HorrorScope the #1 site for all things horror related in Australia, but they are now the official news source for the AHWA. Congratulations to the great HorrorScope team!

If I Only Had a Brain
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with HorrorScopes's, Andrew John, a very talented writer, musician and filmmaker from Australia. He kindly invited me to dive into the dark waters of my first online interview. AJ was a very generous and gentle guide, and you can see our conversation here:

AD John's HorrorScope Interview with Fran Friel

Being interviewed was a little scary (You know how I like that!), and I yacked on WAY too much, but I had a blast doing it. I hope you enjoy it, too!

I'm off to the World Horror Convention and the HWA Stoker Awards this week. I'll take lots of pictures and report back to you on Fran Friel's Wicked Adventure: Invading Toronto. Sound good, eh?

Hope to see you in Canada, if not...in two weeks, Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!

Wickedly Yours,
Fran Friel

DRP, Deja Vu, Fresh Meat and Rainey? Fran Friel

DARK RECESSES PRESS, Issue 6
It's FREE and full of wicked goodness - Dark Recesses Press Issue 6! Click Here to Get Your Free PDF Copy. Note: The download box says Issue 5, but I assure you it's No. 6, the real deal. The DRP web goddess will fix the error soon.

From the publisher of Dark Recesses Press:

Issue 6 contains eight delightfully devilish tales from all corners of the horror world, including works from Matthew Warner and Sara Joan Berniker.

There is a review of Stephen King's LISEY'S STORY, an article on What Makes A Bad Horror Character, and Edmund Schubert, editor of the InterGalactic Medicine Show dares you to prove him wrong in his assessment of The Best Vampire Novels Ever. Period.

In this issue, we also unveil the 3rd Deja Vu Horror Contest $500 Winner. A big congratulations goes out to Charles Colyott for taking top spot in this hard fought competition.

So if you haven't yet, what are you waiting for? Go ahead, click the link - you won't be sorry.

Bailey

Only a few more weeks before this free issue will be history, so be sure to download it now. And start writing those new Deja Vu contest entries. Five hundred bucks for a few ghosts?? I wish I could enter!

Fresh Meat and Rainey
When you're done visiting the Dark Recesses of your mind, click on over to The Horror Library for some Fresh Meat fiction and a fine interview WITH and BY two of my favorite people, Deathrealm Revisited: An Interview With Stephen Mark Rainey, by Edmund Schubert, editor of Orson Scott Card's, InterGalactic Medicine Show.

So, that should keep you busy reading for a little while. Plus, it's all free! I love free, don't you? *grinz* Well, deadlines are looming long-shadowed at the moment, so I've got to get back to work, but I'll see you all around the brew cooler soon. Have a great week!

Wickedly Yours,
Fran Friel

Weirdsville #2 - Trekkin' and Zombie Fever

Weirdsville Continues
If you'll recall from our first installment of Weirdsville, I was "tagged" by my pal, author Jack Kincaid. This tagging thing requires posting a list of 10 weird things about yourself, but rather than one long list, I thought I would milk this baby for all it's worth and do my list one post at a time.

O Captain! My Captain!
I left you a Weirdsville #2 clue (the Spock pic above) last time. I'm sure you guessed it. I'm a Trekkie, but I'm happy to say that I'm not hard core enough to even know if I'm spelling Trekkie correctly and I resisted the urge to spell-check it out of principle. But the truth is, I AM A TREKKIE. I don't know which influence came first, 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Trek, but when I was a child, I was obsessed with the whole idea of living in a future world, so Star Trek became the escape from my bland earthbound reality.

As a kid, I had a little ritual for quite some time. I would rush home from school, plop down in front of the TV to watch Star Trek, while faithfully practicing my Vulcan hand greeting. During commercials, I'd focus on another obsession, shuffling a deck of cards in the two-pile fanning technique called the Riffle Shuffle (amazing what the razzing of older brothers will do to create an obsessive need for perfection in all things).

OCD and Spock Rocks!
Thinking back on that time in my life, I realize now just how OCD I was about a lot of things. I must have listened to the Twelve Days of Christmas a hundred times in a row to learn the lyrics flawlessly (again, avoiding sibling ridicule was always a motivational factor). Same thing with Maresy Dotes. I nagged a neighbor kid to teach the song to me and I was perplexed when after the twentieth time or so, she suddenly felt the need to go home. Gawd, I was weird...but I was cute, so I guess it evened out a little.

Anyway, back to Star Trek. For me, it was all about Spock (see YouTube for the REAL Spock). I had such a crush on him...again, very weird to have a crush on some dude with pointed ears that had no discernable emotions (but I knew they were in there). And speaking of crush, I was summarily crushed when the series ended! How could they?? And later when the first Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out, I actually teared up during the opening credits, listening to the whole "Space, the final frontier" thing. Oh, such a geek.

Then The Next Generation came along. I was dubious. No one could take the place of my Captain Kirk and Mister Spock, but I was so hungry for more Star Trek, I watched anyway. Before long, Picard hooked me. Then the whole Borg thing happened. OMG - Locutus!

Where's the Horror?
So with all this love of Science Fiction, I've wondered where my horror chops have come from. Besides an unauthorized viewing of Hitchcock's, Psycho (I pretended to be asleep while my parents were watching...yeah, I was too sly for my own good...that one scarred me), I didn't get to see much horror. But I think back to my Star Trek days and dang, there was tons of horror. Monsters, ghosts, planet eating cornucopias, pox, contagious madness, and alien creatures galore - you name it and the crew of the Enterprise encountered it. Remember the Star Trek pilot with the dudes with the veiny swollen cerebrum? Freaked me out!

Zombie Goodness
Anyway, geek that I am, I could ramble on about this subject forever, so I'll stop myself before your eyes start bleeding, and I'll switch gears for a quick public service announcement about Zombies. I haven't been much of a zombie story reader, until recently when I had the pleasure of reading Joe McKinney's, DEAD CITY. Then I had one of those little synchronicity moments where I met, Kim Paffenroth, nominated for a Stoker award this year for his excellent non-fiction book, GOSPEL OF THE LIVING DEAD: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth. Turns out Kim lives in my old stomping grounds in the Hudson Valley, and he's written another fine book, this time a novel, DYING TO LIVE. I've just read the first chapter, and I'm looking forward to the book's release in March, so I can devour the rest. *chuckles* Sorry, I couldn't help myself...devour...zombie.

You can have a juicy taste of the first chapter for yourself, FREE! Click Here to find the PDF link for DYING TO LIVE. I suspect, like me, you'll really enjoy this morsel of zombie goodness.

Okay, I've yacked on much longer than I had planned, but I hope you've enjoyed the walk down Weirdsville Lane with me. I always love having you along on a good stroll, which bring me to #3 for next time.

Wickedly Yours,
Fran Friel