Benefit for Tabby

Take a look at the picture on the left.  For those who have never met her, that's Tabby, my wife.  We've been married for nineteen years, and through everything, she's been my best friend, my partner in crime, and my world.

By now, everyone knows.  We kept it quiet for a while, but there's really no point now.  Tabby was diagnosed with advanced stage cancer back in April, and it's particularly aggressive.  Since April, she's been enduring chemotherapy, losing weight and her hair, and fighting with everything she's got.  Tabby has made a life out of beating the odds, and she's still fighting these.  She's very weak and can't actually work.  As her husband, I've been sitting beside her, watching her go through this horrendous nightmare, and wracking my brain to try to figure out what I can do to help.

 I figured that the only thing I can do is write, and since I'm not the type to beg for help, I spoke to Owen, the publisher who put out my short story collection, Droplets, and he agreed to donate all the proceeds from DROPLETS to help pay for Tabby's medical care.  This is huge, not only because I feel like I'm helping, but also because it keeps Tabby from feeling like a charity case.  Your "donation" gets you a copy of the book.  The truth is, the medical bills are piling up, so we figured this is the best solution.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Buy a copy of DROPLETS.  That's it.  One copy.  Owen at CLB Publications has agreed to take no profit from the book, and forward it all for paying Tabby's medical bills.  Pretty generous.  If you're inclined to help out, we'd be forever grateful.  If you already own a copy, Owen will be forwarding the proceeds of that one to me as well.  If you already own one, write a review on Amazon.  Reviews sell books.  Like I said, we're not asking for handouts.  If you want to buy a copy, please do by following this link.  If you don't, we understand.  Either way, keep Tabby in your thoughts.

We can't handle a bunch of phone calls, but e-mails are always appreciated.  Facebook messages are always appreciated for her.  Post your well-wishings on her wall.  I can't promise we'll be able to answer all of them, but I promise she'll read them all.  Tabby means everything in the world to me.  If you've met her, you know what I mean.  Everyone who has ever met her loves her.  If you haven't met her, and have met me, you know what she means to me.   Thank you for your consideration.  

Retreat! RETREAT!!!

Writing is, as I've said before, largely a solitary process.  At the end of the day, it is the writer, alone, in front of his keyboard, typing until his fingers cramp and eyes bleed.  Those who are not like us don't understand, can never understand, why it is that we shun the light or the company of our fellow humans.  But (and believe me, I am loathe to admit this), we do occasionally need human contact.  We do need the validation and camaraderie that comes with being amongst those of our kind, to step out of the "normal world" and into the crossfire of absurdity that only occurs when a room full of creative people are together with the goal of pushing each other to greatness.  And thus was born the concept of the "writer's retreat."

This past week, it was my honor to teach at Seton Hill University as an adjunct professor in their MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program.  I've been doing it for a while, and I always enjoy it, but this time was one of those times I particularly enjoyed because every June, the alumni of the program come together for the In Your Write Mind retreat.  Guest speakers in the industry, pitch sessions, workshops, all that is fine and dandy, and what the retreat is about.  But there is another thing that cannot be overstated in importance:  The participants themselves.  I admit, I'm a bit biased because many of the writers at the retreat are former students of mine, and I consider them no longer students, but colleagues and dear friends.  But the very presence, the interaction, is something all writers need.  In a way, it's validation.  We learn from each other, feed off each others' creative vibe, pick each others' brains, toss around ideas and recharge ourselves from the year's burnout of going through the daily grind.  It's one part support system, one part dysfunctional family.

I go to writing workshops all the time, and I have yet to find one that is as tight-knit as the In Your Write Mind retreat.

And while we're on the subject, I'd like to mention the root of the retreat, the WPF program itself.  You want to be a writer?  You want to write horror, or sci-fi, or romance, or YA, or any of a dozen other "genres" at which the literary community scoff?  Did you think you'd never get an MFA because your tastes run darker than those of the bearded academics who feel that authors like Barker and Lovecraft have no place in the learned world?  Guess what.  Seton Hill has the WPF program that awards an MFA on graduates, and there are two notable differences between this program and every other MFA that I've seen.  First off, students are not handed theory by people who have degrees but have never published, or who have published, but only in an academic or literary environment.  The teachers in the Seton Hill program are WORKING WRITERS.  I should know.  I am one.  Students are taught how to build a novel from the ground up in the genre of their choice by people who actually do that.  They're also paired with one of these writers so as to get real mentoring from one of them.  Go back and read that line again.  Do you realize what a wonderful opportunity that is?  Go look if you don't believe me.  Second, the goal of the program, the "thesis" if you will, is to complete a market-ready manuscript.  To date, five of my former "mentees" have sold their theses to publishers.  And I can't even count the number of novels that come from the program.

So here's my challenge to you:  If you want to be a writer, write your little shriveled heart out all year long, but make time to be around your fellow crazies.  Step into that crossfire of absurdity once in a while where the ideas fly and people actually want you to succeed.  You never know who you will meet.  This past weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Knost, whose book Writers Workshop of Horror I frequently assign to students.  The man is a bundle of laughs and good will.  I met agents, publishers, and, most importantly, other authors.  I met up with my old friends and we laugh about what a hardass I was to them.  It was a week needed, and I feel reborn.

If you don't believe in magic, go to a writers retreat and watch the sparks fly.  Watch the creative muse dance around our heads, and see the creations that come out of our collaborations.  Watch what happens when a group of writers get into a single room together and are left to their own devices.  And you will believe in magic.

CONTEST!!! READ THIS!

Psst...Hey...Wanna win signed copies of some of my books?  You can!  Really! I'm giving away signed books (and maybe a few surprises) to one lucky grand prize winner and two runner ups.

• GRAND PRIZE WINNER (1) - Will receive signed copies of Deadlands (my zombie novel), City of Demons (the first horror-noir novel I attempted), and PAGES:  Book Two of the Stanley Cooper Chronicles (which is book two...nevermind).  You will also receive a custom-made metal bookmark, hand-made by Tabby (my wife) over at Monsters Under Glass!
• RUNNERS-UP (2) - Two runners-up will each receive copies of Deadlands and City of Demons, plus a custom-made metal bookmark, courtesy of Monsters Under Glass.

So how do you win, you ask?  Easy.  

1. Follow me on TWITTER (@horrorscott).  If you already follow me, you're good!
2. Retweet the contest on TWITTER using this phrase:  "I want to win free books from @horrorscott and http://www.americanhorrorwriter.net"
3. Send me pictures of you in your Halloween costume.  

That's it.  Scary, sexy, cute, demented...I don't care.  Send me pictures of how YOU celebrate my favorite holiday!  Winning photos will be announced and displayed, so make sure it's a good (IN FOCUS) picture.  

Deadline for picture submissions is NOVEMBER FIRST.  Hard deadline there.  

Pictures can be sent to me at the special e-mail address I've set up just for this purpose:  

contest@americanhorrorwriter.net

Once the contest is over, that account goes bye-bye.  

Here are the official rules:  You win if I like yours the best.  Totally subjective, totally up to me...Just me looking at folks celebrating Halloween.  All entries must be in costume of some sort.  Racy costumes are welcome, but may be censored when I post them.  All photos may be posted online.  I reserve the right to disqualify anyone for any reason, but it's unlikely I'd do something like that.  That's it.  Get started!  I want to see the pictures! 

Two Bits of Shameless Self Promotion

My new book, VERMIN:  Book One of the Stanley Cooper Chronicles, just hit Amazon, and I hope lots and lots of people buy it.  Stanley Cooper is an average guy, short, dumpy, with bad hair.  But an industrial accident left him dead for seven minutes.  When paramedics revived him, he discovered he had the ability to see dead people.  And not just ghosts, but the living energy that surrounds all things.  A telephone call from a panicked stranger sets events in motion that puts Stanley in the middle of a bizarre string of robberies and murders in Pittsburgh, and it's up to him, his best friend Maggie (who is a witch) and a skeptical cop named Taylor to find out what's going on and how to stop it before it's too late.  


Order it HERE!

Here are a couple of excerpts:

     It takes a lot of guts to come forward when something weird or frightening happens to a person. Most people feel like no one will believe them, or that people will blame them and laugh behind their backs. And most people are right. It leaves people with a sense of hopelessness, that there is nowhere left to turn. When people begin to feel that way, those dark forces win. I don‟t mean that metaphorically, I mean it literally. They win a victory, a conquest over a soul when a person loses hope. Someone experiencing what Shannon claimed to experience has to be at wit‟s end to come and find someone like me. Most of the time, they dummy up and don‟t tell anyone. When it first happened to me, and I thought I was losing my mind, sure, I mentioned it to a few people: a shrink here and there, a few friends, a bartender or two… My friends stopped hanging around with me, the bartenders cut me off, and the shrinks told me I was suffering from some sort of post-traumatic-stress-syndrome brought on by my “passing.” 

     They never say “death,” always “passing.” “Passing” sounds so much nicer, less final than “death.” “Passing” sounds like something a person might do walking between two rooms. It doesn‟t sound like what happens when a piece of safety equipment fails due to production cutbacks, dropping a person thirty feet onto the back of their head. It doesn‟t bring to mind waking up on a gurney with a sheet over one‟s head and a paper tag on a persons toe. That‟s not “passing,” that‟s “death” with a capital “D.” 

     Good things came out of it, though. I developed a new respect for people I might have thought were crazy before. I also quit drinking and smoking. I‟ve heard of so many people who‟ve had near-death-experiences who came away with the “live for the now” attitude and saying things like “I‟ve been dead, so nothing scares me.” 

     Frankly, the thought of dying and not coming back scares the ever-loving Hell out of me. People talk about seeing the long corridor with light at the end or seeing dead relatives. When I died, I saw nothing. I saw darkness. I didn‟t even get to float up above my own body or relive my life in fast forward. Just black. Just cold. 

And

     People say they don‟t believe in magic or ghosts. They call people like me and Maggie delusional or say that we‟re living in a fantasy world. Magic isn‟t real, they say, and there‟s no such thing as ghosts. They go along their happy daily routines, safe and secure in the knowledge that the unexplainable or things that go bump in the night aren‟t real. These same people are the ones who avoid shops like Maggie‟s, who watch me as if I might do something spooky, and are the first ones to scream and run if so much as an odd noise is heard in the old dark and creepy house. They say they don‟t believe, but it‟s a lie. The trouble is they do believe, but they don‟t take the time to try to understand. They believe, but they‟ll never admit it to each other because that would let the possibility in that there are things in the world that don‟t fit in with their neat little model of what life is supposed to be. In the light of day, it‟s easy to say there are no such things as ghosts, or possession, or haunted houses. In the dead of night, tucked in bed, hiding beneath the blankets while the sounds of footsteps cross the floor and the sounds of breathing come from under the bed, everyone believes. 

And Now, More Shameless Self Promotion

Okay, so it's not really self-promotion per se, but it is something I hope lots of folks check out.  My darling and talented wife, Tabatha, just opened up her own online store to sell jewelry, objects d'art, and other stuff that she hand-makes herself.  Seriously, look at Lurch over there and tell me that's not cool.  He's already sold, but there are lots of other zombie heads, necklaces (I have a "Hand of Glory" that I refuse to take off), earrings, book marks, and other stuff.  Oh, and where is her store?  Just go to Monsters Under Glass and help support artists like Tabby and myself.  I can't tell you how wonderful I think her artwork is.  So jump over there already!

Book Reviews A-Go-Go!

It's no secret that, in addition to all the other goofy stuff I'm into, I do book reviews for Dread Central. So I thought I'd throw out a few reviews of books that I did, and let the blog-o-verse know what I thought about them as well. So, without further adeu...

• Flesh by Richard Laymon
• Level 26: Dark Origins by Anthony Zuiker
• Bestial by Ray Garton
• The Bone Factory by Nate Kenyon
• Zombie Bukake by Joe Knetter
• Far Dark Fields by Gary Braunbeck
• The Shore by Robert Dunbar
• Sacrifice by John Everson
• Urban Gothic by Brian Keene
• Dead Tide by Stephen A. North
• Death Mask by Graham Masterton
• Unabridged, Unabashed, and Undead by Eric S. Brown
• The Golem by Edward Lee
• Zombology edited by Rebecca E. May

Those are just a few that I've reviewed this year. My intent here is to show what works in fiction, and to inspire folks to write their own masterpieces. More to come!

City of Demons

City of Demons is my newest novel, released in July from Library of the Living Dead press. It also is kind of an experiment, in that it's the bloodiest thing I've written, and I wanted to try to write something in the "noir" genre made famous by Dashell Hammett and Mickey Spillane. It's about a cop who tracked down a serial killer that almost killed him, but left him with a curious and terrible ability: If he touches a person, living or dead, he experiences the last few moments of that person's life. Sights, smells, tastes, everything. Imagine reliving the last few moments of a victim of a brutal killing, and you'll see why this is such a problem.

While working on this, I passed a copy off to my friend, fellow author Gary Braunbeck (if you haven't read his work, you're really missing out), and he wrote an introduction for the book for me. This is what he had to say:

The Divine Madness of Absolute Clarity:

An Introduction by Gary A. Braunbeck

I’m not going to tell you a damned thing about this novel you’re holding in your hands right now; I’m not going to tell you how Scott Johnson creates an atmosphere of almost unbearable tension that starts with the very first paragraph and never lets up; I’m not going to tell you about the emotional layers he uses in creating the all-too-real human beings who populate these pages, nor am I going to go on at length about how the shifting dynamics of the characters’ relationships ring so true that often-times you’re going to feel like you’re voyeuristically eavesdropping on the most private and intimate moments of someone else’s life; I will avoid discussing how Scott Johnson understands the difference between genuine tragedy and the merely tragic – something that all too few horror writers seem to grasp (or care about) in this age of the Rampant Zombie Boogie – which, with the exceptions of a small handful of writers’ work, cannot end quickly enough for me; I’m not even going to get into the beautifully-orchestrated set-pieces that, combined with the excellent characterizations and the authenticity of fear that lies at the core of the story, propel City of Demons to a level of near-operatic grandeur in the final third; I won’t discuss his menacingly poetic narrative voice, nor how his dialogue is as crackling and literate as anything penned by Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, or Charles Beaumont; and rest assured that I will not waste your time or mine by describing the jaw-dropping, epic, and beautifully grotesque imagery that reads like Johnson has taken Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights and transposed it to modern-day Houston, Texas; I’m not going to discuss any of that. Instead, I want to tell you a little bit about Scott Johnson himself.

Picture, if you will, a demented leprechaun. Add about sixteen inches of height, a sharply-trimmed goatee, and give it a voice that falls somewhere between Richard Burton and Tommy Lee Jones, and … you might have some idea of what to expect if you ever meet him in person. Yes, he’s a bit on the small side, but so is a vial of nitro.

You can feel his energy for his work, and when he discusses his love of the craft, you cannot help but listen.

And then there are his eyes. Go on-line and look at his author’s photo on his website, or photos taken of his readings at any convention, and you’ll note immediately that there is a barely-contained creative insanity lurking In There. This is a man who does not see the same world the rest of us do. I do not mean he sees the world differently than us – he sees a completely different world, and that mad sparkle in his eyes tells you that Scott Johnson is warped in the best of all possible ways – the embodiment of what Oscar Wilde called, “… the divine madness of absolute clarity.”

Scott Johnson’s clarity of vision is absolute. I have had the pleasure of seeing him evolve from a damned good writer into one who displays the range and control of the truly gifted. There are several sequences in City of Demons (especially its bravura finale) that very easily could have tipped over into the absurdly over-done, piling grotesquerie on top grotesquerie for the sake of shocking or grossing out the reader, but like a good actor who knows that the quality of a performance is best measured by the control which he or she orchestrates in peeling back the onion layers of a character’s psyche, a good horror writer knows that terror, heartbreak, and revulsion are their most effective and affecting when the reader is given just enough of a glimpse of the horror to know they don’t need or want to see anymore; a telling detail, a small line of blood trickling across the floor from behind a closed door, a terrible sound from somewhere behind … it can more than enough when the writer knows when and how to exercise control, and – just as importantly – when the writer trusts in the intelligence and imagination of his or her readers.

Scott Johnson trusts his readers, he respects their intelligence, and knows they are sharp enough to fill in the blanks for themselves, thus making their reading of his work all that more a personal and intimate experience – because, let’s face it, take away any and all blurbs, words of praise, the bells and whistles of word of mouth, Internet publicity, great cover art, all of it, and it boils down to this: terror is arguably the most intimate of individual human emotions, and to provoke that reaction with mere words on a page requires that the writer and reader both agree to step into that dark alley together. The writer knows what’s back there, but you don’t, and as a reader you accept that, trusting that the writer does indeed know what lies back in those shadows between the dank brick walls. And he does – just look at his eyes. He sees what you can’t, but also knows that half the joy in this process is making the reader believe that he’s in the dark as just as they are.

That’s where the control factor really kicks in. There are many writers who are so impatient to get to the punchline of a sequence, so determined to get to “Z” that they forget to go from “A” to “B” and so on. Not Scott Johnson. This is a writer who, here, is in complete command of the English language and in total control over his story. Scott loves horror, and that comes through. He knows that story is king, and he its humble messenger.

A good writer also knows when he’s worn out his welcome, so allow me to make a quick and (hopefully) graceful exit with this last thought:

What you hold in your hands is, in my opinion, an almost perfect horror novel; and the only reason I qualify it with the “almost” is because Johnson hasn’t written his next one yet.

So climb into the cruiser with the nightcrawlers and hold your breath as the real nightlife of Houston, Texas comes out to play.

Gary A. Braunbeck

Lost in Ohio

June 4, 2009