Posted inArnzen News

Exploring Dark Short Fiction Series #1: Steve Rasnic Tem

Dark Moon Books, newly acquired and resurrected by Eric J. Guignard, has just released the first in a series of primers and tributes to significant horror writers working in the short fiction genre, called Exploring Dark Short Fiction. I am the current academic consultant, contributing analytical commentaries on every story and a longer essay on the significance of the writer's work. The first book is devoted to the great Steve Rasnic Tem, collecting six of his shorts (one new): "Hungry," "The Last Moments Before Bed," "In These Final Days of Sales," "Rat Catcher," "The Giveaway" and a creepy new original…
July 21, 2017Posted inArnzen News
Posted inArnzen News

The Year’s Best Hardcore Horror II

There sure are a lot of horror fiction anthologies out there, and often it's too overwhelming to know which ones will deliver the goods. That's one of the reasons why a "Year's Best" antho is always a safe bet. One to look for this year is the Year's Best Hardcore Horror Vol. 2, recently published by Comet Press. It's getting very good reviews, including a fantastic one from Publisher's Weekly, and it's doing well on the bestseller charts. A reprint of my series, "55 Ways I'd Prefer Not to Die," leads off the book, and there are a number of extreme,…
July 3, 2017Posted inArnzen News
Posted inAmbulations

Snapshots of StokerCon 2017

Although there are about 30 Bram Stoker Award banquets in the history books, this season's StokerCon 2017 was only the second time the Horror Writers Association has run a full-fledged convention, highlighting the genre with panel discussions, author readings, writing workshops, booksignings and varied presentations… culminating in the Award banquet, awarding the genre’s top practitioners with what I think remains the coolest trophy in the world: a creepy "house of usher" statuette.  And this year's conference, held aboard the famous ship moored in the docks of Long Beach, CA -- the Queen Mary -- was majestic and creepy as all…
May 1, 2017Posted inAmbulations2 Comments
Posted inArnzen News

Squirm and Squirm Again: Arnzen Course at Horror University – StokerCon 2017

I'll be returning to the HWA's StokerCon event (this year held on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA) on April 27-30th, 2017... to teach "Making Readers Squirm"! Visit the StokerCon website or see my upcoming event listings for further details. Registration is required; you can get a discount for signing up for multiple courses by luminary writers (like Jack Ketchum, Tim Wagonner, Jonathan Maberry, and many others) throughout the weekend. You can also apply for a "Scholarship from Hell" for a chance to get assistance to attend. Last year's event was the initial StokerCon and it was a riotous…
February 4, 2017Posted inArnzen News
Posted inGorelets: Unpleasant Poems

Five More Ways I’d Prefer Not to Die

This past fall, one of my favorite releases was 555 Vol. 2: This Head, These Limbs, put out by Carrion Blue 555. Every story in this book is 55 words a piece; every author in the book (myself, John Edward Lawson, Stephanie Wytovich, Jonathan Moon and several others) contributed 55 of them each. That might sound like meaningless literary gamesmanship, but the results are staggeringly strong. It's a pretty impressive volume, and deserves more attention. My contribution is a short story series called "55 Ways I'd Prefer Not to Die," which explores just that: worst case scenarios for "the end"…
December 24, 2016Posted inGorelets: Unpleasant Poems