New Release: Grave Markings 20th Anniversary Edition

This Halloween marks two decades since my Bram Stoker Award-winning first novel, Grave Markings, was published by Dell/Abyss Books. The story dramatizes a tattoo artist's descent into madness, and the subsequent "artistic" killing spree that results. I was fortunate that ten years ago, it was reprinted in a fancy leatherbound and collectible hardcover run by Delirium Books -- but only the most die-hard collectors could afford to acquire the tenth anniversary edition and that great book is now rare and long out of print. This year, happily, the novel has been resurrected by Raw Dog Screaming Press in a special…

The Goreletter 9.4 Mailed

Happy Halloween Season! The Goreletter Vol. 9, #4 was delivered to mailing list subscribers on 10/20/14 @ 10:00am est. It contains extra entertainment/material not available here on the weblog version, including breaking news about the re-publication of my first novel, Grave Markings, an extended Dictionscary entry musing over names for different lobes of the brain, and a list of funny hashtag games on twitter. A version of the image above was also included in the newsletter -- if you like it, you can download a large size of it from my flickr gallery. FYI: The newsletter erroneously was delivered with…

Halloween Readings at SfPoetry.com

My new spoken word rendition of "Katzen Clavier" -- with bass and drum accompaniment -- just went live on the Science Fiction Poetry Association's "Halloween Readings" page. Curated by special guest Stephanie Wytovich, there are lots of fun readings on the site this year, including work by Marge Simon, Sara Tantlinger, Symantha Reagor, Maria Alexander and many more. Give them all a listen and get in the mood for the season of the witch! p.s. You can find other audio streams here on gorelets.com, via the "audio" tag. Or check out my cd, Audiovile, available on iTunes, CD Baby, or…

Storytelling and Other Fall Events

All sorts of readings and book signings are in the works for both the Halloween season and the year to come! First up is a return to Riley's Pour House (215 East Main Street, Carnegie, PA 15106) -- a great Irish pub with excellent food and a great spirit (in every sense of the word) -- for a Storytelling night hosted by Pittsburgh horror writer, Lawrence C. Connolly. This event -- slated for Sept. 30th at 8pm -- promises to be a hoot, with a special focus on flash fiction stories, featuring myself, Stephanie Wytovich, Sheldon Higdon, Albert Wendland and…

[caption id="attachment_7245" align="aligncenter" width="612"]Originally posted on Notegraphy Originally posted on Notegraphy[/caption] The message above was my overwrought response to a question posed on the Science Fiction Poetry Association's mailing list, that asked: "Is horror a genre or an attribute of literature?" It's heavy-handed, but that's kind of why I like it, so I turned it into a notegraphy post. [I've been using Notegraphy with students in my flash fiction writing course this summer. Here's my profile and I think you can see (though you may have to be a member first) some of my students work here ] Postscript, 7/31: Thanks to Diane Severson Mori for referencing this post in her recent review of Chad Hensley's latest poetry book at Amazing Stories.

The Nature of Horror: Horror is a Church…