The Roundtable of Terror

You can now listen to the *complete* roundtable conversation between Lawrence C. Connolly, Lucy A. Snyder, Gary A. Braunbeck and myself, recorded in late September 2008, called "The Business/Life of Writing Horror and Dark Fantasy". It's one of the best panels on the genre I've ever been a part of, in professional studio-quality audio. The discussion goes into very deep, and sometimes very funny, territory, really showing the complexity of the genre and where horror fiction is headed. Hosted by Doug Dangler at the Ohio State U Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing, you can download it from…

Happy Halloween 2008

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.  Here's some new audio goodies to celebrate this crazy annual affair we call Halloween. To start, here's a great link to the Halloween Poetry Readings that the Science Fiction Poetry Association has collected.  They've posted "Halloween Costumes I Wish I Would Have Seen" -- a clip from my reading event at Penn Highlands Community College (Johnstown, PA) earlier this week.  On the SFPA site, you get there are a handful of great poems there for you to trick or treat your ears with.  Update, 2009: It's no longer on the SFPA page, but you can listen to it here on…

Arnzen Podcast with “Writer’s Talk” — airing on WCBE (Ohio NPR) tonight

Halloween approacheth. Look for the "Writer's Talk" series on WCBE (Ohio's NPR station), which will be airing interviews with Michael Arnzen, Gary Braunbeck, Lucy Snyder, and Lawrence Connolly each Wednesday in October. The topic is "The Business & Life of Writing Horror" and all of us had a blast together answering questions about this crazy genre of dread and terror. The Arnzen session airs tonight on WCBE (10/8/08) at 8pm, and I think it turned out really well. If you miss it, don't worry:  you should be able to hear the podcast online, provided by Doug Dangler and the Ohio…

Horror is a Worldview: Arnzen Interview at Zombie Mall

Brian "Brains" Hardin asks me some deep questions about my audio cd, Audiovile, on the blog for his neat horror shop, the Zombie Mall. Here's an excerpt: Q: How do you cope with those people in your life that just don’t get it? Truth is, most people CAN be persuaded. First I try appeal to their reason: since horror is about fear, it is about humanity. If that doesn’t work, I try to educate them: many classic works of literature are horror stories. If that doesn’t work, I go for the gross-out joke. But there’s always going to be somebody…

Fear Zone on Audiovile

I really enjoyed reading Greg Lamberson's meaty review of my audiobook, Audiovile, which was published last night at the great new horror site, Fear Zone: "16 tracks of brain damaging terror. Stories like "Psycho Hunter," "Stabbing for Dummies," and "Six Short Films About Chauncey the Serial Killer" will have you alternately cackling and gasping. The brilliance of these tales -- amplified by Arnzen's pitch perfect delivery -- is that within the space of a couple of minutes, each one sets a grin on your face, then slaps it off, then kicks you in the groin and leaves you gasping (but…