Instigation Parody at the Stoker Award Banquet

At the recent Bram Stoker Awards ceremony in New York, the banquet's emcee, author Jeff Strand, plotted the following little skit which we delivered to everyone's surprise, shortly before he introduced the presenters of the award for Outstanding Achievement in Long Fiction. I was honored to be a part of the joke in this parody of the goreletter's Instigation column, which features "twisted prompts for sicko writers." Here's the script from our skit. Although I wrote the prompts below, the idea was all Jeff's and he did a fantastic job all night long. Be sure to drop by his website…

Highlights from the HWA Stoker Award Weekend (June 2011)

I had a great time in New York last weekend, participating in the 2011 Stoker Weekend put on by the Horror Writers Association. The "Stoker Weekend" is an annual professional writer's conference that centers around the Bram Stoker Award ceremony, featuring business/professional meetings, public book signings, panel discussions for the national writer's organization, the Horror Writers Association. I took lots of photos this time around, to try to capture the spirit of the event. Here are some of the highlights from my trip to Long Island: + Was greeted by many old friends and new readers at the massive autograph…

2009 Stoker Award Winning Books

The 2009 Bram Stoker Award winners were announced by the Horror Writer's Association at World Horror Convention in Brighton, England, last weekend. I read almost all of these titles and I can vouch that they are superlative reads. (In fact, I lauded Lucy Snyder's poetry-winning book here in The Goreletter). See the HWA's announcement for a complete list...congratulations to all the winners! I contributed work to two of the books (though the editors, not me, rightfully get the awards!). These are pretty amazing books to be a part of, so I want to celebrate them here (and share some breaking…

“Bizarro Day” Bookstore Event Follow-Up

Had a fabulous time last weekend at Backlist Books in Massillon, Ohio -- a great new indie bookstore that does a knock-out job supporting not only speculative genre fiction (horror, science fiction and fantasy literature), but also the independent press.  It's good to see a place like this in the Midwest region of the country.  They carry any number of books that I have only heretofore seen available online (especially when it comes to 'bizarro' fiction), lots of genre magazines, classic titles of science fiction and fantasy... They had LOTS of collectibles and rarities. I even spotted a quirky line…

Horrorfind Moments

Last weekend, I attended HorrorFind Weekend 2008 held in the Mariott at the University of Maryland in Adelphi, along with my wife Renate and my friend from graduate school, Bill Hamilton. Though the new space thinned out the herd a bit too much for my taste, it was a decent convention with a great dealer's room and I had a generally good time hanging out with some old friends while making many new ones. My wife and I also took a break and drove into Baltimore to visit Poe's grave and one of the locations for the Homicide TV show…