“Dear Santa”: The Lost 1989 Manuscript

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Against my better judgment, for a gift I give you this Christmas story -- "Dear Santa" -- a long lost manuscript of the very first horror story I ever sold (to GAS magazine in 1989), but which ultimately never saw print. On the one hand, this is old and amateur enough to be most embarrassing. On the other hand, I think I've made a career of embarrassing myself. Enjoy? "Dear Santa" - a lost 1989 manuscript by Michael Arnzen (If you cannot read the above, see if you can click on the "view fullscreen" link at the top…

Talk About Writing

A few bits of "writer"-related news to note: I'll be returning as a guest lecturer at the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop next Summer (applications for early admission due Jan 30th!). The kind folks at Odyssey just interviewed me for their blog, too, where I talk about how I persisted in the early years of my career, and where I share some advice for writers of genre fiction. [I'll also be returning to teach at the Alpha Workshops for Young SF/F/H Writers next summer, as well!] A shorter interview is attached to a brief 5-Star Review of my short story "Spring…

Not Dead Yet: The Listmaniacal Archive

I've gathered all the books I've reviewed in The Goreletter (since 2002) into some fun listmania lists over at amazon.com, and I'll keep adding titles to them from the "Not Dead Yet" department into the future. I've also been having way too much fun trolling around amazon for weird discoveries, and I have compiled a few other funky lists, like the Goofy Gory Gifts Galore list and other novelty lists. I'm apparently a listmaniac. After many years of neglect, I have updated my author profile on amazon.com, where you can find more weirdness and links to many of my books…

How to Read Your Free Ebook From The Goreletter

If you got your free ebook for subscribing to the Goreletter, but don't know how to read it, did you know that Amazon.com recently released a free Kindle reader for the PC? (New versions for other platforms are coming soon, too). Here's how: simply download and install Kindle Reader for PC...and then double click on the file for your ebook from inside of Windows. Voila! It's easy. Then go back to amazon's kindle shop and download any of the INNUMERABLE other free ebooks they've got. (This is so popular, that all their "bestsellers" today are freebies). Or buy some of…

Kindle2 Opens the Ebook Watershed: The Time Has Come

It's time to go ebook, if you haven't already. Today amazon.com releases their next generation Kindle2 ebook reading device, which is now able to pull information out of the (cell phone) wireless networks internationally...and you don't have to subscribe to a cell phone service to do so.  This means that the medium has gone totally global; you can read an ebook anywhere -- and update/sync/buy anywhere, too.  So what? This means that publishers everywhere will now see a new way to reach millions of readers, so they're all going to push these electronic formats (if they haven't already). Readers like…