“Beyond Undead”: A New Short-Short Graphic Novel
Posted inArnzen News Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems

“Beyond Undead”: A New Short-Short Graphic Novel

Happy October! My longtime friend Eric Hoffman and I have a Halloween surprise for you... a graphic fiction adaptation of my short-short story, "Beyond Undead"! Eric Hoffman ingeniously reframes the tale, intensifying the emotional elements of the piece with expressive line art. Check this free comic out at pancyfancer.com and be sure to browse around and see what else Hoffman has been up to lately. Eric, my old Army buddy, has performed comedy in Chicago and LA, starred in a few indie hits, and has written for several popular shows, from the film Girlfriend's Day with Bob Odenkirk to skits…
October 1, 2023Posted inArnzen News, Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems
Posted inArnzen News Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems

Joltober 2018

I often intermittently post dark poetry and sick "very short stories" (sometimes called #vss) on social media, but to celebrate Halloween season this year, I've decided to post a new "jolt" each day to my twitter account throughout October 2018. Since my friends at Raw Dog Screaming Press helped instigate me, I thought it would be fitting to call it "Joltober" in tribute to 100 Jolts, which they published originally 14 years ago! Keep your eyes on this for a new horror story posted daily throughout this October ⚡️ “#Joltober: A Horror Story a Day for October (2018)”https://t.co/J3R4IpjcXr— Michael Arnzen…
October 3, 2018Posted inArnzen News, Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems
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
Posted inGorelets: Unpleasant Poems

The Gobbling

THE GOBBLING It was a normal Thanksgiving meal like any other, until I heard the gobbling from the kitchen, where my mother was checking on a pie. The sound refused to cease. One by one my family members stood up from the table and went to investigate while the rest of us ate with bemused expressions on our faces and gravy on a few of our chins. Gobble-gobble-gobble. I presumed that high pitched chortling was just some goofy turkey day sound effect, like the phony screams that plastic door knockers make on Halloween. But when only my brother and I…
November 24, 2016Posted inGorelets: Unpleasant Poems
Posted inGorelets: Unpleasant Poems

Zombifurcation

At the Nightsun writing conference in Frostburg, MD, last weekend, I had the privilege of performing a reading of fiction and poetry. Here's an audio clip from the event, along with the text for one of the pieces I read -- the Seussian horror poem, "Zombifurcation" -- which appears in the latest issue of The Goreletter. ZOMBIFURCATION A zombie crawled right, a zombie crawled left -- both shared the singular body I'd cleft. I'd chopped down his chest, and cut off his scream -- but still he came at me, splitting his seam. He pulled himself toward me in reanimation:…
July 30, 2015Posted inGorelets: Unpleasant Poems