FLASH CONTEST: It’s #Haikuween Night on Twitter

[Note: this contest has officially ended. See results at the bottom of this post.] Horror poet Stephanie Wytovich (author of Hysteria and Mourning Jewelry) and I will be live-tweeting horror haiku intermittently on twitter.com throughout Halloween night, from 7pm-11pm eastern. Anyone who retweets one of our poems tagged with #Haikuween (or who posts their own bloody #Haikuween tagged as such) will be entered into a random draw to win the infamous "Poedown" limited lettered CD (in a double-live case, coupled with the Arnzensongs CD). This is a very rare treasure, as only selected backers of the Fridge of the Damned…

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…

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…

Live from the “Poedown Throwdown” at DV8 11.10.2012

I had a wonderful time reading poetry alongside Stephanie Wytovich (who read a battery of amazing "psycho ward" poetry) at DV8 Espresso Cafe & Gallery in Downtown Greensburg, PA, this past weekend. It was standing room only, there were a lot of laughs, and weirdness was definitely in high abundance. Among other things, I got to share my current Mutterverse experiment, which featured a slideshow of strange images...until the power went out on the projector, that is. But I just continued reading in the darkness, which was perfect. Perhaps the highlight of the night was a "Poedown Throwdown" slam poetry…