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…

“Scary Things”: An Address to the Class of 2011

[Here's a video of the speech cited below, posted by my friend, photographer/designer Bruce Siskawicz] "Scary Things" Professor of the Year Acceptance Speech by Michael A. Arnzen Seton Hill University Honor's Convocation Friday, May 13, 2011 President Boyle, Provost Gawelek, distinguished members of the stage, cherished faculty colleagues, dear staff, close friends and -- most importantly -- future alumnae of Seton Hill University…I thank you all for this dubious honor. I also want to thank two other major figures in my life, without whom I would not be here today: first, my wife, Renate, who chose to move from Germany…

Food Folks and Fun with Zombies at the Morgantown Poets

The Morgantown Poets society has posted video excerpts from my Halloween season poetry reading in Morgantown, West Virginia last month.  It was a goofy gory night of the bizarre, which I titled "Food, Folks and Fun with Zombies." I read three courses of horror:  a batch of gory "food" poems from a variety of sources (including crazy twitter poems and pieces from The Goreletter e-edition), a "folksy" ghost story (from the just-released collection, Legends of the Mountain State IV -- not appearing on the vid), and then I ended with a "fun" batch of zombie poems from my book, Rigormarole. …

Attack of the Bleu Man Group – Exclusive Halloween Audio Story

ATTACK OF THE BLEU MAN GROUP by Michael A. Arnzen (3.33 mins) [audio:Michael%20A.%20Arnzen_Gorelets.com_1_Bleu%20Man%20Group.mp3] DOWNLOAD .mp3 (3.4 mb) Happy Halloween! For a surprise treat this year, I am releasing a new humorous zombie story, exclusively in audio format, called "Attack of the Bleu Man Group." It's a wacky musical number, as much as a bizarro fiction reading, in the style of Audiovile. Without giving too much away, I'll just say two things about it: 1) yes, I meant to spell it "bleu," and, 2) "zombie mimes in black berets"!  Just crank up your speakers and press the red play button above.…