Posted inAmbulations

Snapshots of StokerCon 2016

StokerCon 2016 was the inaugural convention sponsored by the Horror Writers Association, highlighting the genre with panel discussions, readings, writing workshops, booksignings and presentations... culminating in the Bram Stoker Award banquet, awarding the genre's top practitioners with the coolest trophy in the world. It was a blast. Lots of great writers were up for and won the trophy, including some of my closest friends in the business from Raw Dog Screaming Press and Seton Hill U's MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. My workshop on "Making the Reader Squirm" went very well, engendering plenty of squirmy moments and good writing by…
May 18, 2016Posted inAmbulations2 Comments
Posted inAmbulations

Snapshots from the 2016 World Horror Con

Just back from a "Provo-cative" weekend in Provo, Utah, where I attended the 2016 World Horror Convention as a special guest. It was a very intimate con, mistimed in the grand scheme of genre events this year (i.e., the first StokerCon is in Vegas next weekend -- I'm going to that too), but having a smaller event led to tighter bonds as we all got to know each other better as professionals and people. They kept me VERY busy (I was on three-to-five programming events per day), so I didn't take as many photos as usual, but I did manage…
May 3, 2016Posted inAmbulations1 Comment
Posted inAmbulations

At the Lindemann ‘Skills in Pills’ Exhibit in Dresden

My wife and I snuck away to Germany early in July to visit with family and old friends, and during our stay, we took a side trip to the former east to spend a few days in the city of Dresden. It's a fantastic city, brimming with festive nightlife partying in the streets of the "neustadt" and overwhelming with architectural beauty and the high life of the "oldstadt." In the midst of it all, I had an unplanned encounter with Till Lindemann. Till is not only the lead singer of the uber-metal group Rammstein, but also the author of On…
July 20, 2015Posted inAmbulations
Posted inAmbulations

Photos from World Horror Con 2015

I am so glad that I attended the 25th World Horror Convention & 2015 Bram Stoker Awards Banquet in Atlanta, GA, this past weekend. I think I was laughing the whole time, giddy with the good times and gore. It was great to reunite with so many old friends (I actually attended the very first WHC, 25 years ago!), and as usual, made several new buddies, too. There were something like sixteen Seton Hill MFA program students, alums or faculty colleagues in attendance, a barrel of Raw Dog Screaming Press associates, and hundreds of gibbering weirdos, which meant I always…
May 12, 2015Posted inAmbulations
Posted inAmbulations

Scenes from the Bizarro Halloween Party / Grave Markings Launch

Last night, Raw Dog Screaming Press threw a great Bizarro Halloween night and launch party for Grave Markings 20th Anniversary Edition at the Terrault Contemporary gallery in Baltimore, MD. As you'll see in the photos below, advanced copies of the novel were available, and the night featured a series of fiction readings, emceed by bizarro author John Edward Lawson. The tattoo artist responsible for the great tat on the cover of the book, Ethan Fuhrer, was on hand, along with Nathan Rosen, designer of the covers for GM and Play Dead. The highlight of the night was hearing creepy stories…
October 26, 2014Posted inAmbulations