Posted inGorelets: Unpleasant Poems

Fortune Cookie: A Parable

The waiter brought us our check on a little silver tray, bowing while politely setting it beside my plate. Atop the scribbled paper were two fortune cookies, wrapped in wax paper, which suggested they were homemade. "Oooh," Paul said from across the table, reaching out. I playfully slapped his hand away. "I already told you, Paul. Dinner's on me." He kept his hand wavering in the air. "That doesn't mean you get all the cookies." He went for the tray again. I moved it out of his reach -- which was fairly easy because he was sloshed on pear wine.…
July 25, 2011Posted inGorelets: Unpleasant Poems3 Comments
Posted inData+Errata

My Brother’s Publishing Venture, Writerly Done — now open for beta testers

My brother, Daniel Arnzen is launching an "assisted publishing" service where publishing creatives share and offer services. It's called Writely Done that has just officially gone into beta testing! He's seeking writers, editors, illustrators and others involved in publishing who are looking for business. Visit: http://writelydone.com/news for the beta code and sign up information.
July 8, 2011Posted inData+Errata
Posted inInstigation

Dark Promptings: Murder Ballads from Jason Jack Miller

"Dark Promptings" is a special series of guest-written creative writing prompts, aimed at sparking the imagination's gasoline for writers from any genre...but with a dark or devious discoloration, just like the Instigation department at Gorelets.com. The guest contributors are folks who wrote articles appearing in my fat new non-fiction book for fiction writers of all kinds, Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction, making a stop here at gorelets.com as part of their Virtual Book Tour across the web. (You can find my own VBT essays elsewhere). Writers and creative people: drop on by our book's meaty weblog…
May 29, 2011Posted inInstigation8 Comments
Posted inArnzen News Weblog Exclusive

“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…
May 13, 2011Posted inArnzen News, Weblog Exclusive5 Comments
Posted inArnzen News

Preorder: MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT

Readers of this blog who have the writing bug might want to hop on over to Amazon.com and put in an order for my latest book (co-edited with Heidi Ruby Miller), called Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction. Modeled after the graduate program where I teach -- the MFA in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University -- Many Genres is a thick hardcover collection of over sixty essays by prominent writers who look under the hood of both the craft of writing for a genre audience and the business of penning novels in today's publishing world.…
April 4, 2011Posted inArnzen News4 Comments