WICKED HAUNTED From The New England Horror Writers

We’re very proud to announce the newest anthology of short stories from the New England Horror Writers, WICKED HAUNTED, has been officially released this weekend! Edited by Scott Goudsward, Daniel G Keohane and David Price, featuring fiction and poetry from:

Matt Bechtel, Tom Deady, GD Dearborn, Barry Lee Dejasu, Peter Dudar, Remy Flagg, Dan Foley, doungjai gam, Emma J. Gibbon, Larissa Glasser, Patricia Gomes, Curtis M. Lawson, Bracken MacLeod, Nick Manzolillo, Paul McMahon, Paul R. McNamee, James A. Moore, Renee Mulharee, Rob Smales, Morgan Sylvia, Dan Szczesny,Kenneth Vaughan and Trisha J. Wooldridge.

Interior artwork by Ogmios, Judi Calhoun and Kali Moulton.

Cover art by Mikio Murakami

You can find the link below, and note the Kindle edition is on sale this week for only 2.99 (almost half price). This has been selling like hotcakes and is positioning itself to be as successful an anthology as last year’s WICKED WITCHES. It will officially debut this coming weekend at Salem, MA, where the NEHW will have a table. Check it out here:

https://smile.amazon.com/Wicked-Haunted-Anthology-England-Writers-ebook/dp/B076H7TCB1/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508721149&sr=8-1&keywords=wicked+haunted

Review for KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (2017)

My review of the hilarious and very entertaining spyfest KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (2017) is now showing at Cinema Knife Fight. Check it out, and see if you agree, here.

"A Life Unremembered" Now Available In New Anthology

So I am way behind posting this (was stalling, waiting for them to publish the kindle version, but it looks like it's not going to be here for a while - print only for now)

There is no greater horror in the world than watching a loved one battle cancer ... especially if that loved one is a child. But we are not powerless against this disease, and some of the world’s finest purveyors of nightmares have come together to fight a monster far scarier than anything they could ever dream up. Necon E-Books is honored to present

NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP, 

an anthology of horror bedtime stories from which 100% of all proceeds will be donated to 

The Jimmy Fund.

Edited by P.D. Cacek and Laura J. Hickman and featuring cover artwork by Cortney Skinner, this anthology contains contributions from the incredible roster listed in the Table of Contents, all of whom have donated their work in support of this essential cause. Available exclusively on Amazon.com in trade paperbacks and digital editions, please join us in this fight by purchasing your copy today. And in the words of our friends and partners at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, “Thank you for helping us conquer cancer.”

Table of Contents: 

Foreword by Christopher Golden 

Mother and Daughter by Jack Ketchum

Messages by Errick A. Nunnally

Sleepless by Mark Steensland

The Vacant Lot by Thomas Tessier

blood, cold like ice by Doungjai Gam 

A Life Unremembered by G. Daniel Gunn

Wired by Elizabeth Massie 

Blue Stars by Tony Tremblay

Happy Now Mother? by John Buja 

Nina by John M. McIlveen

Housing the Hollygobs by Marianne Halbert

Inertia Creeps by Charles Colyott

Leave Here Alive by Bracken MacLeod

Sleep Well by Angi Shearstone

The Fine Art of Madness by Gary Frank 

The Beach by Cara M. Colyott

Angel Tears by Jill Bauman

Darkness on the Edge of Town by James A. Moore

Would You, Could You, In the Dark? by Craig Wolf

Wishing Won’t by Richard Dansky

The Phobia Where You’re Afraid of Words by Paul McMahon

Nightly Rituals by William Carl

White Wings by Mark Morris

The Other Side by Paul McNally

Truth or Dare? by Bev Vincent

Unexpected Attraction by Matthew Matt Costello

The Ritual Remains by Jonathan Lees

The End of All Stories by Trevor Firetog

Duality by Brian Keene

The Lake Children by Izzy Lee

The Circus Under the Bed by T.J. Wooldridge 

1-2-3 Red Light by Gregory L. Norris 

The Old Men Know by Charles L. Grant 

The Oldest Fear by Shikar Dixit

Afterword by Matt Bechtel

Cover art by Cortney Skinner

The Wondrous Cave of the Towne Grocery

Growing up, there's often a place we categorize in our minds as a special, maybe even magical place. A gateway or portal into some other world, a repository for new ideas, a place that stays with us and defines who we come to be later in large or small ways. All of this sounds a bit heavy, but the idea is there.

This place can be as simple as bookshelves in your parent's room, a barn where you find those temporary moments of quiet and introspection, the corner of a silent library, or, in my case, the Towne Grocery. A ten minute walk up my road, along Cambridge Street, we could cross the busy road to a little strip mall (an act made much safer when they finally put in a light). The second store in the chain was the Towne Grocery convenience store (the first being, among others, the Hobby Shoppe, a topic for another time). Shelves of candy, magazines and basic staples of Western life like soap and paper towels and tape and batteries....

Amazing how these little stores manage in such a small space to have at least one of whatever you need. They're the lifeblood of small towns. I live in one now, twenty minutes from the nearest supermarket, so having the Kwik Stop down the road makes running out of sugar less of a hassle, even if it costs a touch more.

In the seventies, growing up in the then-small(ish) town of Burlington (it's not small anymore), it was the Towne Grocery, even with the A&P (later Value King) supermarket just a thousand yards down the road. Now and then Mom or Dad would bring us into the small haven of necessary staples and let us pick out something... usually candy.  I'd wander there myself in later years with my allowance money and get a substantial bit more of said candy.

Here's the thing. The Kwik Stop in my current town is efficiently organized, with lots of open space for such a small building. The TG, as we called, was packed with shelves and supplies from floor to ceiling, dirty windows displaying signs and posters long curled from a sun which never quite made it beyond the heavy dinging bell above the door. When I was old enough to walk there on my own (we're talking eight years old, an age now that we'd never dare let kids wander off on their own, so sketchy has the world become), I'd be drawn further along the dusty rows of stuff towards the back where there was a chaotic jumble of old magazines and supplies-less-often-in-demand. There was some light back there, not much, but enough to browse.

Now, to be honest, I'd heard rumors there were dirty magazines hidden back there, and as a prepubescent boy, I had to explore, look for the mystical treasure. During my first such venture to this hidden world out back I learned this was a wild goose chase. Even so, in looking through the stacks of old magazines, mostly without covers, I discovered something unexpected amid the old hot rod and good housekeeping corpses: horror trade magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland and the like. I don't remember the actual titles, though pretty sure FMoF was one of them.

Now, being a preteen/teen who enjoyed the ritual of watching Creature Double Feature on channel 56 every Saturday afternoon, with such fare as Godzilla or The Wolfman, this was a revelation. Mom had a few magazine subscriptions at home, the usual domestic fare, but nothing like this. hee was proof that the movies I enjoyed were being written about and discussed by grown-ups!!!

Many times I'd wander back, grab a copy or two (I remember they were pretty cheap, a dime or quarter each). Eventually I moved on to comics, but the seeds of fascination with all things monstrous and scary had been watered in those days.

Now and then, in rare moments on the road, I walk into a small convenience store and rediscover the dusty, packed air of my old haunt (pun intended). I'll wander about, seeing what treasures I might find. As time went on, the old Towne Grocery was no more. The owner of the strip decided to do major renovations, and somehow conveniently the TG caught fire and was gutted. The strip of stores was knocked down and rebuilt. The Town Grocery (no longer sporting the old fashioned "e" at the end of "Town") returned, but as the last store on the strip and without the overcrowded wonderfulness of its predecessor. As a convenient place for a quick lottery ticket or soda, it still thrives (especially since the neighboring Value King supermarket is now a used bookstore), but for me, the TG of old remains in my memory as the place where I could lift the veil and peak into a dark - but not dangerous - corner of the adult world. As I said, it might have contributed in some way into my little fascination with the darker side of entertainment. 

Relish your little hometown havens, knowing some day they may be gone, but never in our memories.

The current Town Grocery (no e) 

Review of TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017)

My alter ego's (well, technically I'm the alter ego) review of the newly-released TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017) is now showing at Cinema Knife Fight. Heck, even the review was a bit chaotic, trying to cover as much as possible. Because one thing I can say, there's a lot of stuff happening in this one. Not all bad, mind you, but.... anyway, see what I have to say here. Don't usually pan many films, but this one, as I say early, was a train wreck. Not all bad, but... see what I have to say and if you agree.

If you'd like to see all my film reviews and discussions, you can find them here!

Daniel G Keohane Interview in Local Author Spotlight

Hilary Umbreit of the Sharon Public Library recently interviewed Daniel G Keohane (my "good" half) as part of their monthly Local Author Spotlight. It was a lot of fun and I don't think I did too badly with this one. I enjoyed the back and forth with Hilary and the final interview can be found here:

http://www.sharonpubliclibrary.org/localauthorspotlight.asp

"A Life Unremembered" Coming this Summer

My new short story, "A Life Unremembered" has been accepted for publication in NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP, a charity anthology benefiting the Jimmy Fund from Necon E-Books, and edited by Laura Hickman and P.D. Cacek - being released this July at the Necon writers conference. The call had gone out at the end of last year to all past and present Necon attendees, and after mulling over the theme this story formed, written specifically for this collection (and at least if it hadn't been accepted, the theme wasn't so specific it couldn't have found a home somewhere, such is a risk of themed antho's). So I'm thrilled to be a part of this, and will post the complete table of contents when it's announced.

Catching up on things

Well, I thought I'd have done more blog entries since the last one, but the holidays were a pretty busy time, to say the least. One oasis in all this was our trip to Florida the week of Christmas. Nothing pressing on the docket while we were there other than where to go the next day. A lot to be said for taking these formal vacations. 

So on the writing front, been busy. I recently got the rights back to my first novel (under Daniel G Keohane) Solomon's Grave, and will be releasing it officially as a second edition. I just finished going through the entire book and tightened it up a bit. First novels sometimes feel like, well, first novels, especially in light of later works.

Samhain Publishing recently discontinued their horror line, and have been formally reverting rights back to the authors. Lauran and I are currently deciding the future of our novella Nightmare in Greasepaint, whether to place it with another publisher or put it out ourselves to keep it in the market as a backlist.

Unfortunately, in the light the reversions, like the trade paperback for Borderlands 6 might likely also be going away soon as well. Will

have to keep an ear to the ground on that one. Buy it now while you can.

 

Meanwhile, forward motion is the name of the game. I've begun the fifth-draft edits for the new novel Lost in the Woods, this time editing on a physical printout of the manuscript. I have to say, this one has come out really good. I'm enjoying it. And I think you will too. When, is another question, as I'll first shop it around to publishers which can take months, at the very least. Such is the nature of professional writing. But the book, the writing, is my main focus. Keep on swimming, keep on swimming...