13 Things You Didn’t Know About J.H. Moncrieff

We were both sworn to secrecy, but J.H. Moncrieff and I first met while we both had books at the same publisher. We belonged to a top secret support group. Yes. We all suffered from PTSD (Publishing Traumatic Stress Disorder) and needed the support of one another. Deep friendships were made, and we all looked out for each other. Except for one person. She vanished, although one of her woolen gloves was found just outside a Books A Million in Detroit with a half-chewed bit of hamburger and a few pennies.

From there, we hooked up this past year’s StokerCon on the Queen Mary,  partnering up for a well-attended joint reading. Of course, reading her work was most impressive. This is someone who won Harlequin’s Gillian Flynn award this past year, and her expertise in suspense is terrific. She’s launching a new batch of books The Ghostwriter Series, with the first two having just been released. Please do check them out.

It’s always fun to break out of the usual interview format, and I always love doing these ’13 things…’ posts. Here, J.H. does not disappoint, and there are some truly fun and interesting facts. So here’s . . .

1. I think The Sound of Silence is the most beautiful song ever written. It’s the song I want played at my funeral.
2. Even though I’ve wanted to be a novelist since I was five years old, I also desperately wanted to be a forensic psychologist. Sadly, I let a high school teacher talk me out of it. It’s still the road not taken.
3. If you see me shaking, it’s not because I’m nervous. I have an inherited condition called essential tremors. It usually doesn’t bother me, but in times of heightened emotion or fatigue, it can be really noticeable. It’s a pain whenever I have to do a reading, because people assume it’s nerves when I’m actually just pumped and excited.
4. The accomplishments I’m proudest of happened not through fiction but through journalism. Articles I wrote connected a blind man to a surgeon who restored his vision, and resulted in a grandmother keeping custody of her ailing granddaughter.
5. During childhood, I had a lot of accurate premonitions, to the point kids teased me about it. But I wasn’t above bullshitting—I once claimed X-ray eyes were how I knew what was in a teacher’s locked cabinet. (I didn’t have a clue what was in it, but since the cupboard was locked, my “knowledge” was never put to the test.)
6. After I started blogging about unsolved mysteries, the families of missing people began contacting me for help. This has made me feel both honored and sad, because I wish I could do more.
7. I have several bizarre phobias, including worms and going down escalators. I’ve mostly overcome the worm one in order to garden. I can go down an escalator, but it feels like I’m having a heart attack every time. It’s a great incentive to take the stairs.
8. My best friend came to visit me after she died.
9. Even though I’ve been to Shanghai twice, my general rule is I can’t visit a place more than once until I’ve seen every country on my bucket list. Five more trips to go!
10. In spite of my love of dark fiction, I’ve read way more literary novels than horror, and I’ve read much more non-fiction than fiction. I read about 80 full-length books a year.
11. I once inadvertently pissed off Kiefer Sutherland. I hated interviewing celebrities because it was difficult to get them off script. I always challenged myself to ask a question that would make them pause and think. With Sutherland, I asked him why he was often cast as the villain (this was before 24). For some reason, this got under his skin. He was quite snarky with me.
12. My first published fiction story ran in my hometown newspaper when I was in grade four. It featured a bunch of vampires devouring everyone.
13. I used to work in a haunted museum. I was showing some reporters around late at night when we heard (and felt) someone coming up behind us. No one was there. That’s about as frightened as I’ve ever been in my life.

J.H. Moncrieff’s work has been described by reviewers as early Gillian Flynn with a little Ray Bradbury and Stephen King thrown in for good measure.

She won Harlequin’s search for the next Gillian Flynn in 2016. Her first published novella, The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave, was featured in Samhain’s Childhood Fears collection and stayed on its horror bestsellers list for over a year. Monsters in Our Wake, a sea monster tale with a twist, was an Amazon horror bestseller.

The first two books in her new GhostWriters series, City of Ghosts and The Girl Who Talks to Ghosts, were released in May 2017.

When not writing, J.H. loves visiting the world’s most haunted places, advocating for animal rights, and summoning her inner ninja in muay thai class.

To get free ebooks and a new spooky story each week, check out her Hidden Library.

Connect with J.H.: Website | Twitter | Facebook

 

 

VOICES OF THE DEAD preview at Shades & Shadows

Last July, I was one of the featured readers at Los Angeles reading series Shades & Shadows. We had a full house, and it was wonderful to premier the first chapter of VOICES OF THE DEAD, the sequel to DUST OF THE DEAD. Many readers have asked me what happened after the events of DUST OF THE DEAD, and here’s the first taste.

While you’re there, I urge you to check out the other podcasts. The readings are short . . . around seven minutes each . . . so you can get a good taste of a new author without too much time. They’ve all been pretty damn good, if you ask me.

Podcast Episode 5!

 

13 Things You Didn’t Know About Stuart R. West

Stuart R. West’s novel Demon with a Comb-Over quickly won me over. At first, I believed I was in for a saucy romp. Soon, though, the story turned in some of the creepiest moments in a book I’ve read in recent memory. We learn that Charlie has accidentally singled out a man who he initially thinks is a good target during one of his stand-ups. Turns out it’s actually Kobal, who, naturally, turns his own sites on Charlie and his long-suffering daughter. It’s a brilliant twist.

Here’s the thing that makes it all work for me. Charlie is painfully real. His passion is standup comedy, but he is not so good at it. He perseveres, regardless. I think most of us can relate to that. We all want to be great at what we’re passionate about. When we’re not, and the world cruelly tunes us out, it can make most abandon ship. On the flipside, it can make a dedicated few work harder and try harder, hoping there’s some magic, missing quotient for them to discover. That’s where Demon with a Comb-Over feels like a classic tragedy, and succeeds. It’s also very funny, at turns. Having reached out to Stuart, I found him to be equally funny and charismatic as his book.

We also both have been crouched under the Samhain tent as the hurricane has hit. Our last books with the imprint didn’t get the push or attention as much as we’d hoped, so we thought we’d do what we could, and talk about them here. I do hope someone takes on Stuart. I mean, check out this bit about something that almost came out from Samhain:

Dread and Breakfast. Think “Psycho” but with a bunch of damaged, darkly amusing characters: a psychotic, religious married couple; a germophobic mobster; an embezzling wallflower accountant; a hitman who puts family first; an abusive husband; a charming but sociopathic cop; a woman on the run fighting for her young daughter’s life; and of course, Jim and Dolores Dandy, bread and breakfast owners and serial killers.

Welcome to the Dandy Drop Inn. A finer bed and breakfast can’t be found in the Midwest. Hospitality’s the name, murder’s the game. Kick your shoes off, warm up next to the cozy fireplace during the winter storm. Delight over the chocolate pecan pie, everyone’s family here. Don’t fret about the mounting bodies piling up. Try not to let the other strange guests get under your skin, it takes all kinds. And whatever you do, don’t go into the cellar. Business as usual at the ol’ Dandy Drop Inn. A wonderful getaway you won’t soon forget. You just might not survive the night.

I also thought it’d be fun as hell (get it?) to do something a little fun instead of a straight interview. So here’s …

13 Things You Never Knew About Stuart R. West!

*I was in an alternative/art performance band where I played a mentally unstable person (“Cousin Bo”). I wore pajamas on stage, swung around a saxophone and rarely played it. I also shaved my head on-stage with fake stage-blood which once caused the bar owner to call 911.

*I saw Dr. Joyce Brothers in lingerie! I worked at a PR firm. My job was to take photos. When my fellow gal worker went with me, she knocked on Dr. Brother’s door. The doc asked, “who is it?” She answered just for herself. The door opened. My eyes, my eyes!

*Back in the day, I was a world-class videotape trader. The best in the business. I accumulated 30,000 movies from across the world, mostly horror, a lot of them unsubbed and undubbed. Late last year, my “nest egg” went the way of a dumpster. Mold happens. One of the saddest days of my life. My wife and I spent two solid days carrying them out from the basement.

*As a school-skipping kid, I once shared a cigarette with Frank Gorshin (in town for a radio interview to plug his comedy review at “The Golden Buffet”). He was standing on the lawn of the radio station. I told the girl I was with who he was (Batman’s “Riddler”). She didn’t believe me, so we went forth. He ended up signing her paperback novel of (can’t remember the title) a tale of demonic and sexual possession.

*After college, I tried stand-up comedy. Burned worse than my protagonist, Charlie, from my novel, Demon with a Comb-Over.

*For over twenty years, I was a graphic artist and manager of a big North Kansas City publishing company. And I still don’t trust my talents to do my own covers.

*I’ve written 12 novels, put out by three publishers. I also have a children’s picture book coming late in the year. Eventually I’d like to try my hand at most genres. Except erotica. Not that there’s anything wrong with it! I just find it boring after a while. Still…it sells!

*When I was in grade school I knew I wanted to be a writer. Just took me a while to get there.

*I’m married to a college professor of pharmacy, a world-renowned specialist in natural products. Her drug expertise (um, not the kind I specialized in during high school!) comes in handy for some of my thrillers.

*True confession time! I love bad movies. Absolutely adore them. Give me a schlocky, awful Andy Milligan piece of junk over Titanic any day. During a recent visit, my nephew checked out my DVD collection. He asked, “Don’t you ever watch any good movies?” “Um, no,” I said. Don’t judge me!

*My friends and I almost kidnapped “Skippy” from Family Ties back in the day during a spring break in Texas. Long story, that.

*In high school, I worked at a McDonald’s for one day. When I blasted the tartar sauce gun too hard (which shot the fish sandwich off the table), I found it pretty funny. My boss didn’t.

*I brought my daughter up watching horror movies. I was so proud of her the other day when she gave a lecture to my young nephews about the trajectory of the Nightmare of Elm Street saga. She did it with confidence, knowledge, acting out and humor. My girl!

http://stuartrwest.blogspot.com/

Stuart R. West

http://www.amazon.com/Stuart-R.-West/e/B00B419X5C/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

http://cemeterydanceonline.com/2016/03/review-demon-with-a-comb-over-by-stuart-r-west/

An interview with Cody Goodfellow

Welcome Cody Goodfellow! I’m not sure when I first discovered his works, but they immediately blew my mind with their craft and no-holds-barred attack. I felt that I was learning something new on almost every page. Cody also has a knack with atmosphere that I rarely see. In REPO SHARK, I swear I could feel that particular kind of heat and smell that air, and I felt the desperation and hopelessness. And that was before things went south. It’s something much of his work shares.

I’ll never forget standing in the Apple store where I worked, wearing those dreadful blue shirts (Hey! Are you a cop?) when in walked Cody one day with one of those massive Mac Pros. It felt like the asylum had come to set us all free. Since then, I’ve followed his work and have never been disappointed. Not only is his work fascinating and multi-layered, but the man is, as well. As you shall discover. 

1. When did you discover Lovecraft? What was that like for you?
Fittingly enough, it coincided with the onset of puberty. 

I’d read Stephen King in elementary school, and while it blew my mind and made me want to become a writer, it left me cold, philosophically. I lost interest in The Stand when it pivoted from being a plague novel to a checkers match between good and evil. I remember sitting in the dentist with the suction in my mouth when I got to the part in It where we learn that Evil is a spider, but Good is a friendly turtle… and it utterly lost all credibility for me.

Not to get into a religious argument, but for me, most supernatural horror fiction from the Bible and Paradise Lost on rings false, with its insistence that Evil only exists because God has a hard time accepting our unconditional love at face value. In the face of a dreary world that utterly rejected him, Lovecraft created an existentialist universe bereft of objective morality or benevolent higher powers that just resonated with my intuitive sense of how the universe works. Because it feels sometimes like the universe itself is alive, but whatever’s out there isn’t trying to test us, tempt or destroy us.

The trick is moving past Lovecraft’s cartoony monsters and pursuing that cosmic horror ethic into more sophisticated, less racially problematic spheres. That has been harder to do for people like me, but there is a self-conscious and self-serious streak in a lot of weird fiction that balks at the literal use of monsters, and isn’t all that comfortable just being scary. I salute those who need to feel that even their guilty pleasure fiction is very grown-up, but I relish the opportunity to reduce even only nominal adults to goose-pimpled children.

2. You’re known very much for your Lovecraftian and Mythos tales, yet, you seem to switch gears and be able to work in many other genres successfully. Your work with John Skipp veered more into the splatterpunk and straight horror areas, with a touch of the weird. What other helped steer your outlook as you were a developing writer, and what turns you on now?

My father and grandparents died when I was very young. Growing up, I I think I read classic and splatterpunk horror, cyberpunk science fiction, crime, fantasy and lurid history with an eye to anything that would re-sensitize me to the vital cruelty and weirdness of the world, and strategies for coping with it. Authors I favored found ways to use words to shock as images and sounds couldn’t, to achieve almost a form of synesthesia, with language you could taste and smell. People like Ballard, Burroughs, O’Connor, Koja, Gibson, Rucker, Peake, Crews, Ellroy and Schow, whose voices seethe with unique notes amid precise prose.

My lasting favorites proved that working in a variety of genres needn’t dilute the ferocity of your approach. I looked to people like Ellison, Shirley, Simmons and Moorcock, who mastered whatever style and genre suited the tale. An audience game to follow you through whatever you cook up next might be smaller, but they travel well and make for better company than fans who come to treat you like a magic vending machine. From reading all this stuff, I learned to cross-fertilize the tropes and techniques of different genres, mixing the expressionism of horror with the stasis/progress moral axis of cyberpunk, for example, as opposed to conventional good/evil, or using a very eye-level first-person confessional style from detective fiction to ground a particularly outlandish science fiction premise.

As I get older and try to take down bigger projects, I reach for graphic novels, or crime fiction like Thompson, Woolrich, and Stark’s Parker books when I’m not reading history or science texts, because the brutal economy of the language and gamesmanship of misdirection is good mental exercise. I wish I could say I found time to read more current horror fiction, but I’ve developed a mental callus or blind spot that generally makes reading the kind of stuff I write feel like more work, no matter how good it is. I think this is why I haven’t tried harder to break into comic books.

3. Your latest collection, Rapture of the Deep, collects several of your Lovecraftian tales, as well as a new, exclusive story. What can you tell us about this collection?

 

It’s actually got a couple new things… “Archons” and “Swinging” are original to the collection, because if you write stories at the length and scope Lovecraft did in his prime, you still can’t really sell them.

Rapture... is a dozen or so of my best Mythos stories. Instead of gibbering to the hardcore Lovecraftian choir, with these stories, as with Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk, my first two novels, I’ve tried to restore some of the mystery and lure in and seduce the uninitiated, representing the Mythos without an acolyte’s breathless urgency to EXPLAIN everything. Cthulhu has become “nerd bacon,” a welcome addition to any geeky mashup, but it’s also become commonplace and silly. But it’s still fair game for modern fiction the same way that vampires or werewolves are. The Great Old Ones have metastasized from one author’s vision to a body of metaphors for the other face of nature, for the alien and unknowable in the universe and in ourselves. 

 

What I think is most interesting about modern Mythos fiction, for those who find any of it interesting, is how successive “Lovecraft Circles” of authors have aligned in their intent. HPL’s peers and disciples all added their own gods, forbidden tomes and cults to the mythology, with the effect that some, like Derleth, Lumley and Carter, nearly murdered the subgenre they loved with cyclopean bricks of exposition and contrived, consonant-heavy monsters that lacked the uncanny, paranoid urgency of Lovecraft’s creations.

All of us today are working individually in HPL’s universe, rather than in any kind of true shared world; a duet with Lovecraft’s concepts and maybe a handful of his acolytes, disregarding each other’s convoluted updating of Innsmouth, R’lyeh, the Old Ones’ Antarctic city, etc. And a lot of it is responding to the mad love for the mystery and uncompromising alienness of the Mythos cycle by filling in every last shadow, until nothing that remains is all that strange, or until they become stock puppets like every other empty antagonist in “urban fantasy” series.

But of those still working with the Mythos and doing it well, you see authors reclaiming the core tropes of Lovecraft’s original stories and dissecting, exploring and in the best cases, reinvigorating the primordial cloud of unknowing that sets them apart from mere monsters. And they’re doing this while reclaiming the pantheon from the xenophobia that created it. However much of a direct influence you’ll admit his racism was upon his art, Lovecraft undeniably took refuge in dreadful illusions to contain his fear and revulsion of other cultures and people of color, and the mainspring of his horror is a frantic rejection of and obsession with the Other, but in the best Mythos fiction today, you see new and deeply nuanced ways of relating to the Great Old Ones that don’t marginalize other people, and thus make Lovecraft’s universe that much wider and weirder.

4. How did the Cthulhu Prayers and Breakfasts come to be? Those are definite highlights of any con.

 

All praises and acknowledgment are due Hierophant of the Horde Robert M. Price and Choirmonster Darrell Schweitzer, who founded the Esoteric Order of Dagon and initiated the prayer breakfasts at the original NecronomiCon shows in Providence in the 90’s. Brother Bob’s early sermons are collected in an excellent pamphlet called The Sermon On The Mound, and a hymnal of Schweitzer’s perversions of Christian standards can also be found wherever he peddles his wares. Later, Brother Bob presided over breakfasts at the HP Lovecraft Film Festival & Cthulhucon in Portland, where I was first recruited as a deacon, and later pressed to deliver a backup sermon and carry out ritual observances when Bob was laid low by hay fever.

I carried the torch down to San Pedro when we spun off a California franchise of the film festival and even took our show to steampunk heretics on the Queen Mary, but Underdeacon Froggy Mason and I quickly began to twist the unhallowed rites to my own ends, with more original song parodies, arcane PowerPoint demos and a more progressive philosophy that soon ran afoul of the official EOD heterodoxy.

After the gauntlet was thrown down in a stinging rebuke of the EOD’s reactionary politics, I declared a schism at the NecronomiCon prayer breakfast of 2013, and opened the Temple of Yog-Sothoth with a flurry of ululation and bubbles. Though an uneasy reconciliation at the 2015 NecronomiCon was documented in the New Yorker, the Esoteric Order of Dagon is to this day a nest of treachery and usurpers who cannot properly bring waffles to their web-fingered followers.

				Croissants with Cthulhu – The New Yorker Perhaps the most exclusive event at the NecronomiCon Providence is the Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast, a hot buffet with bonus unearthly performances.
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5. Okay: so I’ve always wanted to ask about your singing. I once saw you do a reading/performance  at a tiny art gallery and I believe it was you and Skipp that produced these out-of-this world country tinged harmonies, perfectly pitched, for a song within your story? Did you study singing? Grow up with country?

That was a weird fluke. I’d recently quit smoking, and wanted to see if I could sing properly once my lungs cleared, and Andrew “the Slow Poisoner” Goldfarb was in the house, so apropos of nothing, at the end of a Bizarro performance piece, we broke into Marty Robbins’ Cool Clear Water. I’m not a country fan by any stretch, and have never sung in a band or choir or a class, but I do have a soft spot for old Western tunes and cowboy crooners. I enjoy singing, but I’d pretty much only get in front of a crowd to do it again because I like making myself nervous. But I’m glad you enjoyed it…

6. Speaking of music: you’re also known as being an amazing connoisseur of amazing music that’s not widely known. Your mixes are epic, and run through so many styles one hardly has time to absorb them. Do you listen to music while you write? Does it inspire your work?
I don’t know who knows me as such things, but I’ll bite…

Music is my other favorite thing. I always have music on while I write and when I drive and think about what I’m writing. Lately, I’ve been listening to Mutant and Xen by Arca, Garden Of Delete by Oneohtrix Point Never, a lot of Venetian Snares and always, always, Amon Tobin. Generally it’s all instrumental, from classical and film scores to big band, exotica, space music and techno. It’s all vivid music that drives what Jim Thirlwell called “brain movies,” without trapping you in a singer’s narrative or pushy psychodrama. I always preferred it to vocally driven music of any kind, and after I put in ten years as a “radio research musicologist” basically playing Name That Tune at home in my pajamas to compile data for alternative chart ratings, a huge part of my brain was tied up remembering and recalling the lyrics of every song on the radio during the absolute nadir of rock music in America. Creed. Limp Bizkit. Barenaked Ladies. Godsmack. Losing the job when we finally became obsolete was like having a stroke in reverse. I had to relearn everything after having some fifty percent of my gray matter suddenly come back to life after it no longer had to recognize the slap-bass solo on any given Korn song.

				Sticky Drama – Music Video
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				San Martín de los Andes + 10th Circle Of Winnipeg by Ven…
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				Amon Tobin – Four Ton Mantis (HD Capture 720 for DVD…
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An editor friend of mine tells me everybody in Hollywood is cutting to Junkie XL’s Mad Max score, to try to capture its clean, breakneck pacing, and I do pretty much the same. I make mixes of appropriate music for things I’m writing, and the tempo and attitude of the music totally influences the tone and rhythm of the prose. A book I’m doing now involves a lot of insider entertainment industry crap, and the narrator fancies himself a music supervisor, so he dictates the proper music for each scene. I’ve always composed and sometimes performed electronic music as a hobby; my college roommate and I scored a couple pornos in college. Sometimes I’ve collaborated with Skipp on stuff for films or as a goof. Everything is experimental music when you don’t really know what you’re doing…

7. You’ve made some excellent short films, including the hilarious and creepy, Lovecraftian “Stay at Home Dad”. Where you always interested in filmmaking and screenwriting? Is this a newer passion? Are you working on some new films?

I came to UCLA in 1989 to study film, but they scrapped the undergraduate production major my first quarter. I left school totally discouraged by what I’d seen and heard of the film industry, and to this day, every encounter with it makes me more grateful for the simplicity of writing. When I moved back to LA in 2007, I wasn’t looking to get into film, but my wife had run a post house and is an editor, and Skipp was busy picking up the fundamentals of directing when we first started hanging out. As Skipp has evolved into a bona fide filmmaker with Andrew Kasch, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to try different stuff—acting, scoring and stain removal, as well as writing—and meet the vast array of people you need to know and subordinate to your will to even dream of making a simple, short motion picture.

Our last film was Clowntown: An Honest Mis-Stake, which we’d hoped to parlay into a series, but somehow, it seems like clowns aren’t as universally beloved as we thought they’d be, so while we continue to look for a circus sideshow sugar daddy, I’ve been doing some acting and background work, and already have carved out a niche as a period junkie.

8. The Lovecraft Film Festival is an amazing gathering of films and Lovecraftian culture. It’s a lot more than just people sitting in a theater and absently watching movies. Can you talk a little bit about that experience? And they are also doing a crowdfunding campaign with some really cool perks. Spill!
We’ve picked up the torch from the Portland festival, which will be old enough to drink this October. Our fest, now in its seventh year, has been a very different experience, mostly because Portland is such a cozy town where all the weirdos regularly run into each other, where LA is a vast, distraction-infested wasteland, so just bringing together a crowd of highly evolved mutants like this is a massive undertaking. Our three-day show includes classic features and about four hours of new weird short films, but also weird lit readings and panels, art shows, the Mall of Cthulhu, gaming, filmmaker Q&A, SFX makeup demonstrations, a burlesque floorshow shadow cast of The Dunwich Horror…and some stuff I forgot. We use Kickstarter to sell our advance tickets and fly in guests, and we’ve only got about halfway to where we need to be WITH ONLY 12 DAYS TO GO. We’ve got a lot of neat swag and extra stuff for people coming to the show, from a professional portrait with a real live monster by photographer Joshua Hoffine to a chance to meet a fate worse than death in a Joe Pulver story, but we’ve also got a livestream package for folks who can’t make it out to SoCal, hosted this year by Mike Davis of Lovecraft e-Zine and Leeman “Ask Lovecraft” Kessler. So there’s no logical reason why everyone on earth shouldn’t make this a part of their lives.

9. Graphic novels are also high on your list. I know you’ve done work in that field, too. How is it different than fiction and/or films? Do you have anything in the works?

Writing comics professionally is one of those ambitions I’ve had to kind of let go of, in order to still enjoy reading them. The industry has been even less responsive to my overtures than the film world. Which is such a pain, because writing comics is the distillation of all that makes writing for film so exciting. You’re selecting exacting slices of moments to stand in for the whole scene, so it takes the persistence of vision that makes motion pictures work to its extreme. But where everything you write into a film is going to cost untold amounts of money and trouble to bring to life, in comics, you’re laying out the blueprint, and your partner the artist laboriously but somehow magically breathes it into existence. Everything, everything is negotiable. When an artist is in sync with your prose, it’s like making a film, and the best partnerships become as simple and fertile as jamming between musicians.

I’ve been privileged to work with Mike Dubisch on a lot of small projects and to have him do the cover art for REPO SHARK and ALL-MONSTER ACTION, but we’ve never successfully conned a real publisher into even considering something we did. The last time we tried at a convention, the editor in question begged off to use the restroom, walked ten feet away from us, and started a conversation with someone else. So, fuck those guys.

We did exactly the kind of graphic novel we’d love to read, that nobody else seemed to want to release. Next month, we’re putting it out through my occasional micropublisher, Perilous Press. MYSTERY MEAT is an epic tale of a company town forced to serve as guinea pigs for an artificial meat product, told through four graphic and one prose story in the classic style of EC and Warren horror anthology comix, but with the raw, uncensored and radical sensibility of underground books like Skull and Slow Death Eco-Funnies.

As soon as the dust clears from the film festival Kickstarter, Mike and I will launch a campaign to fund the printing, and we’re offering hyper-obscene backlight prints, highly objectionable Sikbrgr and Cannibal Cow T-shirts and scheming on a body horror coloring book with work from sickos like Gunsho, Skinner, Mike Bukowski, Nick “the Hat” Gucker, and worse.

And if that doesn’t work, I’ll try to get my Name That Tune job back…

PLEASE VISIT CODY GOODFELLOW’S AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

CODY GOODFELLOW has written five novels, and co-wrote three more with New York Times bestselling author John Skipp. His first two collections, Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars and All-Monster Action, each received the Wonderland Book Award. He wrote, co-produced and scored the short Lovecraftian hygiene film Stay At Home Dad, which can be viewed on YouTube. He is also a director of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-San Pedro, and cofounder of Perilous Press, an occasional micropublisher of modern cosmic horror. He lives in Burbank, California, and is currently working on building a perfect bowling team.

A guest post from Catherine Cavendish

Over the past year I’ve gotten to know some excellent new authors. One whose book I truly enjoyed was Catherine Cavendish. I’m thrilled that she is a guest here as she sheds some insight into her newest novella, ‘Dark Avenging Angel’. Please consider trying one of her books if you haven’t already. Also: Amazon reviews are more helpful than people realize. Please-please-please review the works you’ve read. It truly does make a difference to the authors. Thank you. –john–

Revenge of the Churel

My latest novella – Dark Avenging Angel – is, as its title suggests, concerned with revenge. In this case, revenge of the most demonic kind. We’ve all heard the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for…” Jane learns the truth of this in graphic ways.

Avenging angels and demons abound in the traditions and folklore of people all over the world. One such character is a churel – a female ghost of South Asian folkore, well known in the Indian sub-continent.

There are variations on her origins. She may have died in childbirth, during menstruation, or as a result of poor care while pregnant. It is said that if a woman (especially one from the lower social classes) dies in pregnancy during the five-day Hindu Festival of Light (Diwali), she is even more likely to turn into a churel. Whichever is the cause, the churel is an angry and vengeful spirit who returns from the dead to suck the blood (and other bodily fluids) of her male relatives.

Churels are most often found in and around graveyards, abandoned battlefields, crossroads, thresholds of houses, toilets and a host of squalid locations.

They can take the form of a hideous woman with sagging breasts, backwards facing feet (toes at the back, heel at the front), long sharp teeth, a black tongue and unkempt hair. The churel frequently roams naked, and has a pot belly and claw-like hands. Some churels have unusually thick lips, or even no mouth at all. Some have pig-like features with long fangs or tusks.

A churel can also be a shapeshifter – able to transform into a beautiful young woman, in order to lure any young male relation she wants. When she has got him where she wants him, she then drains him of his virility, turning him into a prematurely aged, grey-haired old man. Once she has finished with him, she moves onto the next male relative until her vengeance is satisfied. This thirst for revenge may be so great that it involves more than her own family. She may go in search of other young men on highways, or at crossroads, where she lures them in her enchantress guise. In some stories, she will imprison her victim in a graveyard and use him – little by little – sexually and by draining his blood until he withers and dies. There is even a story of a young man who was seduced by a churel, ate the food she gave him and returned to his village the next day as an old man.

In some traditions, the churel may transform and become a servant of the goddess Kali, joining with her to feast on human flesh and blood.

So how do you prevent yourself becoming a victim of a churel? The solution is quite simple, men should treat their wives well. Look after them in pregnancy and childbirth. If that fails though – and the wife falls sick and dies, the best methods are to bury rather than cremate her body and perform certain rituals. The body may be bound. Nails and other bindings may be used to imprison the would-be churel in her grave, and the woman should be remembered – with love and honour – in songs and prayers, so that her spirit doesn’t feel forgotten or neglected.

Now, to give you a taste of Dark Avenging Angel, here’s the blurb:

Don’t hurt Jane. You may live to regret it.

Bullied by her abusive father, Jane always felt different. Then the lonely child found a friend in a mysterious dark lady who offers her protection—a lady she calls her “angel”. But that protection carries a terrible price, one to be paid with the souls of those Jane chooses to suffer a hideous and eternal fate.

When Jane refuses to name another victim, the angel reveals her most terrifying side. Payment must be made in full—one way or the other.

And here’s a brief extract:

Something had woken me from a deep sleep troubled by my recurring nightmare in which I was in a wood, being chased by some unimaginable horror. I never saw its face, assuming it even had one. But I knew if I didn’t find sanctuary, it would kill me. I had just made it into the strange little house that always appeared in the clearing, when my eyes opened and I gasped at the white, smiling face looking down at me.

That night, my angel seemed different somehow.

Oh, she looked the same. Same black cloak, but this time it shimmered and I wanted to touch it. I was sure it would feel soft as velvet under my fingers.

She put her finger to her lips and stroked my hair. Her touch was like a gentle breeze in summertime. My eyes wanted to close, but I forced them to stay open.

I knew I mustn’t speak out loud, but I could still whisper. “I wish I knew your name. Who are you? Please will you tell me?”

She continued to smile. Her lips moved, but the answering voice I heard was again in my head.

Do not be afraid, child. It is not yet time, but soon you will have the power to avenge yourself on those who have done you harm. Look for me in the shadows and I will be there, taking account.

I understood nothing of what she said. But, from somewhere, a calm I had never felt before emerged and wrapped itself around me.

I blinked in the darkness as she faded from sight.

Then I closed my eyes and slept. I never had that nightmare again after that night. But what if I’d known what was ahead for me?

Some things are better off left in the dark.

You can find Dark Avenging Angel here:

Samhain Publishing

Amazon
Barnes and Noble 

Kobo

Omnilit

About the author:

Following a varied career in sales, advertising and career guidance, Cat is now the full time author of a number of paranormal, ghostly and Gothic horror novels, novellas and short stories. She was the 2013 joint winner of the Samhain Gothic Horror Anthology Competition, with Linden Manor, which features in the anthology What Waits in the Shadows.  Her novels, The Pendle Curse and Saving Grace Devine are also published by Samhain. Her latest novella – Dark Avenging Angel – will be followed by her next novel – The Devil’s Serenade – in April 2016

You can connect with Cat here:

Catherine Cavendish

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Tsu

 

FEAR CLINIC: Shocked Treatment article in FANGORIA #339

I’ve penned a feature article for Fangoria about Director Rob Hall’s feature film version of FEAR CLINIC. It’s in this month’s issue. It was wonderful speaking with cast and crew, like Robert Englund, Robert Hall, Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Ted Dekker, and many more. What a great time was had, and here’s hoping for many more articles in the future!

Check it out here, if you’re so inclined.

CLICK HERE TO READ FANGORIA #339

An interview with author Robert Shane Wilson

We are here today as a stop on the The Robert S. Wilson Thrown-Together-at-the-Last-Minute-Due-to-An-Overwhelming-Amount-of-Procrastination-and-Indecision Blog Tour and Book Giveaway Contest! = https://www.facebook.com/events/459398677533097/

ROBERT SHANE WILSON

This is a real honor. Robert Shane Wilson has been delivering the goods as an author and editor for enough time to leave a good mark on many people’s psyche. His work reminds me of Dan O’ Bannon, and the very wonderful 1980s science fiction/horror/noir field. I loved those stories and films. Please bring back Ellen Datlow and OMNI and T.E.D. Klein Twilight Zone! I cherish the issues I have. Robert continues that tradition, although his work is most certainly his own. We’ve been friends online for a while, with one of my favorite stories is learning that he uses a DANA portable word processor to work from. Having seen ads for them for years, Robert turned me on to finding a used one for a song. I love it. I love gizmos. Anything that helps creativity. I love where he writes. So please, check out his work. It’s the good stuff. He’s embarking on a brave new journey, not unlike one of the heroes in his stories, toward a new world. Now, let’s find out more about him.

You’ve got some new projects being released soon, with a brand new business model in mind? Can you talk about that a bit? What inspired this?

Sure. My debut collection Where All Light is Left to Die just came out via eBook and is about to do likewise in trade paperback any day now and my novella SoulServe: A Ray Garret/Lifeline Techno Thriller is set to come out September 30^th. I’m also putting out a novella from my collection as a stand alone (The Nesting Place) and a new revised and expanded edition of my 2011 novella The Quiet. And to make that sound even more confusing, Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing also released my short experimental cosmic horror story The OTHERS as part of their One-Night Stands series of eBooks earlier this month.

As for the business model, it’s a bit of an experiment. Recently Hugh Howey, bestselling author of WOOL, wrote a very interesting blog on a strategy for new self-publishing authors to kick start their careers. What I’m hoping to get out of this strategy is a boost in exposure to both my already available titles as well as a good kick start to my new ones. Hugh calls this strategy the Five-Down-and-One-in-the-Hole plan and it’s emulated from what has happened recently to a lot of midlist authors who have self-published.

What happens is a midlist author will decide to self-publish their entire backlist pretty much at once shortly before putting out a new title. Readers are suddenly seeing several books from the same name and that name is sticking for them enough that they decide to eventually take a chance on that author’s work. The idea is to shortly afterward put out another title, the “one in the hole,” as something new for readers to sink their teeth into now that they’ve already been reading your recent barrage of titles (Hugh and his source Liliana Nirvana suggest releasing your “one in the hole” title about one month later).

When I read Hugh’s post, I was in a unique position in that I already had five titles I was planning on releasing (well one rereleasing, but yeah…). Thing is, traditional wisdom tells authors and publishers to separate releases so you can give each book time to breathe and give yourself time to promote each accordingly. But in my experience, the more I learn about the current book market, the more I feel like taking a chance on new creative ideas can lead to some wonderful opportunities. And if nothing else… It’s not likely to make things any more difficult than they already are. So, for me, it was worth a shot to make it so all these titles would be available right around the same time.

For my “one in the hole,” I’m going out a little further than suggested and shooting for putting my third novel RISING FROM ASHES: EMPIRE OF BLOOD BOOK THREE out in December. So, I’m not following the idea stringently by any means but hopefully it gives my work a bit of a kick in the right direction.

Do you think the new era of authors taking over much of their promotion and content has affected the way writers write? With everyone writing series, and hoping to cross-sell the titles, how has this effected the genesis of storytelling?

I think in today’s new publishing paradigm many writers are a lot more aware of marketing. In a big way it’s a huge burden to writers these days, self and traditionally published. And I’m sure that affects what plenty of writers decide to write etc. Myself, as a reader, I’m a lover of book series and as a writer, I’ve come to enjoy them as well because it really allows you to get deeper and deeper with dynamic character development and interaction. But I can see how some writers are leaning toward series when they probably wouldn’t have otherwise in order to build a selling platform.

As for the genesis of storytelling, I’m not sure it matters. We’ve been telling stories since we were living in caves, hunting and gathering. I think what matters is that we keep telling stories as individuals and as a species. Passing down our ideas to each new generation and inspiring even more great stories. That’s one of the greatest things that makes us unique among the our ancestors and we should celebrate that.

Sure if someone puts all their effort and time into worrying about what will sell over what they are passionate about writing, they’ll end up with nothing but dry crap to show for it, but there’s nothing wrong with balancing the two. “Here’s something that’s selling well and I love to read and write it. Here’s something else that’s selling well and I love to read it, but haven’t tried writing it. I think I’ll give it a shot.” I mean the best musicians and performers are fluent in many different styles and I’m a firm believer that writers can only gain by doing the same.

I get the feeling a lot of authors are writing to the market. They’re even mimicking the covers of best-sellers with their graphic work. Do you think this is a good thing, because it is leveling the playing field, or do you think this is crowding the market with a lot of mediocre work?

I think this kind of goes back to my last answer to some degree. I honestly feel like as long as there are people writing, there will be different levels of quality. Different people write for different reasons. Obviously Amazon has opened the floodgates for anyone who wants to try their hand at being a writer to do so. This is both a great and terrible thing all at once. For the promising young writer who is willing to still put in the effort to hone their craft and toil with each new work toward making it better or more original than the last, this is fantastic. For those who would rather rush out everything they can for the purpose of trying to make a quick buck, I think it’s inevitable that they are going to fail and quickly.

That said, many new great writers out there aren’t getting noticed because of many factors including the huge amount of competition out there right now—a lot of which being one big pool of shit from those aforementioned folk trying to make a quick buck. But also because, and this is another great and terrible conundrum, Amazon is taking the market and to be seen on Amazon is to follow Amazon’s rules both spoken and unspoken and it’s they’re not exactly working very hard to make those rules straightforward. But given the huge ratio of bad material out there, I get it. It’s like a marketing democracy not too far off from the current state of United States politics—one where the lucky and the rich win out. If you can afford to throw down 10k on advertising, Amazon is more than happy to make you a bestseller. If not and you happen to have the magic power to get hit by Amazon’s bestselling lightning as authors like Amanda Hocking and J.A. Konrath, among many others, have, then aces, you win every writer’s secret little soft fuzzy dream—the ability to make not just a living writing, but a damn fine one.

Who or what are the new gatekeepers?

Readers are the new gatekeepers. And I think, in comparison to the history of this business, this new paradigm is the evolutionary equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion. When the Cambrian Explosion happened, life on Earth went from just a small number of variations to very near the nearly incalculable variety of species we see today. Likewise, we went from a small variety of book publishers funneling out what they felt was the best material to readers to tearing away that funnel and allowing the open slush pit to go straight to the reader where they can find new writers in droves that may never have even managed to get printed with the previous model.

What distinguishes your work from the flood of self-appointed writers multiplying on Amazon every day?

Ha! Nothing I say can answer that question… Except maybe this. I wrote it. And there is no other me. Otherwise, it’s up to readers to decide if they want to take a chance on me. (Hint: I have several free stories out in eBook land available and there’s always the sample option on any of my longer works. All free ways to decide for yourself if my work can be distinguished from the dreck.)

You’re well known, and highly regarded, in the horror fiction circuit, as an editor. How did that come to be? Do you think your skills as an editor have informed your personal fiction for better or for worse?

If anything I’m blipping slightly on some far away edge of the radar, maybe. I probably mostly owe that to my work on Horror for Good: A charitable Anthology and as Editor in Chief of Nightscape Press. And yeah, if a writer wants to better their craft, I would highly suggest trying their hand at editing on a purely experimental basis to begin with. Get together with another writer you’re friends with who has a reasonably thick skin and is willing to take your criticism with a grain of salt.

That way if you make some mistakes along the way you don’t pull someone down with you along the way. Haha. Seriously though, I started editing in late 2011 just prior to working on Horror for Good and each pass I did on other people’s work taught me more. But I won’t lie, editing the work of solid professionals was even more hugely eye-opening. And yet at the same time, no one gets better who isn’t already studying the subject of their affections with vigorous determination and constant practice. For writers that’s reading everything you can get your hands on with a critical eye and writing and writing and rewriting and writing and writing and rewriting some more and… you get the idea.

If marketing and sales were of no concern, what would you write?

Well, the same things I write now. Sort of. I balance how much my eye is on the market and how much my eye is on what I’m passionate about. They’re mostly pretty much the same thing. That said, I would love to break out more in the science fiction market because most of what I write has a huge element of mixed in. So far that doesn’t seem to be in the cards. And very recently I realized that I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that because there are two science fiction markets. There’s the stringent very particular science fiction market that doesn’t jibe too well with darker fiction and there’s the popular fiction market where science fiction has, in my opinion, more room to breathe. I think my sci-fi has the potential to some day end up in that latter market. With hard work and some luck, time will tell I suppose. It very well could be that my brand of SF just isn’t anybody’s cup of tea and even still, I can live with that. The best tip I ever learned was to write for yourself, because you can’t please everyone and when you try too hard to please everyone, you only end up pleasing no one.

Our influences often change as we develop as artists. Who inspired you ‘then’, and who inspires you ‘now’?

Ooh, love this question. I think my biggest horror inspirations from childhood were The Twilight Zone and various 70s and 80s horror and sci-fi movies (Brainstorm, Blade Runner, An American Werewolf in London, Swamp Thing, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday the 13^th, Killer Clowns from Outer Space, Alien, Predator, Communion, Night of the Comet, Saturn 3, Tron, D.A.R.R.E.L., Cat’s Eye, The Last Starfighter, Terminator, Labyrinth, and tons of others. But in the written word… Then would be Stephen King, Anne Rice, William Golding… etc. But the biggest scares in my early teens came from reading Whitley Strieber’s “non-fiction” alien abduction books like Communion, Transformation, and the author’s supposedly “true story written as fiction” Majestic. I was twelve years old when I first read those books and I was quite impressionable.

At the time, I already believed in that sort of thing and Strieber’s books only gave me terrifying fodder to add to my already growing fear of small beings coming into my home in the middle of the night and ripping me from my bed. Nothing scares like something you think is real. Hands down, nothing else has scared me as much since.

Today I’m a skeptic who doesn’t believe in anything supernatural, and while that might affect my ability to be scared to some degree, I’m still able to be creeped out and enjoy a great work of the macabre. I’d say my biggest influences now are authors like Peter Watts, Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, Michael Marshall Smith, Stephen Graham Jones, Laird Barron, Ursula K. Le Guin, Peter Straub, King still, definitely, Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, and Joe Lansdale. I’m more recently becoming especially enthralled with weird fiction and cosmic horror. I’ve long been intrigued by H.P. Lovecraft’s spectrum of horrific ideas, but I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of his prose style, so I’m slow to read as much of his work as I would like.

What’s your writing routine?

Whenever I can balance free time and focus. So, in other words not nearly as routine as I would like, but I’ve been working to turn that around.

My favorite question is always HOW do you write? MS Word on an old PC? Longhand in spiral notebooks? Tapping into your iPhone? I love specifics. Give me the software you use. The versions. Why you use them. Also: what is your writing environment? A nook in the dining room? A home office that looks out onto a meadow? The lunch room at the day job with a set of headphones so you won’t be disturbed? That stuff I love!

Recently I made room for an office that’s closed off from the rest of the house and have done most of my writing there. I’m a typing kind of guy. I write by hand far too slowly and much sloppier than your typical doctor’s signature. If I had to rely on reading my own handwriting, I’d be screwed. I mostly write on my PC with either Microsoft Word 2003 or Wordstar 7 (I’m a Wordstar Diamond addict. I’ve even created a small script program via AutoHotKey that allows me to use Wordstar commands with any Windows program—XP and 7. WS fans, it’s available here! You’ll need to set up your caps lock to work as a control separately though…).

Nearly a year ago we moved out to the country just across the street from a body of water called Defeated Creek (even though it looks bigger than many lakes I’ve seen). And directly across from the mouth of our driveway is a nice clearing in the trees that separate the road from the water. When the weather is accommodating I go out there with a little word processor device called an Alphasmart Dana—you know what I’m talking about, John!—and a fold out camping chair and go sit in front of the water and write. Best writing spot ever. Well, the best I’ve found anyway.

Here’s where you can contact and hang out with Robert:

Website: http://www.shiningincrimson.com

The Robert S. Wilson Thrown-Together-at-the-Last-Minute-Due-to-An-Overwhelming-Amount-of-Procrastination-and-Indecision Blog Tour and Book Giveaway Contest! = https://www.facebook.com/events/459398677533097/

Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Robert-S.-Wilson/e/B005EU57AY

Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4807116.Robert_S_Wilson

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/robertswilsonauthor

Twitter name: @EmpireOfBloodRW

Ello: @robertswilson

Bio:

Robert S. Wilson is the author of SHINING IN CRIMSON and FADING IN DARKNESS, books one and two of his dystopian vampire series: EMPIRE OF BLOOD. He is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated editor of BLOOD TYPE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF VAMPIRE SF ON THE CUTTING EDGE, a co-editor of HORROR FOR GOOD: A CHARITABLE ANTHOLOGY and NIGHTSCAPES: VOLUME 1, and lives in Middle Tennessee with his family and a silly obnoxious dog. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, online, and paper publications, and his cyberpunk/horror novella EXIT REALITY was chosen as one of e-thriller.com’s Thrillers of the Month in July 2013.

His debut fiction collection WHERE ALL LIGHT IS LEFT TO DIE was just released on September 23rd and the second novella in his cyberpunk/crime thriller Ray Garret/Lifeline series, SOULSERVE, is available for pre-order and will release on September 30th. He is currently working hard to finish a number of novels and novellas all at once like a blind juggler given knives and led into oncoming traffic.

 

 

An Interview with Tim Chizmar about “Naked Alien Massacre”!

Tim Chizmar is a force to be reckoned with. His passion and zeal are infectious and unavoidable. Most creative people I know are multi-tiered, meaning they work in several different mediums. Tim’s ho exception, currently working on what promises to be a future genre cult classic film Naked Alien Massacre, and also an upcoming novel. We met at a group I Co-Chair, the Los Angeles Chapter of the Horror Writers Association. We hit it off, and I soon found myself bucking my semi-retirement from filmmaking and working on the Kickstarter videos for his movie. Of course, me being me, I became fascinated with this intriguing character. Having had many comic friends, and knowing Tim was hanging around us horror writers, I wanted to see what made him tick. Enjoy this interview, and please check out the Kickstarter for the movie. Happy Alien Hunting!

1. Can you tell us a little bit about Naked Alien Massacre? 

Sure. Happy to!

 

Think: “Naked and Afraid” meets the original “Predator”.

Synopsis: Conservative young college student Allair Buck has a crush on her art class nude model, but when she finds out he’s more than an artist’s model–he’s actually a nudist–she’s shocked out of her comfort zone! Then he invites her to spend their first weekend together at a nudist resort…well she never expected it would cause her to come to terms with her own body image issues all the while fighting to stay alive from evil “clothes hating” Demonic Aliens that are out to skin and terrorize anyone daring to wear clothes!

Tagline: “Finally, an Original Horror Movie with Balls!”

NAKED ALIEN MASSACRE is a thrilling new horror feature film garnering the interest of domestic as well as international distributors, and is produced by DrittyBoro Studios & Derek Easley Entertainment, as well as World Media Revolution, all in association with the nudist lifestyle website ClothesFree.com The owner recently won the American Assoc for Nude Recreation “Man of the Year” award for his activism on the subject.

Directed by horror writer / real life nudist TIM CHIZMAR who also co-wrote the screenplay with comedian Kevin Lahaie. The Producing side will be Tim along with Derek Easleyand Executive Producer Judy Karman. Featuring original music from WOODSON and nudist activist / singer Ton Dao.

Many well known personalities will be providing cameos including WWE / TNA / ROH Superstars ROB VAN DAM, NIGEL McGUINNESS, KATARINA LEIGH WATERS, as well as TROMA Entertainment’s own LLOYD KAUFMAN, classic scream queens including LYNN LOWRY and the star of the original “I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE” goddess CAMILLE KEATON. If that’s not enough we also have Showtime’s starlit CHRISTINE NGUYEN, and many top young talents within the top 10,000 on IMDb’s Starmeter.

On the tech side we have Emmy winning editors, and even Special FX provided by 2-time Oscar-winning art director JERYD POJAWA. Whose credits included THE ABYSS, TERMINATOR 2, ED WOOD, etc. Post-Production to be handled by Hollywood’s own Beachwood Cottage Film & Music.

NAKED ALIEN MASSACRE is being developed as a franchise, following along the lines of this recent wave of nudist-themed and related popular programming such as GIRLS, NAKED AND AFRAID, VH1’s NAKED DATING, etc. The movie will be shot at a real life nudist resort; beautiful OLIVE DELL RANCH FAMILY NUDIST RESORT, found in sunny southern California. www.OliveDellRanch.com 

Trust us there’s never been a movie like this. Ever.

This movie has been promoted recently at the American Film Market, WonderCon, LA Times Festival of Books, Long Beach Acting & Film Assoc, through various WWE events, Newport Beach Film Festival, National Cable & Telecommunications Association Conference, and much more.

2. How did the project start? Where did the idea come from? 

It adjusted many times over the years from being an HBO-style drama on life at a nudist resort, to finally adding components of comedy and horror to it. I’m a very active nudist and proud supporter of the nonsexual family nudist environment, having personally seen the benefits it has on a persons confidence and growth. It’s written by comedian and horror fan KEVIN LAHAIE, as well as myself.

3. What can we expect from the movie?

Boners and Boobs.. I’m kidding. It’s a tale set at a Nudist Resort (we are actually shooting a real one that I frequent) and it features a girl coming to terms with accepting and loving her body all the while falling in love for the first time as fighting to survive from evil clothes hating aliens. Ya know…the usual Hollywood story. *wink

4. You’re a talented stand up comic, as well as a great storyteller. I often feel comics have the most difficult job: making people laugh. But so many comics also have tremendous dark sides. Do you?

Yes. Comedy grows from a DARK place, it’s true, my parents are convicted felons. My mother attempted to kill a man, and carved him up with many stabs and slices, while my dad was a bit of a drug kingpin. I grew up in a crazy (I know people say that.. but I mean it) crazy household, and it gave me issues I’d dealt with in therapy, and still do to this day. Lucky me: in stand up I approached because I’d have partnership that ended badly or fell apart, and I was attracted because on stage, it’s simply me and a mic. I liked that ownership. I’ve been a pro Headlining comedian for about seven years, and in that time, I’ve been on Comedy Central, NBC, Fox, Showtime, CMT, and more, as well as shot a bunch of pilots that never aired, so I’m going back to my love of Horror (worked with TROMA, Full Moon, etc.) by creating art for myself about a cause I believe in, and I’m hoping to scare some folks along the way.

5. In addition to directing a movie, you’ve got a novel coming out, right? Can you tell us anything about it? A teaser?

YESSSSSSSSSSSS. I’m so excited about it! It’s called SOUL TRAITOR and its about a Demon sales person in Hell selling souls as commodities. I assure you that, along with NAKED ALIEN MASSACRE, this, too, will be very original and unique. Plus it will have an intro by my buddy, WWE Wrestler Rob Van Dam, which is fun. Aside from that, my short story, “Libby” is featured in HELL COMES TO HOLLYWOOD 2, coming soon.

6. There’s a new way where people can actually act like Patrons for up and coming, and not-so up and coming, artists like yourself. Can you tell us about the NAM Kickstarter campaign? Any exclusives? What can genre fans expect? 

We put a lot of work into it, so the best way to check it out is for you swing by and watch the videos on the page yourself.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/TimChizmar/naked-alien-massacre 

Please SHARE our message and CONTRIBUTE if you can to make our movie a reality. The first ever real nudist horror film. It’s up to you!

7. Where can people connect with you? 

I’m on Facebook: TIM Chizmar or Tim Chizmar, or email me at: TimChizmarProductions@Gmail.comI hate Twitter, but my co-producer DEREK EASLEY runs one at @NakedAlienMovie so drop him a line.

…………………………………….BIOGRAPHY:When TIM CHIZMAR was a child he lost himself in evil, scary books. One day, a morally righteous librarian refused to let him take out his books. Reading about demons, be-headings, and cannibalism wasn’t the norm in Linesville, Pennsylvania. When Tim brought his mother there, she insisted that her son be allowed to read WHATEVER HE WANTED. This upset the librarian, so she looked his mother in the eye and said, “Your son is going to grow up to be a great horror writer one day…OR A SERIAL KILLER.” As of this writing, Tim hasn’t killed anyone…YET…but he has written and sold many screenplays in Hollywood. When he’s not burying bodies, Tim is a writer, director, producer, and comedian living in Los Angeles. He is the Director, Producer, and co-writer of NAKED ALIEN MASSACRE. What drives Tim’s success is knowing that somewhere in Pennsylvania a librarian is praying for his soul.

Crystal Lake author interview for “Perrollo’s Ladder”

Here’s a short interview with me over at the Crystal Lake site. Here I’m talking about the genesis of “Perrollo’s Ladder”, the story that appears in TALES FROM THE LAKE, VOLUME ONE. Hope y’all dig it! This is a great collection of short fiction, and am honored to be included. Volume Two promises to be just as great, and there’s a writing competition, so all you writers, juice up those pens and processors!

http://www.crystallakepub.com/blog/tales-from-the-lake-vol-1-author-interview-john-palisano

 

13 Questions with Joan De La Haye

The Crystal Lake crew are a pretty awesome bunch. My stuff has appeared alongside Joan De La Haye’s in both HORROR 101 and TALES FROM CRYSTAL LAKE, VOLUME ONE. Here, we have a great probing interview about a few things horror, a few more creative, and a bunch about writing. Hope you dig it. I did, and South Africa seems pretty interesting from afar.

13 Questions with John Palisano

Here’s a neat interview with the talented Joan De La Haye: http://www.crystallakepub.com/blog/tales-from-the-lake-vol-1-author-interview-joan-de-la-haye.

The Goodreads page for Tales From The Lake Volume One: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21844506-tales-from-the-lake-vol-1?from_search=true

 

Tales from The Lake can already be purchased directly from Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/4784430