Pop Question:  What is the greatest common denominator between most people?

Anyone?

Bueller?

The Answer:  Fear.

I know, I know.  Some of you out there are probably saying to yourselves: ‘Self, I ain’t afraid of nothing.’

Go right ahead and lie to yourselves then.  Everyone is afraid of something, admitted or not.

Fear is one of the driving factors in most lives.  Fear of being homeless makes most people work.  Fear of being alone makes people seek out a mate.  Fear of dying makes some people exercise religiously and eat right.  Speaking of religion, fear of going to Hell drives some folks to a faith in a higher being.  Fear of failure pushes many people to work hard to become successful.

Hmmm… fear of failure.

Once upon a time in a small town in South Carolina lived a little boy who grew into a young man who wanted to become a writer.  However, the man feared that he would never succeed.  So he almost didn’t pursue his dream.

Almost.

Fear of failure almost kept him from trying.
Again, almost.

Did you know Henry Ford failed a few times before finally getting it right with Ford Motor Company?  Thomas Edison was quoted as saying, “I failed my way to success.”  President Lincoln failed in his first foray into politics.

Failure happens.  It’s part of life.  What’s the difference between Ford, Edison, Lincoln and the average person?  They kept trying.  They didn’t let the fear of failure slow them down.  They didn’t even let the reality of failure slow them down.

I used to think failure is not an option.  But, that’s not true.  Not trying is not an option.  Failure may happen, but I have to try in order for that failure (or success) to come.

If every child gave up after their first attempt at walking we would have a bunch of people with calloused hands and knees crawling around the world.  If every athlete gave up when they didn’t succeed there would be no sports.

The fear of failure is great for many.  So great, that I’m sure it paralyzes some people and keeps them from even thinking about trying.

We can’t be that way.  Not in life.

What does all of this have to do with writing?  If Stephen King gave up after throwing Carrie in the trash would the horror genre be what it is today?  If his wife hadn’t fished it out of the trash would King have been what he became?  His wife didn’t give up on him and didn’t let him become a failure at what he loved to do.

Why should we give up on ourselves?

When I first started out I was told I sucked as a writer and that I should stop writing–it wasn’t my thing.  Ouch.  That could have been a mental wound that stayed open for years and later became a scar.  Instead, that was my motivation to prove that editor wrong.  That’s right.  Tell me I can’t do something.  Go ahead.  I’m going to prove you wrong.  And I don’t prove you wrong I’m going to try my best regardless.

Fear is the greatest common denominator.  Add failure to the equation and you have a paralyzing grip that often will not let go of people.  Conquering that fear isn’t easy, but all it takes is one step to get you going.  Then another step.

Start small. Gain confidence then reach higher.  Climbing the ladder of success is all about taking one rung at a time–if you skip a few on the way up, you might just hit them on the way back down.

Learn the craft–not just the technical stuff, but your voice and how to develop it.  Learn about making stories flow and, if at all possible, try to be original.  I don’t listen to people who tell me my work won’t sell.  It does and it will.

Learn from your mistakes.  Samuel Smiles said, “We learn wisdom from failure much more than success.  We often discover what we will do, by finding out what we will not do.”

Use failure as a learning device.  If you do then making the same mistakes over and over will not be something you have to worry about.

And don’t be afraid.  If you want to run with the big dogs you can’t stay on the porch.  You have to leap off and chase after them, chase after that dream.

Nothing good ever happens if you don’t try and not trying is the worse thing you can do–or not do.
As I’ve said, fear is the greatest common denominator.  The fear of failure is paralyzing.  Don’t be afraid to fail.  Be afraid not to try.

Now, get out there and write.

Until we meet again…

AJ Brown is a story teller who pens emotionally charged/character driven stories that often include a touch of dark paranormal. His work has received such honors as a Pushcart nomination, and editor’s choice for Issue #12 of Necrotic Tissue. Bards and Sages Quarterly, Liquid Imagination, and SNM Horror are a few of the literary zines where his stories can be found.

Above all else, AJ is a husband and father of two beautiful children who not only support his creative endeavors, but also provide inspiration (sometimes in rather unexpected ways).

If you’d like to learn more about AJ Brown’s life and work, visit his blog: Type AJ Negative. However, beware, AJ is a unique mixture of strawberry Kool-aid drinking redneck and traditional values Southern gentleman.  The only things he takes seriously are serious things and he isn’t one of them.

Buy Along the Splintered Path here

Find out more about The Tales of Darkness and Dismay here

Join the Dark Continents Publishing Newsletter here

Follow Dark Continents on twitter @dark_continents

As I was growing up it was definitely the Americans that inspired me.  American music, films, writers, history – and that’s just for starters.  My first collection of short stories “The Burial” (hopefully to be re-issued later this year in an “advanced format”) is certainly inspired by the States and my time at Towson State University and subsequent trips to Boston, New York and Baltimore.  When I flick through the pages and the words jump out at me, I can remember the sights, the smells, the people that made those stories possible.

I always thought it was going to be America that I ended up but, the last few years I have found my new muse and that is France – with Paris in particular playing a prevalent role in my work.  My recent story collection “Through a Forest Dark” – published through Dark Continents and their “Tales of Darkness and Dismay” series is certainly testament to that.  If you’ve been to Paris you may know the places I’ve written about, but if not, it doesn’t matter though it does (in my mind at least) add a certain legitimacy to the tales.  Two of the four stories are set in places I regularly visit – I won’t spoil it but there’s a museum and a hotel.  The other two similarly and all four written whilst I was listening to French musicians such as OSNS, SoulKast, Raphael and Lully!

The French have a different way of looking at things, they’re not snobbish about horror or sci-fi, in fact the opposite, they embrace it.  The horror films that they make are mindblowing – yes they can be classed “torture porn” but that’s just on the surface, there are lots interesting metaphors and images in their movies and more often or not there is a twist in the tale that even M. Night Shyamalan would be proud off. 

Of course their most well-known films are about to be remade by Hollywood – so it’ll be interesting to see if they stick to the originals or “re-imagine” them with a Hollywood twist. French directors too are heading to Hollywood with most of the big horror franchises seemingly having French helmers connected to them – time will tell on that one I guess.

For me, I am currently working on a new horror novel set in the South of France as well as a new collection set once more in Paris.  Having been heavily influenced by the poet Rimbaud – I am also currently doing rewrites on a horror novella set in 19^th Century Paris!!!!  And with the Cannes Film Festival soon upon us I hope to be able to pimp my very dark religious script “Magdalene”

Here’s a quick list of four French horror movies worth checking out – don’t say I didn’t warn you, they’re definitely not for the faint-hearted!

Sheitan:                               Directed by Kim Chapiron, 2006

Haute Tension:                 Directed by Alexandre Aja, 2003

Martyrs:                               Directed by Pascal Laugier, 2008

Frontier(s):                         Directed by Xavier Gens, 2007

Dean M Drinkel

Dean M Drinkel’s short stories have appeared in diverse publications such as Literal Translations, Estronomicon, Theaker’s Quarterly, Morpheus Tales, M is for Monster and Monk Punk. His short films The Crumps, Fou, Ruby, The Imp Of The Perverse have screened at the Cannes Film Festival. His theatre productions have been staged in various theatres throughout England. He was runner up for the 2001 Sir Peter Ustinov Screenwriting Award with his feature script Ghosts. He recently compiled Phobophobia (Dark Continents Publishing, 2011), Through a Forest Dark (Dark Continents, 2012) and Cities of Death (Static Movement 2012).  He is currently editing a Titanic inspired anthology to be published by Dark Continents during Fall 2012.

Follow Dean’s blog

Purchase Phobophobia

Like dark poetry? “ Try The Empire of Death”

Follow Dark Continents on twitter @dark_continents

Join the Dark Continents mailing list so you will be one of the first people to learn about our next Call For Submissions!

Ramble ahead…

I am never sure what I’m supposed to write when asked to do a blog or something in which I am given control. I much prefer questions, or even puzzles to the possibility if me rambling on about something and boring people to death.

I would love to have all sorts of interesting stories about myself, but sadly in most of them I am the cause of other people’s good laugh.

For example, did you know tarantulas can swim? I found out the hard way by going swimming at night. I saw something “floating” on the water and headed over to investigate. When I was within about five feet I realized what it was. My first night in Arizona, welcome!

I tried to move away, but my ability to move in any sort of organized manner left me. The more waves I caused the more the thing rode them to get closer to me. Eventually, as I neared the side I was able to use my sandal to flip it out of the water.

At this point I sighed, safe right? Nope, the ground below her, and I can safely say her (not that I am some sort of arachnid pervert who checks them out) because hundreds, what seemed to be thousands to me, of babies spilled off her back and onto the ground.

I backed away, got out of the pool and decided to swim another day, with a bigger shoe.

And now I have gone off on the aforementioned ramble, so that is over and I can get to the meat of this post which is my collection with Dark Continents.

The title is Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My!

The title is actually a combination of the basic idea behind a three story collection. There is a story titled Welcome to the Future in which a boy makes a choice about genetic alteration with catastrophic consequences. Another story titled The Moonlight Killer (my favorite) is about a man bitten by a wolf, though he bites back with interesting results. The third story is B.I.T.E, about a dysfunctional family that tried to fend on an apocalypse involving giant cannibal squirrels, large cobras with hands, and other unpleasantness.

I wish I could say there was some sort of unifying theme, but like me my stories ramble around my head. They usually have some element of comedy and or horror mixed in. I like to mess around with mythology as well. Not too much so people get mad, but just adding in elements of what if?  Sometimes it works out well, others not so much.

I hope those who have read the collection enjoy it, and those that read this do not think me a total freak.

Suzanne Robb is the author of Z-Boat, released by Twisted Library Press and Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh my! published by Dark Continents. She has over 4 dozen stories in current and upcoming anthologies with various publishers. She is also a contributing editor at Hidden Thoughts Press, and in March Wicked East Press will be releasing Read the End First, an apocalyptic anthology she edited with Adrian Chamberlin. In her free time she reads, watches movies, plays with her dog, and enjoys chocolate and LEGO’s. Visit her blog here at Ramblings of an Anxiety Ridden Mind

OK, so we were talking about music, right? No? Too bad, because I am about to.

Sitting with a glass of cheap chardonnay today, looking out onto a peaceful rural scene, I listened to some great music by Georghe Zamphir. This man screws symphonies and sonatas out of the world’s oldest instrument, made from grass, without fluffing a note. He is remarkable. And it got me to thinking…

Slowly, but relentlessly, the musicians and singers I grew up with, learnt my music from, watched in concert and sang along with are dying. Yes, I realise death is the natural end product of life, but I thought: when they’ve all gone who (or what) will be left? Will today’s crop of ‘musicians’ be remembered after their deaths? I pondered upon this until my wine glass was empty, then topped it up.

Zamphir moved into ‘Don’t Cry for me Argentina,’ arguably one of the saddest songs ever written. As his soft and evocative notes drifted from my whiz-bang stereo speakers I thought of the musical losses this year to people like me. George Shearing, Joe Morello, Ferlin Husky, Pinetop Perkins, Dutch Tilders, Phoebe Snow, Ottilie Patterson,  Lena Horne, Mitch Miller, Eddie Fisher and Monty Sunshine. Just to name a very few.  The super icons like Sinatra and Hendrix have mostly all gone, and most of the rest are teetering on the brink. What will I do when Cohen goes?

So – what am I saying? I’m saying the music in the last 30 years is not memorable, with some exceptions. By and large one cannot dance to it. One flip flops doing a spastic Raggedy Ann thing, often drug-fuelled. Take Rap… none of the exponents of the style actually sing, so how can it be music? They recite their unintelligible and aggressive lyrics, usually backed by a relentless digital bass. Sometimes encouraging insurrection and even cop-killing. Wonderful.

No need to mention the other recent forms of ‘music’ like hip hop, grunge and their ilk. Yelling and mumbling interspersed with electronically-produced boom-boom sounds. Not even real musicians often, now a boom box takes the place of a band. How do you think the classic people would have reacted? They’d have laughed them out of town. And rightly so.

I’m all for progression, for innovation. I moved from Sinatra and Harry James to Bill Hailey and the Comets to Elvis to Dave Brubeck to Cash, Kristoffersen, the Beatles, Pink Floyd and AC/DC. I also enjoy most classical music. Innovation: does that mean one discards sound musical principals? How does one, for example, sing along to a rap song? One doesn’t. Back-a-ways everybody understood the lyrics. Even if parents disapproved of the music, they could understand what the singer was saying. The beat was even and foot-tapping, so dancing was almost an automatic reaction. Ah, music.

So what has all this drivel got to do with books? Well, poetry and fiction are tuneless music, don’t you see? Poems are song lyrics which have not yet been set to music. Fiction the storyteller/balladeer’s bailiwick.  Perhaps we should also be looking at mainline fiction and poetry under the same critical light…

Or perhaps I’m just an old fart.

Biography: 

John was born on October 14^th 1940, in a working class suburb of Lower Hutt in New Zealand. Life as an only child was often lonely, more especially for a “fat kid,” in spite of close family ties and an encouraging mother.

It was a conventional childhood and adolescence, with all the usual desperate issues associated with a post-war, testosterone-loaded young man. Girls, drinking, cars…nothing changes. Working at 15 years old with no academic qualifications meant limited career options, and eventually, after an early unsuccessful marriage, the lure of Australia drew him to that marvellous country. There, on a working holiday that lasted 28 years, he drifted like a leaf on a fickle breeze. He saw a lot of the Outback from the seat of a motorcycle or from behind the wheel of an old 4WD Nissan Patrol, accompanied for twelve of those years by his beloved dog/companion, Mr Mo.

He worked at employment as he found it—selling cars, cooking, crewing on cruising yachts, managing businesses, farming and even a brief stint in Papua New Guinea operating a jungle resort. After a return to New Zealand in 1996, and the cold realisation that at 56 years of age he was unemployable, he began to write. First there was love poetry, then, as time dribbled by, he began to take a retrospective look at his own life. Since meeting up with an English-born woman from Greece on the Internet several years ago, he has been writing short stories as well.

They now share an idyllic life-style on New Zealand’s picturesque Coromandel Peninsula, living in a small rural community surrounded by hills and the ocean.

He hopes to die peacefully one day without warning.

To read his newest short story collection with Tracie McBride, follow the link  APRIL FOOL and other Antipodean horror stories 

 Also available through Dark Continents are his works Blood Curry and Anomalous Appetites

Personal collections:
Man of Stone (poetry 2005)
Rat atouille for the rindless (poetry 2007)
Dandelions to Razorblades (joint poetry collection with American teenager Emily Cooper 2007)
Dare to Fly (joint collection of poetry with American Lori-Anne Grim 2008)
Blood Curry (speculative fiction and poetry, illustrated. April 2011)
Collected Haibun (joint illustrated collection with wife Maureen early in 2012)

Anthologies:
Anomalous Appetites (speculative poetry, illustrated 2011)
Dragon Writers anthologies 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Razar (horror fiction 2006)
NZ Poetry Society anthologies 2006, 2007, 2010
Illuminations (2006)
Black Ink Horror (2007, 2008)
Carnival of Wicked Writers (2005, 2007)
In Darkness We Play (2010)
The Spectrum Collection (2010)
Frightmares (2011)
Phobophobias (2011)

Travel:
Culturewise New Zealand (2007 Travel guide)

If someone had told me a year or so ago that I’d eventually strike up a writing partnership with another author, I’d probably have looked at them as though they had a tree growing out of their ass. And, as unlikely as I’d considered it at the time, a writing partnership did happen. The idea, however, wasn’t new to me. One of my favourite South African authors, Sarah Lotz, has two very successful writing partnerships: one with Louis Greenberg, writing as SL Grey (The Mall, Corvus 2010) and one with her daughter, Savannah, writing as Lily Herne (Deadlands, Penguin South Africa 2011).

I’d had the pleasure of having Sarah and Savannah over for coffee one misty winter’s afternoon, and we discussed how a writing partnership functions. The final verdict was that two heads are definitely better than one when it comes to the creative process. Sarah and Savannah spoke about long walks where they’d throw around ideas, solve problems and often make surprising discoveries they’d have otherwise missed had they been working on their own.

This I came to discover myself when I started working with Carrie. Initially, we’d been focused on getting her debut novel-length work, Crooked Fang, contracted with me as her editor at Lyrical Press, but since we pretty much keep the same hours, we had our “virtual” walks down a number of different paths until we felt we wanted to take a stab at a joint project. By this stage we’d both gained great respect for and a love for the other’s writing. Carrie loved my Khepera novels and I, well… I’m a wee bit besotted with her Xan Marcelles, and I can totally recommend looking up her short fiction. She has a very twisted, refreshing way with words.

Where we complement each other is that we meet each other from opposite ends of the scale. She’s used to writing short, concise fiction whereas I have had more experience with descriptive prose for slower-paced novel-length works. And we’ve learnt a lot from each other!

For our first project, we agreed to take alternate chapters, and we tried this with our initial short release, Just My Blood Type (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/68457) which is available as a free download. Our aim was to test the water to see how our existing readers would react to this sort of offering. Well, a brief glance at the reviews on Goodreads and Smashwords bears testament to the project’s success.

We also put a lot of effort into the cover art, which we conceptualised during a Skype sessions and I then arranged with my visual artist husband (http://dr-benway.deviantart.com). A good friend of mine, Danielle Erkisen, and a very talented graphic designer, handled the typography for us. Just because it’s a free download and a short story doesn’t mean we should skimp on the presentation.

The only complaint we received from a lot of readers was that they wished Just My Blood Type hadn’t been so short at just over 9 000 words. Carrie and I took a bit of a break then, but as it happens, ideas started festering, especially during hours where we couldn’t write. We had one or two false starts which delivered some great material, but it just didn’t feel right, for the next project. One or two marathon Skype sessions later, however, and countless emails, we were satisfied that we had the outline for Blood and Fire. Since both of us have a big release for 2012: Carrie’s Crooked Fang and my Inkarna, we thought it would be lovely to bring the two main characters together in a paranormal thriller.

Many readers are already familiar with Carrie’s smart-mouthed vampire, Xan Marcelles, but Ashton Kennedy, a member of a race of beings known simply as Inkarna, is a bit of a dark horse. When we put the two together, the results were sometimes hilarious but often quite poignant. Overall, Blood and Fire pulled through pretty smoothly. I must thank Carrie for keeping her wits razor sharp when it came to the final edits. We had a few scenes that required trimming. While I kept my editor’s eye on the grammar gremlins, she made sure we kept on track with the story arcs.

When people ask me what Blood and Fire is about, I like to tell them it’s Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The X-Files. We cut loose and had fun, and tried to bring in some sly humour so that the story didn’t take itself too seriously. The snarky banter between Xan and Ash often left me with fits of giggles, which was a definite bonus to the creative process.

Carrie tells more about the behind-the-scenes details at her blog (http://www.carrieclevengerstories.com/2012/01/blood-and-fire.html).

Of course, having Dark Continents Publishing to take care of all the background details, such as dealing with the vendors, is absolutely fantastic, and it’s an honour to be associated with them. Many thanks for having us on board.

Lastly, do follow me and Carrie on Twitter @carrieclevenger and @nerinedorman

Xan’s pretty active there too @crookedfang so tell him I sent you when you do follow him. He’s got a Facebook page too: http://www.facebook.com/CrookedFang

And so do I: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nerine-Dorman-author/173330419365374

GUEST POST BY:
Daniel I. Russell
Author of CRITIQUE

Today is one of the hottest days we’ve had this year here in Western Australia. Rather than spend it writing in my metal garage (madness!), we decided to take the kids fishing to try out the new gear they got for Christmas. We loaded up on sunscreen, cold drinks and hats (even buying me a brand new leather cowboy hat) and headed out to a place called King Trout Restaurant in Pemberton. They have a nice lake and anything you catch the restaurant will clean and cook for you. Unfortunately we picked the wrong day.

The owner informed us that our chances of catching were nil, as the hot water makes the trout lethargic and unlikely to bite. Resilient, we went out anyway, and on my first cast, caught a nice trout. The day was a scorcher and we all had fun. Our final haul was three decent trout and a small marron that we threw back in. We returned to the restaurant and twenty minutes later, I’m sinking my teeth into the freshest fish I’ve ever tasted.

Sorry, hang on. This is supposed to be a post about my latest horror, and not an article for The Angler’s Blog?

Looking at those three chargrilled fish with the staring eyes on the plate, I got to wondering what their day had been like up until meeting my hook. Had they had a nice day? Had they been enjoying the hot climate without a care in the world? A few hours later they’re in my stomach. Sucks to be them.

I thought, again, about morality and food. Horror has often tackled the subject that man is not always at the top of the food chain. Sharks, snakes, wolves, cannibals, zombies…they’ve all made readers think about their own mortality through food. Is there anything more horrifying than not only being killed, but eaten alive?

Let me clear something up. Critique, my newest release from Dark Continents, isn’t a standard chase, kill, eat, repeat story. Far from it.

If you have an advance copy, or are reading this post after the book, avid and observant readers of horror might recognise the names to which this book is dedicated: Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan. I’ve spoken with Paul briefly online at times and enjoy his work. Why have I dedicated Critique to this lovely couple?

A few years ago, Paul and Marie released an anthology, Hellbound Hearts, wherein each story was rooted in the Hellraiser mythos created by Clive Barker. As a fan, I loved it, and admit to being a little jealous. I would have nailed a story for that book! Regardless, I was in the pub the night I finished it, and after a few beers I asked myself, what would I have written about if I was approached? I was stood in front of the menu board at the time and started to think about food. Food, especially meat, is a symbol of morality, of cycles, of life and death. Surely food had potential. Some of the stories had alternate puzzle boxes: a maze, a reel of film, etc. Could a meal be my puzzle box? The further down you probe and devour…the closer you get to hell?

And if morality, why not other feelings? After all, a meal can be sexy or depressing or fun or sickening. I felt I could really go somewhere with this…but it had too much meat, no pun intended, for a short story. It needed to be longer and not contain any of the Hellraiser mythos. It needed to be my mythos. It needed to be the mythos of chef Jacob Enfer and his complicated relationship with restaurant critic Sandy Devanche.

So thank you, Paul and Marie. My idea of a pastry construct being a puzzle box was the spark that birthed this story. However, sorry Hellraiser fans. There isn’t a pin or Lemarchand configuration in sight here.

What you do get is a dark piece about secrets, sexuality, religion, abuse, addiction and let’s be honest, damn good food. Every exceptional dish in Critique can be made…maybe not the way it is here, but it can definitely be made. You might want to try the vanilla floating island…or maybe not.

And I apologise to my regular readers expecting a fast-paced, action packed splatterfest. Critique, like the diners in the House of Jacob Restaurant, is more reserved, a little bit different and hopefully all the more darker for it.

Critique. It’s here to make your life better.

Here’s how it works:

1.  Purchase  either Dave Jeffery’s “Beatrice Beecham’s Houseful of Horrors” or “April Fool and other Antipodean horror stories” by John Irvine and Tracie McBride.

2.  Forward the purchase email from Amazon to us at darkcontinentspublishing2010@hotmail.com with “Win Free Stuff” in the subject line.  Remember to include your name and postal address in case you win (we promise not to send you anything else without your permission).  Also include your preferred first choice of prize.  Choose one from the following:

Paperback copy of “Necropolis Rising” by Dave Jeffery
Paperback copy of “Campfire Chillers” by Dave Jeffery
Paperback copy of “Anomalous Appetites”, edited by John Irvine
Paperback copy of “Blood Curry” by John Irvine
Paperback copy of “Ghosts Can Bleed” by Tracie McBride

Competition closes 31 January 2012 at midnight EST.  And don’t worry if you miss out – there will be more opportunities to win in the coming months.

And the line-up is -

“Blood and Fire”, a paranormal/vampire thriller by Carrie Clevenger and Nerine Dorman.  This novella gives readers a taste of what to expect from Nerine’s novel “Inkarna”, due out from Dark Continents in the first half of 2012.

“A Gentle Hell”, a collection of achingly surreal supernatural stories by Autumn Christian.

“Through a Forest Dark”, a gathering of short stories inspired by the layers of hell from within Dante’s Inferno by Dean M. Drinkel.  Dean is also the editor of Dark Continent’s recent horror anthology “Phobophobia.”

“Beatrice Beecham’s Houseful of Horrors”, a young adult favorite; this is the third book in the Beatrice Beecham series by Dave Jeffery.  Dark Continents recently launched his short story collection “Campfire Chillers” at British Fantasy Con in Brighton.  His zombie novel “Necropolis Rising” is another must-read.

“Along the Splintered Path”, a collection of disturbing stories that explore the dark side of life in the remote countryside by A.J. Brown.

“Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My!” is the satirical yet satisfyingly horrific group of stories that detail the end of the world, told by the master of dark humor Suzanne Robb.

“Critique”, a true horror novella detailing the downfall of a food critic star as he is driven mad by an appetite he can no longer control, written by Daniel I. Russell.  Look out for Dan’s novel “The Collector” out in early 2012 (yes, we’re publishing that too).

“April Fool and other Antipodean horror stories”. What is the definition of antipodean, you ask? Any two places or regions that are on diametrically opposite sides of the earth – the perfect definition to match the two seasoned horror authors of Tracie McBride (from Australia) and John Irvine (from New Zealand). If this collection whets your appetite for Southern Hemisphere horror, then you will also be interested in Tracie’s collection “Ghosts Can Bleed” and John’s “Blood Curry”.

“Slander Hall”, an elegant sci fi/horror novella inspired by the Jonestown suicides by Australian author Matthew Tait.

“The Drunk and the Dead”, a collection of stories that takes an affectionate and humorous yet still frightening look at some our most beloved monsters, by Andy Taylor.

We’ve even taken all the hard work out of it for you by providing links to all the titles above.  So get clicking!

 May it involve venison.

So today being Halloween, and me being a writer of ghost stories, I had a book signing to go to. This one was in Peoria at the Barnes & Noble. I was pretty excited, as I’d never yet managed to get myself into that particular store for a signing before this. So I dressed up in a nice skirt (courtesy of my wonderful sister), a white shirt, and black heels (courtesy of the same sister and our mad shopping trip in September).

On the way to the store, on 74, I noticed a nice-looking (read: not too smashed-up) doe at the side of the road. Now, I’ve been hunting before, and I know how good venison is. Plus, I have the advantage of not being too picky about where my protein comes from. I didn’t have time to stop and check her out before the book signing, so I made a mental note of the place. The signing went GREAT; I sold a few books, made some new friends, and a good time was had by all. In the parking lot afterwards, I transferred the spare tire from the trunk of the Cougar to the backseat. I was ready to go get my deer.

Back on 74, I turned around and came to a stop just in front of the deer. I backed up a bit, turned on my flashers, and carefully got out to see what was what. She was a ginormous doe. Without going into details, she had obviously been hit, but she wasn’t damaged too badly. I took a step back, considering her size. I grabbed a leg and gave it an experimental tug. No WAY was this girl going into the trunk intact; she was just too heavy. I zipped up my leather jacket (I WAS wearing a white shirt, after all), took out my ever-present pocketknife, and started to field-dress her.

I’d gotten her unzipped up the front, and was starting to fiddle around inside trying to get the windpipe down far enough to cut it out, when the state trooper pulled up. He coasted to a stop and put his disco lights on. I (quite sensibly I thought) put my knife down and kept my blood-covered hands where he could see them.

Now, I don’t get dressed up very often, so when I do, I tend to forget that I’m wearing really nice clothes. Like heels. And a skirt. At the side of the highway. The trooper got out of his car, and I smiled. “Hi there!” I said brightly. “I found this nice roadkill doe — I’m not the one that hit her — and I’m just field-dressing her so I can get her into my trunk.”

The trooper shoved his hat up on his head. “I gotta tell you, this is not what I expected to hear when I got out of my car.”

“Well, it’s true.” I gave him my most brilliant, oh-I-do-this-every-day smile.

He said, “Hmm. Why don’t you just sit tight for a minute, and I’ll call this in.” So there I was, sitting on the guard rail, legs crossed ladylike at the ankles, my skirt waving just a little in the slight breeze, hands covered in blood, while a cop car idled mere feet away from me with its lights going.

I can honestly say that I have never been in a situation quite like that before.

After a (long) while, he came back. He gave me the song-and-dance about having to go to the DNR website to report having taken a roadkill deer (which I already knew about). I said I would. Then he said that he was just a little worried about me field-dressing a deer at the side of the road. “You never know which car is going to be driving along with some kids in the back seat, and they’re gonna look out and see you cutting Bambi’s guts out.”

Heh. Snerk. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I mean, oh, officer, I hadn’t thought of that! Do you suppose you could help me drag her down off of the road just a bit? He went and got a pair of latex gloves out of the squad car (cough*wuss*cough) and helped me drag her down there. Then he got back in his car and drove off, leaving me to my work.

I got the deer field-dressed (and darn, that’s hard to do when it’s just you). Finally I dragged her back up to the car and opened the trunk. I snagged my phone, and that’s when I saw that I had missed a call from Rob. I called him back.

“Hi honey. I’m almost done. I just have to get her into the trunk, and then I’ll be on my way home.” I struggled womanfully with the deer, trying to get her up and into the trunk. Even without her innards, she was still over a hundred pounds of dead weight.

“What was that? I didn’t hear you. Say it again.” (Somehow I missed the muffled giggles at that point.)

Unbeknownst to me, Rob was out at lunch with some friends of ours, and had just put the phone on speaker. And that’s how the entire lunch crowd at Steak-N-Shake heard my next words.

“I just don’t know how murderers DO this! I’ve already got the plastic bag down to line the trunk, but I just can’t get her in! Goddamn, she’s HEAVY!”

I decided that the deer wasn’t going to get lifted into the trunk if it was just me doing it. I eyeballed the distance from the ground to the trunk, and from the ground to the front seat. “I’m tempted to just shove her into the front seat at this point.” I took the plastic garbage bag out of the trunk and laid it across the passenger seat. By this time, Rob could hardly breathe. “Just strap her in with the seatbelt!”

“That’s the plan.” Great minds really DO think alike. “I need both hands for this. I’ll call you back.” Just before I hung up, I heard Rob yell, “I SO need pictures of this!!!”

I dragged the deer over to the passenger side. That’s when I realized that with the guard rail in the way, the door didn’t open very far. At all. I had very little leverage, even less than when I was trying to manhandle the carcass into the trunk. I pushed and shoved, but I just couldn’t get her into the front seat, which was more than a little disappointing to me. I had already been looking forward to having really unusual company on the drive home. At this point, if someone else had stopped, I was fully prepared to yell, “Now what did I TELL you was going to happen if I heard the phrase ‘are we there yet?’ ONE? MORE? TIME?!?!?!?” But no-one stopped, so the joke was lost.

So the deer wasn’t going into the front seat either. I decided to go with Plan C, which was to drag the deer back to the trunk, then stand there looking forlorn until someone stopped, then ask them to help me.

Plan C actually worked. After another (long) while, another police car pulled up, a sheriff’s deputy this time, and turned its lights on. He got out of the car, and I said, “Oh, am I glad to see you!” (In a new situation, I like to take the initiative.) “I’ve got this deer all field-dressed, and I’ve been trying to put her into the trunk, but she’s just too heavy for me to get her in all by myself. Could you possibly help me?”

The deputy looked me up and down. In addition to my still-blood-covered hands, I had streaks of blood all down my shins from where the deer had leaked on me while I was dragging her from the trunk to the side of the car, and back to the trunk. “I gotta tell you, that is not what I expected to hear when I got out of the car.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot today. A little help? Please?”

He pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and took the hind legs. I cradled the deer’s head, and together we heaved her into the trunk. “Have a nice day.”

Disclaimer: This is not Sylvia's deer. This is some other crazy American lady's deer. (Tracie)

“Thanks officer!” I shut the trunk and got back into the car. Back on the road, I turned the radio on. There was a classical greatest hits tape in the player, and I hit seventy listening to Strauss’ “Blue Danube Waltz”. Oh yeah, there’s nothing like listening to the Beautiful Blue Danube when you’ve got a dead deer in your trunk.

I got home with no further incidents. I pulled into the driveway, and Rob unloaded the deer from the trunk, plus he hung it up for me to butcher. What a guy. I strongly considered leaving the garage door open while I cut up the deer — hey, it’s Halloween, and what better way to freak out trick-or-treaters, amIright? — but I was good, and shut the door.

Now I have a freezer full of nicely processed deer meat, and the dogs are looking very primal gnawing on their leg bones. And yes, I did change out of my nice book-signing clothes before I went out to the garage to butcher.

And yes, Rob did get pictures.