Monster’s Ink Book Launch

BY: S.L. SCHMITZ

It was a dark and stormy night…

OK, not really. Let’s try again… it was a foggy and rainy night… Definitely getting closer, but not quite doing justice to the event.

How about: It was a little drizzly out and S.L. Schmitz needs to buy a Garmin, because she spent way too much time lost trying to find the elusive Sylva, NC and the fabulous Scott Nicholson’s December 21, 2011 book launch for Monster’s Ink.

Yep – that’s about right. Blame it on the rain and the highways…

Before I launch into some bad cowboy song, I just wanted to everyone to know that Scott Nicholson’s new story compilation from Dark Continents Publishing is called Monster’ Ink, and it is officially available wherever books are sold. This is not available on E-book, people – this is the real thing. A real book with a spine and paper sandwiched in between two illustrated covers. Don’t be frightened, folks – books are here to stay. The only thing left to fear is the excellent content and chillifying tales of the master himself – Scott Nicholson.

Be forewarned, because Nicholson’s stories have a way of creeping around the corner and peeking at you through the keyhole. They are treacherous, and luminescent, and shining in a light that is not quite golden. Well worth the journey, for those who enjoy a story that leads them down a twisted path…

I included a few pictures from the event, held at the gracious City Lights Bookstore in lovely downtown Silva, NC. The town really is quite nice, once you battle your way through the misty mountains and the odd sense that you have reached a place where few have feared to tread (sounds a little Tolkien, doesn’t it? Alas, no Hobbits here, unless you count the children roaming City Lights in search of bookstore cats and bedtime stories). We met new friends, had a little wine and cheese, and Scott signed a few books. All in all, a most successful evening.

For those of you desiring to obtain a piece of ghoulish history for your very own, please take a moment and order any one of the three new books that are currently available; Monster’s Ink via Dark Continents Publishing or one of those other (best selling) books from Thomas and Mercer Publishing called Liquid Fear and Chronic Fear. Pretty, pretty books that you can hold in your hand and read at your leisure… there is such luxury in the holding of bound paper in one’s hands. Won’t you step forward and join the cool kids who still own bookshelves? After all, friends may come and go, but the books spilling out of every nook and cranny in your rooms will last forever…

http://www.darkcontinents.com
http://www.citylightsnc.com

PURCHASE MONSTER’s INK HERE:

http://darkcontinents.com/2011/12/19/802/

From London, with love

BY: S.L. Schmitz

What do you call a room full of Hellraiser Cenobites, a line of people, a megastore in downtown London, and a brand new anthology from Dark Continents Publishing? The December 9, 2011 Phobophobia Book Launch, that’s what!

The high profile book launch was hosted by the famous Forbidden Planet Megastore in Picadilly Circus, London, and the event was a huge success! Authors at the signing included Adrian Chamberlin, editor Dean M. Drinkel, Wayne Goodchild, Jonathan Green, Greg James, and S.L. Schmitz.

In addition, Dark Continents Publishing was honored to have Barbie Wilde, the Female Cenobite in the movie The Hellbound Heart from the Hellraiser film franchise, contribute a story to the Phobophobia Anthology – and than we were even more honored when she brought along some friends to the book signing! Cenobites Doug Bradley, otherwise known as Pinhead, and Nicholas Vince, The Chatterer, came to visit and stood patiently in line to have their copies of Phobophobia signed. They were really nice guys, too, which made the experience even more special.

After the Forbidden Planet launch, everyone gathered up their signing supplies and headed over to the London Bridge area to the British Fantasy Society’s gathering at the Mug House Pub. There, another rousing round of launching and signing occurred, and two lucky people won copies of Phobophobia in a drawing. Interim BFS Chairperson Graham Joyce and newly ratified BFS Chairperson Lee Harris were there, and they both congratulated Dark Continents on the successful publication of Phobophobia. Author Paul Kane, also a contributor to the anthology, showed up later in the evening.

The Mug House was still full of people at last call, at which time editor Dean M. Drinkel rounded up a bunch of friends and led the way to a private after-hours club. After a few hours of dancing, drinking rum and Cokes that cost £10.50 each (that’s $20 American dollars per drink, for those of you that need a conversion) and listening to really bad drum machine music, a few hearty souls known as Dean, S.L. Schmitz, Ade Chamberlin, Greg James, and Fiona Ní Éalaighthe went in search of good curry and good 5AM conversation.

Everything that happened after that is top secret to protect the innocent. See you next time at the next fabulous Dark Continents Publishing book launch!

Much to say by a man of few words

BY: Dave Jeffery

I love writing. But, guess what? I love reading too. To paraphrase Stephen King, you can’t expect to write well if you don’t read wide.

I believe this, wholesale.

After all, the nuances of horror can occur in the most conservative genres. Take Chapter Twelve of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, which – coincidentally – talks of the death of a local, esteemed writer whose viscera is disrespectfully dumped into a gulch by the doctor-come-embalmer, only to have a young kid use the liver for chum and the intestines dragged through the streets by a mangy cur. The horror of the human condition in the images conjured by Steinbeck as human guts become playthings for the living, has stayed with me for many years.

But I have found that the idea of a contemporary literary icon creating such a ghastly image is, perhaps, alien to the general masses. It is a great illustration as to how the broadening your reading can have influence on your output as a writer. And, as such, the stories that you write.

It has been said that I am able to say much with only a few sentences. Not my words, but those of reviewers of my work. I take this as a complement like no other, and again attribute this to Steinbeck’s influence in books such as Cannery Row and Of Mice and Men. The latter book runs at approximately one hundred and twenty-one pages in the edition I own, but those few pages create atmosphere and define characters that would stay in the minds of multiple generations in a way no six hundred page opus ever could.

Such is the power of the word. Such as the power of reading wide.
“So where are you going with this, fella?” I’m hearing folk say. Well the link is perhaps tenuous yet it is still a link. And the link is the use of few words to tell tales.

The link is the short story. See? Seamless. Well, not quite but it does allow me to talk about the imminent release of my Campfire Chillers collection at October’s Fantasy Con 2011 in Brighton, UK.
The book contains thirteen stories of ghosts, horror and the supernatural. It was originally written with the UK Scouting Association in mind, but that particular organisation turned it down, despite their praise for its content, because they felt it was “too unsettling” for their readership.

Bless.

Instead, DCP took it on, shaped it sprinkled their magic on it and “pow!” – it is now ready for Fantasy Con 2011. I have tried to use few words to tell tall tales, using the breadth of contemporary fiction to inform the darkness with those pages DCP have lovingly pulled together. It is my homage to my hero, a kind of Frankensteinbeck, if you will.

Now that the release date for Campfire Chillers is almost upon us, I can’t help but see possible pasts becoming plausable futures. I’m sure Frankensteinbeck would have something to say about that as a concept.

Only a few words, mind.

DJ

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