Three quick things

Hey–like the title says. Three quick things:

1) This entire website is being revamped. I’m hoping to shift to the new, Weebly-powered site in a week or two, once I put the finishing touches on it. It’s purty.

2) Fun stuff happening with the new writings–the play, Grave Lullaby, is cast and has begun rehearsals. The new website will have a dedicated page where I’ll post pics and short videos. Potentially exciting stuff on the Charley Cross front as well, but not the sort I can share with you yet.

3) I’ve got two October events scheduled with the Bismarck Downtown Artist Cooperative: on Oct. 12th we’ll be screening both Cornerboys and The House of the Yaga as a Halloween extravaganza. Ali LaRock and I both will be there. And on the 19th I’ll be doing a fiction reading in front of a creepy, Halloween open mic. Come on out and enjoy.

More stuff later. Just that stuff now.

A Nation of Geeks

Hi folks

I’ve been in a sort of enforced blogginating silence, as I’ve been spending computer time working diligently on two projects which have deadlines I’d like to keep. Charley Cross and The London Dead, which I’ve been working on for quite a while, is rounding the corner into the final stretch, and hopefully I’ll make the self-imposed deadline and get it drafted, revised, and off to agents by mid-September or so.

I’m also making headway on the play, which has a real, outside deadline. I’ll be holding auditions soon after school starts in late August, so it’s got to be finished by then. I’m about forty pages in, or little under half-way. The working title is “Gravestone,” but since that’s stupid I’m sure I’ll change it. So far, we’ve had some creepy teddy bears. And runaway girls. And nosy neighbors. And possibly the ghost of a baby.

I have a lovely little writing room in the new house, and it’s a real pleasure to work on these new things here. So, I should be writing those things and not yakking at you.

BUT–I wanted to make sure I caught you up on a couple of things. The biggest is that both of the films that Kevin, Ali, and I made are now being featured on the new extravaganza clearing-house for all things awesome: GeekNation. I had the pleasure of meeting and sharing a mercy table with Clare Kramer (Buffy and a host of other cool shows/films) at last year’s Valley Con, and after seeing our films she invited us to be part of the new site she was launching. That site was GeekNation, and as a result, you can now check out Cornerboys and House of the Yaga over there. We’re in pretty spectacular company. If you don’t believe it, spend some time looking around the site. For a geek like myself (especially a Buffy/Firefly/Dollhouse geek) it’s pretty cool to be amongst the folks featured there. We’re uptown, y’all.

Other things coming up–nearly a year after being accepted, my story “Dark Gonna Catch Me Here” will be in the July issue of Weird Tales. And “Singing by the Fire,” a ghost story with rattlesnakes, will be all over the place this October; it’s going to in an anthology called Hunting Ghosts from Black Oak Media, and on October 5th will be featured on Pseudopod, the horror podcast.

And if you missed it, my story about the horrors of middle school, “How Jordy Went,” is in the Summer edition of the cool online ‘zine Mirror Dance.

So that’s what’s going on. I’ll pop back in soon to give you some updates on progress. If I tell you, it keeps me working. Here’s a picture of my new house.

Front left in the writing room. Walk by, and I’ll wave.

Goblins in Strasbourg, or, Cornerboys Goes to France

Robyn Cnockaert

This is my lovely friend Robyn. I met Robyn in 1999 while we were both in the masters program at Western Carolina. She was a member of a writing group with me (along with Typecast founder Jen Woods, poets Brian Henderson and Chris Boss, and others), the only real successful writing group I’ve been involved with. Robyn is Scottish, but lives in France since marrying a charming son of that country, our friend and fellow WCU alum Benoit. She teaches in an international high school near Strasbourg.

This year Robyn built an entire unit around Cornerboys. She taught Goblin Market, and talked about how inspiration leads to creativity, except she said it more cleverly. Over the course of eight months or so, the students read the Cornerboys poem and then watched the film, sent email questions to Kevin, Ali, and I, and finally created 3+ page magazine articles about Cornerboys and the creative process.

Students working on Cornerboys projects

Some of the final projects

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week ago Friday, the class chose the top three projects, and Robyn emailed them to me for judging. The prizes were Cornerboys art prints and buttons sent by Ali LaRock. I spent the weekend reading them and chose a winner. They had an awards ceremony this Thursday. I skyped in to the classroom on Thursday morning and talked with some of the students about the projects and answered questions about our films. (I didn’t skype into the awards ceremony, ’cause it was at 3am my time. France starts early).   I have to say this is the coolest thing that Cornerboys has been involved in. The film team felt very honored and humbled to have these bright and talented students across the ocean spending so much time thinking about and responding to our work. Thanks, Robyn! And thanks to the students in her English class!

A student using this very website!

Playing Around in Creepsville

Feeling dramatic in Much Ado About Nothing, 2007

In the past three years I’ve published a novel, an edition of a Victorian vampire story, two academic essays (with a possible third coming up), and a fistful of short fiction and poetry. I’ve also written and narrated two short horror films and made plans for a third. I’m currently over halfway through my next novel, and have plot sketches for two more laid out. I’m working on an essay about Charles Dickens and Joe Strummer which I’m hoping to finish this month. So, obviously, looking at the level of production I’ve put myself under over the past thirty-six months, the natural question that arises is this: why haven’t I written a play?

I love theatre, have a degree in it actually, and even though acting is fun (see pic at left), I always preferred directing. I got to direct The Importance of Being Earnest at UMary in 2008, and it was loads of fun. I haven’t done that since, due to various other commitments, but I’m up for it again this year. I’ll be directing the fall theatre production at UMary, and I can’t wait.

Me with the cast of Earnest, 2008

So what to direct? I had a blast working with the highbrow silliness of Wilde, and then spent a while writing a novel steeped in a very similar type of silliness. I want to go in another direction with this production, and those who know me will know there’s really only one other place to go: creepsville.

There’s a dearth of creepy plays, unfortunately. I’ve looked at several good ones (Wait Until Dark, The Woman in Black, Transylvanian Clockworks, The Haunting of Hill House, Macbeth), but none of them quite fit the bill for a variety of reasons. I may direct Woman in Black or Hill House in the future, if the university ever improves its theatre space (which was designed by folks who clearly never did theatre or music). For now though, I gonna write my own.

So that’s a heads up. I’ll probably be occasionally talking about the play here, working through important process issues like “why did I think I could write a play?” And important technical issues like “how can I make the walls bleed in a believable manner?”

The production will go up in November. So the summer will involve finishing the next novel (Charley Cross and the London Dead, presently a little over half done) and writing a play. The play is sketched out already, inspired by a small but unsettling event that happened to my wife and I a decade ago. It has been embellished beyond that small event into something that doesn’t resemble me or my family at all (thank Dickens), but instead is about loneliness, alienation, dead children, lost graves, real estate, and the things you can find at the bottom of a river. No title yet, but some pun on the word “grave” is likely. My hope is that the whole thing feels like the video for a Tom Waits song directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Or at least that it doesn’t suck. Stay tuned.

Yaga Marching

She'd love to have you for dinner some time...

Quick update on some YAGA related stuff–

House of the Yaga played at the Nevermore Horror Film Festival in Durham, NC in February. Composer Kevin Smith was there represent, and so he got firsthand notice that we WON: the audience chose House of the Yaga as Best American Short Film. We’re really honored by this, because it was audience-chosen and because we were up against some really great films.

We’ll also be screening in Bismarck on Friday, March 30th as part of the first annual Dakota Digital Film Festival. Both Ali LaRock and I will be there to answer questions about the film. This is a great new festival run by Dakota Media Access. They’re hoping to make it a recurring thing, so come out and support them. Full-day passes are $15, which is an insane low price for a festival. I’ll be emceeing the first part of the day, but don’t let that stop you.

Also–by request from the DDFF, we’re taking Yaga down on this site and making the YouTube version private until after the festival next Friday. It will go back up for public viewing once the festival’s over.

Hopefully more news to come. Yaga is just getting started.

WINNERS!

Hi everybody–

I’m very excited to announce the winners of the Barking Mad blog tour giveaways!

First, the special giveaways that ran on indiviual blogs on various days.

• Winner of a signed copy of Barking Mad: Tiffany Mahaffy!
• Winner of an audiobook copy of Barking Mad: Deb (no last name given)!
• Winner of a signed set of four character cards: Bonnie Regan!

Congrats to each of you! You’ll be getting an email with more info, and your prizes will be in the mail forthwith!

And now, the winner of the GRAND PRIZE PACKAGE (I’m using my best Don Pardo voice here). The prize package includes a signed copy of Barking Mad, a signed set of four character cards (1 each of Mimsy, Pelham, Arabella, and Reggie), an audiobook copy of Barking Mad, a signed poster with a quote from the novel, AND a DVD copy of my short film Cornerboys, signed by me and artist Ali LaRock. It looks like this:

Can you believe the werewolfy goodness on display here?

There were nearly five hundred entries over the course of the three week tour. And the winner is:

CAITLIN AUDET of Orlando, Florida!!!!

( cheers, stamping feet, confetti, airhorns, dancing elves)

Congratulations, Caitlin! I’ll be putting the prize package into the mail with my own hot little hands right away. And thanks to everyone who participated in the tour.  And BIG BIG thanks to Kismet Book Touring, and Heather and Danny, the two guiding angels over there. It was a glorious three-week celebration of Reggie and everything that goes with him. It’s been the highlight of my year so far.

“Spring” Break

It’s spring break at the university where I teach. In typical North Dakota fashion, this means that the long-delayed winter (it’s been freakishly warm here for most of the winter months) has finally arrived. It’s -2 right now, and though that’s still mild for ND, it is much colder than it’s been. And the snow is here. I don’t mind it really–I like the snow and the unseasonal warmth felt weird–I merely point out the continuing use of the misnomer by the university in calling this hiatus anything to do with spring.

The blog tour is over. We’ll be announcing the winners of the grand prize package and the three smaller giveaways right here at some point tomorrow. We had nearly five hundred entries, which is nice, and lots of good comments, reviews, and new fans, which is even better. I’ll thank them properly tromorrow, but just know that there can’t be enough good things said about Heather and Danny at Kismet Book Touring. Friendly, efficient, and professional. They’ve got a Goodreads group you should check out.

Writing updates:

I took a month-long break from work on the next novel in order to write two academic essays which were under contract deadline. Douglas Adams once said that he loved deadlines; he enjoyed the “whooshing” sound they make when they zoom past. He’s not wrong. I did get my essays in, and only a few days late each. One is on the parallels between Carmillaand the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In, and one is on the intersection of steampunk and hip-hop in Professor Elemental’s The Indifference Engine. The Professor Elemental essay will be in a collection called Steaming Into the Victorian Future, coming out later this year from Scarecrow Press. I’m not sure of the publisher of the vampire collection, called The Ultimate Vampire and appearing, I believe, in two volumes. I’ll let you know the details when I get them.

So I’m jumping back into writing fiction. I’m waiting to get feedback from a reader on the first half of Charley Cross, and in the meantime I’m revising an older novella for a collection of short fiction that should be out later this year. This will pull together eight or nine stories, some previously published and some not, along with a few poems and other pieces of what-not. Late summer or early autumn, most likely, is when this’ll be available. It will most likely be available only as an e-book, and it will feature a brand new Reggie Spiffington story.

Reading updates:

I’ve recently read Scott Westerfield’s YA steampunk Leviathan trilogy (Leviathan, Behemoth, and Goliath). Rolicking good reads, filled with adventure and steampowered walking machines and whaleships. Alternative-history WWI with a great female protagonist. I really enjoyed them. After that I re-read Howards End, ostensibly because I’m going to be teaching it in a few weeks, but mainly because it is so very beautiful. I come close to tears every time I read it, just from joy at the writing. I read an E.M. Forster novel every year, and Howards End is possibly his best, though Passage to India is a contender. I’m now reading Nicole Peeler’s Tempest Rising, which I’ve wanted to check out for a while now, and am gearing up for the Dickens bicentennial reading. I think I’ll do Bleak House. Gwyn will be doing Dickens with me, but I don’t know if she’s chosen hers yet or not. You, my friend, should read a Dickens novel this year. It can only do you good.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow is the prize winner announcement. Drop by and see what you won.

A Dickens of a Tour So Far

We’re three days into the Barking Mad blog tour, and I’m having a grand old time, y’all. The dates are on my Calendar page, so come join in. The cool thing about a blog tour is that it stays there–you can visit any of the stops any time you want. In addition to the blogs that have already featured Barking Mad, Heather at Bewitched Bookworms, my Friday stop, has already posted a great review which you can see here.

Yesterday was Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday. I owe a lot to Charles Dickens, and had a great time surfing through the many tributes that abounded yesterday. I’m teaching Oliver Twist right now, so I also got to spend an hour talking about Dickens and plot and influence.

Most years I do a public reading of A Christmas Carol, and the experience of speaking the man’s words is one I highly recommend. Dickens is one of the most masterful narrative voices I’ve ever encountered–a sure hand at the tiller, always certain and always in control. His plotting is meticulously crafted, his humor sharp and fresh. The way the man uses third person limited point of view is revelatory, cinematic fifty years before there was a cinema. Indeed, some say Dickens was a progenitor fo the cinema in much the same way that he invented Christmas, and those statements are exaggerations only so far as everything about Dickens was exaggerated. Every contemporary novelist owes a debt to Dickens, whether or not matters of style make it obvious, and I as much or more than many.

I’m not going to say a whole lot about him here, not because there’s not anything to say, but because I’m going to write a full-length essay about Dickens and London and me and Joe Strummer later this year. That will make more sense when I write it. But I did want to acknowledge the Inimitable, and tip my hat to him as one of the truly great storytellers, of this or any age. Happy bicentennial, Charles Dickens. I’m proud to stand in your shadow.

Prizes! Fun! Books! Spiffington!

Things are hopping around here–getting ready for the three-week tour that starts Monday. I’ve been packing, making hotel arrangements, digging out my passport…

Okay not really. It’s a BLOG tour. The best kind, really. I can tour in my pajamas, sitting at home and visiting with good folks all over the place. Fifteen intrepid book bloggers have agreed to host me and my little book during the month of February. Some of them will interview me, some of them are letting me write guest posts on various subjects: the perfect Barking Mad playlist, what it’s like writing in a different time period, what’s up next for Reggie and Pelham. And a couple of brave souls even undertook an interview with Reginald Spiffington himself. He was kind.

AND there’s prizes. Anyone who shows up at a stop on the tour and comments on the post will be entered into a drawing for a GRAND PRIZE SPIFFINGTON EXTRAVAGANZA. The prize package includes a signed copy of Barking Mad, four character cards signed by me and Ali LaRock, a hand letterpressed poster of a quote from the novel made by Firecracker Press, a code for a free download of the Barking Mad audiobook, and a signed copy of the Cornerboys DVD. It’s a good-looking set of prizes.

Audiobook not pictured, but it sounds as good as this stuff looks…

I hope to see every single one of you somewhere out on the tour. This is a great group of bloggers, and if you like books you should really get to know them and spend some time on their sites. Good reviews, lots of giveaways and author features, and some geuninely good folks who love books. And, I think there’ll be some surprise giveaways at random stops on the tour as well. You’ll have to watch for that.

All the tour dates, along with links to each one of the blogs, can be found on the Calendar page. Hop on over and see what’s up.

See you next week!

Look What I Did! (2011 Wrap-up)

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

So, it’s a tad after the turn of the year, and I suppose I should have looked back and recapped some time on Saturday. And I did look back on Saturday, I just didn’t stop by to tell you about it. But since you can’t be late to your own party–Imma do it now.

2011 was a really busy and fruitful time, y’all. I’m a little shocked at how much happened since this time last year. The biggest event, surely, was the publication of Barking Mad, my first novel, which came out from the beautiful folks at Typecast Publishing in June. I toured throughout the month of July in support of Barking Mad, and during August and September recorded the audiobook. So I spent most 2011 with Reggie Spiffington and crew, and they are a lovely bunch of folks to spend time with.

The other big project was the creation of a second film with my ocassional partners Ali LaRock and Kevin Smith. We’re now calling ourselves Cornerboys Studios, mainly because our Facebook page for the first film has too many fans to change the name. The new film, House of the Yaga, came out in October and won Best Animated Film at the Fargo Fantastic Film Festival.

Smaller things, but just as exciting: fiction accepted to Weird Tales (!), Pseudopod, and Underneath the Juniper Tree  and poetry accepted to Dissections, Inkspill, and Strange Horizons. I wrote several short stories this year that haven’t sold yet as well, so fingers crossed for them this year.

And lots of readings, a radio interview, and a guest spot at ValleyCon. All good, fun stuff. I’m having a ball.

Here’s what’s coming up this year:

1. New novel–Charley Cross and the London Dead. I’m a little over 45,000 words on this, which will probably end up in the neighborhood of 80-90,000. It’s very different from Barking Mad, but still combines lots of things that I love, notably Victorian London, girls who kick ass, and the walking dead.
2. New film, probably. The third from the Cornerboys team. I have a fairly clear idea of which fairy tale we’ll darken and twist, I just need to find the time to write it and then send it to Ali and Kevin.
3. Recording some music–Blind Mice material that needs to be put on tape, as well as a new song I wrote for a band in one of my short stories. Yeah,  I know. But I like it.
4. Two academic papers that I’ll work on during January and February. One is a comparison of Carmilla and the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In, and the other is an examination of steampunk rapper Professor Elemental’s album The Indifference Engine.  So FUN academic papers. Both of these have already been accepted to anthologies and so have deadlines. Deadlines are a good thing.

And I’m sure many other projects and events. Keep checking in here for info.

I suppose I should talk a little but about what great books and music I encountered during 2011 as well. Perhaps tomorrow?