Review of Cursed Objects--Beware, this book may be cursed...or not.

 

I own Mr. Ocker's book, Poeland, and I really enjoy his humor and his deep research into his subject. (Poe, if you weren't able to guess.)  Although I still liked his humor, I felt he was having to stretch to have enough cursed items to fill a book. At one point, he says there aren't that many cursed items out there. (Haunted items and cursed items are two different things.) There is a chapter on things that ought to be cursed, but aren't. Even the chapter on cursed items sold on ebay didn't garner too many examples.

Maybe he should have put out a nationwide notice. "Who out there has cursed stuff?" A friend of mine's great-great grandmother survived the Chicago fire as a little girl, but her family lost everything. A lady, who also lost her house, gave her a ceramic dog to play with. The dog was pockmarked and blistered from the fire, but the child kept it and handed it down from generation to generation. Everybody in the family who owned that dog through the years had their house catch on fire. Cursed? I'd say so!

There's probably a gazillion things out there in families that are believed to be cursed. Mr. Ocher should make a general shout-out for cursed stuff, then use his humor to make a book. Maybe call it Cursed America. I'd buy it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Quirk Books for this digital ARC.

The only thing wrong with this book is the title.

 A couple of years ago, I saw Michael Dahl, the writer of middle-grade horror, at the Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc. conference in Oklahoma City (first weekend in May, if you're interested.) He said horror for middle-grade is huge and they can't buy enough of it. With that in mind, I've been reading some middle-grade and YA horror. 

Of Salt and Shore, by Annet Shaape, is a good book for a ten-year-old (or thereabouts) who wants scary but not too scary. In it, what we think of as monsters turn out to be good, and the people who are supposed to care and protect us, turn out to be monsters.  The folks in the freak show are good and kind, even though they get stared at for a living. Mermaids are lovely but they bite. Even humans without supernatural magic can create with their hands, like Nick, who always builds with wood something that people and merboys don't know they need until they have it.

But, does the title convey the magic, the pirates, the horror, and the existence of mermaids? It's a lovely book but I don't think a kid looking for mermaids and mermen who bite will pick it up based on the title and cover.

There is some child beating which can be disturbing. As I said, some of the humans are more monstrous than the monsters. Most of the humans are good, though, and willing to help the protagonist, Lampie. 

If you're interested in writing middle-grade horror, try a book like Of Salt and Shore because there are limits to how much you can scare kids. This seems like just about the right amount of scares.

A big thank you to Charlesbridge Publishers for this digital ARC copy of Of Salt and Shore.

Where the Wild Ladies Are from Soft Skull Press

 Where the Wild Ladies are has to be the most unique collection of ghost stories I've ever read. The ghosts are sometimes pushy, sometimes annoying, often exasperating, usually surprising, and occasionally fed up with people. Some of the dead are way happier as ghosts than they were when alive. Almost all of the stories have a surprise including one where you think the ghost sleeps and patrols with her cat...but it turns out to be something entirely different.

Another surprise is that after reading a few stories, you start to realize they're interconnected, so read from the beginning to the end since characters in stories reappear in others. 

If you're tired of scary stories where you can predict everything that is about to happen, try Where the Wild Ladies Are. You don't know what frightening is until you're confronted with two lady salespeople ghosts who refuse to leave your house until you buy a peony lantern (that you really don't want)  from them.

The author, Aoko Matsuda explains, at the end of the book, the ancient Japanese ghost stories these were based on. Her stories, though, are updated. These ghosts are not putting up with the crap ghosts of the past endured.

Thank you to Netgalley for the chance to read and review a digital ARC of Where the Wild Ladies Are.

Review of The Lost Village or The Protagonist Should Have Planned Better

The Lost Village is a book I both did and didn't like. It would probably make a good movie as there were plenty of jump scares--strange figures seen in the night, strange sounds, people falling through floors. Isolated place with no phone signal. The final, virginal girl, or in this case, two.

Nine hundred people in an old mining village go missing. The great-granddaughter of one of the missing enlists a former friend who is a film-maker, the money man who is financing the expedition, the film-maker's boyfriend, and another relative of a survivor into coming with her to scout out the abandoned village for a documentary. The protagonist suffers from depression, was never successful like the other film school graduates, and thinks this documentary will be the key to her success.

All right so far. But, Alice, the protagonist, doesn't seem to know a lot for being a film school graduate.. Her goals for the five days were rather slipshod and she didn't know her rented camera took videos in addition to still photos. I began to realize why she was the least successful student in her film classes. I'm not a film student and I can tell if a camera takes videos or not.  Alice mostly accidently discovers stuff instead of having a plan. 

Of the five people in the group, two are on medication for mental problems and they both happen to be women. Why, in the books I read, is it always the women who are suffering? The two men seem happy as clams, although I don't know how happy clams really are.

So, the protagonist spent a bundle on rented vehicles and camera equipment but doesn't seem particularly prepared. Her former friend takes over and we're supposed to resent this as does Alice. But, geez, Alice didn't get her act together before the trip.

I like strong women in my books and Alice wasn't it. There were other strong women, especially Elsa who is in the background story, but the protagonist just let things happen to her. I also figured out who the culprit was and where the villagers disappeared to long before the characters did.

There were characters who I felt sorry for like Brigritta who had autism, characters to dislike like the over-the-top minister, but, except for Elsa in the backstory, the characters were mainly blah.

It would still make a good movie because people fall through floors on a regular basis. But, in a movie the rusty fire escape will have to break and somebody will have to swing on it, hanging on for dear life. I wonder if they need a script writer? I'm on a roll here.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's for the digital advance reader copy.

Review of The Hollow Places-----Humorous Horror

T. Kingfisher's novel, The Twisted Ones, was one of my favorite books from last year, so I was excited to get this review copy from Netgalley and the publisher. I wasn't disappointed. T. Kingfisher writes the best characters. Except for the spooky killer characters, and/or the annoying spouse, these are people who you'd like to know. They're just odd enough to make them interesting and endearing. 

Although I'd like to hug the characters, there are frightening and chilling "things" and victims of the "things" that are a constant and dangerous menace. 

There were times I foresaw what would happen. For instance, I guessed the evil object creating the havoc before the protagonist did. But, the humor (Kingfisher is very funny) and the fun characters (even the cat is fantastic,) and the peril more than make up for the fact the sometimes the reader is ahead of the game.

 I love both The Twisted Ones and The Hollow Places. I look forward to future Kingfisher novels.

Review: James Lee Burke's Private Cathedral

For older guys who have soaked their brains in alcohol for decades, been shot, beaten, blown up, kicked in the heads, and tortured, detectives Clete and Robicheaux are in fighting shape. Not only that, but Robicheaux must have a closet full of Viagra because, for an old, depressed, fried guy, he has no trouble getting on with gangsters' wives and girlfriends. When will Clete and Robicheaux ever learn? How have they lived this long?

Why am I writing about a James Lee Burke novel, A Private Cathedral, when I normally cover horror? Because every once in awhile, Burke's books feature ghosts, demons, dead Confederates, and figures that may or may not be of the imagination. Sometimes the denizens of the night are in Robicheaux's mind, but everybody seems to be seeing the Medieval lizard-man who rides a sea-going galleon rowed by the damned. Who is this torturer from the past and is the Louisiana mob in the hands of the devil?

It takes two frayed, soused, haunted, depressed detectives to take on the demon.

One of the things I've always liked about Burke's books is that they describe the wet, the humid, the rotting and the beauty of the swamps and bayous in such a way that you feel like you are there. I've lived in the deep South (I know, I know, I've lived a lot of places) and there is something spooky and supernatural about it. Burke is good at bringing out the reasons the deep South feels cursed As William Faulkner said, "The past isn't dead, it isn't even past."  Burke's Louisiana books, including Private Cathedral, are full of the atmosphere that the past isn't past.

Review: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse.

I was walking my dog in a park once when I saw three or four crows throwing a black rag around, taking turns picking it up and tossing it.  Bear with me because this has something to do with Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. Getting closer, I saw that it wasn't a rag, but was a black kitten.  I chased them off, and caught the kitten , which wasn't easy since my dog was with me.

The crows had pulled the kitten's chin off. I took her home, named her Voodoo, had her for many years, but she never grew back her knobby little pudge-ball of a chin.

So, when you get to the crow attacks in Black Sun, believe it because those beastly things will pull your chin off in a heartbeat. Or pluck your eyeball out. Ugh.

I've read Ms. Roanhorse's books, Trail of Lightning and Storm of Locusts and enjoyed them very much. I used to live across the San Juan River from the Navajo Reservation and that area means a lot to me. At first I was a little sad that Black Sun wasn't in the Southwest like her other books. . And, although I like strong women characters, there was a woman sea captain and women sea captains seem to be a thing now. Gosh, I think I've read four books with women ship's captains in the past twelve months.

Although I got off to a slow start because I thought it was yet another fantasy with a woman captain, after a bit I really got into the story, and cared about the characters. The crow boy's childhood was almost too painful to read. Everybody inflicted physical and mental pain on him.. He grew up to be extremely gentle and a vicious killing machine. This is where the crows come in. You do not want to get on the wrong side of a killer with crows. There is a reason they're called a "murder" of crows. They will rip your chin and other body parts off before you can get a broom to swat them. Being gutted by a crow. Geez, what a way to go.

I even grew to like the woman sea captain, even though the seas are swarming with female captains now.

Read this if you like strong women, murderous women, a murderous crow boy, and murderous crows of all sizes, some humongous.  And keep your face mask on. You never know when a crow might go for your chin.

Thanks to Netgalley and Saga press for this ARC of Black Sun.

Review: The Awkward Black Man by Walter Mosely

I normally review only horror, but Netgalley and Atlantic Grove were kind enough to send me a digital copy of Walter Mosely's short story collection, The Awkward Black Man. I hadn't read Mosely before and I am greatly impressed by his sensitive, unique, and soul-searching stories.

But, since I do review horror, I'll stick to three interesting stories where Mosley strides into the speculative.  In one, Cut Cut Cut, a little, wizened Black man, who happens to be a mad scientist with an underground lab, attempts to create a demi-god race. Unfortunately, the bodies stack up in his attempts.

In Haunted, a man who wrote 1000 short stories without ever having one published, grows to hate the editor who rejected hundreds of his stories, that after he dies his hate stays on as a ghost.

Another story involves the transmigration of souls. In The Sin of Dreams, a huckster rap promoter becomes the unlikely head of a bio-firm that can transfer the souls of dying billionaires into younger bodies.

All of the stories are worth a read. They are fresh, original, and Mosley comes up with thoughts and questions that I haven't seen in other writing.

Want to write a short story?

I've had some luck getting short stories published and winning a few contests. Want to try your hand at writing a short story? The best selling author of Rodham tells you how in this New York Times article..
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/at-home/coronavirus-fiction-writing.html?searchResultPosition=2

Have you written a short story? Join the author live on the NYTs and you might get a chance to read your story on air. All the details are here:

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the novel “Rodham” and the story collection “You Think It, I’ll Say It” and the guest editor of the 2020 “Best American Short Stories” anthology. Join Ms. Sittenfeld on Thursday, August 6 at 6 p.m. Eastern for a conversation about writing. Share successes and tips and get help overcoming roadblocks. Send your first sentence to athome@nytimes.com with the subject line “My Short Story” and it may be read live. Visit timesevents.nytimes.com for event details

Purrfect Face Mask for a Horror Writer

 My friend demonstrates the proper way to wear a face mask, although he thinks he is at little risk for catching the coronavirus.

        Sophie approves of this face mask, though she thinks Siamese cats would be prettier.


We know we need to wear face masks, but they'd be more fun if they said something about our personalities. Since I've had minor (very minor) success at horror writing, I thought black cats would be the right touch without terrifying children and causing them to run away.

I bought these familiars (with stars and crescent moons on their foreheads) from the etsy shop Birchtreetextileart. She makes all of these herself and they're comfortable and a nice quality. The cost is $8.85 and shipping is free.

Since masks should reflect our personalities, the next mask I buy from Birchtreetextileart will be covered with BATS!

Review of Greyfriars Reformatory

I sat up all night reading this. Is there any more to say? I'll say something else. Dilemmas, death, adventure, fight scenes, evil parents, evil building, evil boyfriends, everything is gray, gray, gray, and there is a butterfly. What more could you want in a ghost story?

Written by Frazer Lee and brought to you by those fine, fierce folks at Flame Tree Press.

Whatever you do, stay away from crime so you don't end up in Greyfriars Reformatory. 

Review: For He Can Creep

For He Can Creep is a charming and magical story where a group of cats defeat the devil. Loosely based on a real poet who had only his cat for company in an 18th century lunatic asylum. A perfect story for cat lovers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

So, is this horror? Cats are fighting the devil to save the soul of their poet. Comedy, too. The devil's wig plays havoc on it's own. A really wonderful story. 99 cents on kindle. Fantastic cover art.

Review: You Are Invited

Picture Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House set in the internet age of influencers and online tip jars. Set in the ruins of a nunnery in the mountains of Romania, You Are Invited does homage to the classic that came before it. A lonely young woman who was made insecure by a emotionally sadistic mother. Strangers who come together in an remote ruin where odd and unexplainable things happen. Is it mental illness or do evil spirits exist? All of this was found in The Haunting of Hill House.

Ms. Denzil, the author takes the bones of the classic and then makes them her own. Once Cath, the protagonist, arrives at the nunnery, a new fright happens on almost every page.  Wolves that may or may not be supernatural prowl the grounds. A dark shape that may or may not be benign stalks Cath. The other members of the party may be your friends or they may be lying and playing tricks. Cath was damaged by her mother but is trying to find a way out, different than the damaged young woman in Hill House that ended up staying the only way she knew how.

The taxi ride to the nunnery seemed a little long, but once she got there the story was a real page turner. I read the book all through the night and the sun was coming up when I finished it. I enjoyed it and hope to read more books by Ms. Denzil in the future.  Thanks to Netgalley for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review of A Flame Tree Book of Horror: After Sundown

Often, when you read an anthology, some stories are good, some great, and some are so-so. The stories in After Sundown are consistently good and some reach the really creepy stage. The best stories, to me, are the ones we can relate to because we've all been there. I won't try to tell you about every one of the contributions, but the scariest to me was the last one, "Branch Line." It was two things I think we've all been subjected too: unwanted and uncomfortable sexual attention (especially when an adolescent, when we don't have experience in handling situations) and, secondly, the feeling that something, or someone, strange is following us. Stories about vampires or flesh-eating butterflies can be exciting, but they're never as creepy as something weird we've all been through.

A spellbinding, and mostly original group of stories. Thanks to Flame Tree Publishing and Netgalley for an advance reader's digital copy.

Review of Voodoo Heart

If you realize you're going to get stereotypes in Voodoo Heart, then you'll be all right with the novel. The detective is a typical police detective from the old film noir era--drinks too much, has lots of sex with various married women, drinks some more, has grumpy co-workers, drinks some more, and stays hungover.

I got hungover just reading about the copious amounts of alcohol this guy and his dates poured into their guts. 

Then you have the stereotype of New Orleans and Voodoo. It seems like you can't have a novel about The Big Easy without having voodoo as the main component. 

If you go into this story realizing it's full of stereotypes, then it's a rousing adventure full of murder and voodoo. Lots of people enjoy the muchly used hardboiled detective trope.

Some unfinished threads that didn't get tied up nicely. Where'd his grumpy co-workers vanish to? We know but we don't know. Why are men described as either fat or skinny, but women are described in graphic detail including descriptions of their breasts and public hair? 

Graphic sex including sex with a snake, inanimate objects, and supernatural beings. Graphic violence and it's aftermath. Enough drinking to make your liver look like a Brillo pad just reading about it.  But, a fast and adventurous read.

Another flash fiction win with Crystal Lake Publishing

Nothing cheers a person up like having a submission accepted or winning a contest. So, keep writing and sending stuff out! You can't be published if you keep your writing to yourself.

My flash fiction story, Cribs, won this month's Crystal Lake Publishing's contest on their Patreon page. 68 stories were entered, 18 made the finals, and mine came out on the top. Wow, I really needed that.

A little advice on writing, written by me, will be in Crystal Lake's upcoming newsletter, and the story itself will appear in a future volume of Shallow Waters, an anthology of horror flash fiction by Crystal Lake. Look for a story of mine, Thelma Takes the Devil, in Volume 4 of Shallow Waters, and two of my stories will be in upcoming volumes of Shallow Waters. Only 99 cents on Amazon. Go for it!

Review: Stoker's Wilde West

Once again authors Prusi and Hopstaken put Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde into precarious situations as vampire hunters. Outrageous you say! Of course. That's what makes it so fun. The novel is cram-packed with Old West figures such as Bass Reeves and Calamity Jane, all adding their heroics to the quest of killing vampires and closing the gate to the Realm...or is it really the gate to Hell?

There are plenty of heroic women, not wallflowers waiting for their men to come home. Mrs. Stoker is a force to be reckoned with, there are female spies and guard with the White Worm Society, an organization researching and stamping out any supernatural evil. And Calamity Jane...what more can be said?

Authors have to be brave to take on one of the most famous wits in history. Prusi and Hopstaken do a pretty good job with Oscar Wilde.   Some of their history is a little off and people who don't know won't know. Theodore Roosevelt hated being called Teddy and his friends and relatives called him TR. The book also says the brothel madam Ah Toy was kind. She was actually brutal, letting ill prostitutes die in unheated shacks with no food when they'd outlived their usefulness. She liked to sue people , too. Sued them a lot.

But, that doesn't take away from the adventure. I'm a history nerd and picky. A small gripe is that there is a lot of passive verbs in the novel. They can be tightened up.

My small gripes are not enough to keep you from reading Stoker's Wilde West. Read the first book, Stoker's Wilde to know what's going on with Bram Stoker's blood and other background story.

Holy Crap!

Okay, folks, I can't believe I haven't posted since April. I'm gonna be honest. Every once in a while I go through a severe case of depression. I withdraw into my own world, so the lockdown with coronavirus has been typical for me--life didn't change too much. I'm going to keep plugging on, try to catch up with things, and get more writing done.

Lots of writers suffer from depression. It's hard to get help when you're broke (as so many authors are) and/or live in a small town where there's not a psychologist in the entire county, but there is something to the cliche "Find your tribe." My writing critique group keeps me going, the occasional sale cheers me up. Though the lockdown my writing group keeps meeting on Zoom.

Something like that isn't the cure for everybody, but we have to keep trying. Life is too short to live it in gloom.

Great tips on self-editing from the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/smarter-living/how-to-edit-your-own-writing.html?algo=random&fellback=false&imp_id=519429509&imp_id=182397775&action=click&module=Smarter%20Living&pgtype=Homepage

Midwest Book Review Likes Kudzu Stories

Midwest Book Review has a great review of Arterial Bloom. Being vain and selfish, I've snipped out the part that covers my story, Kudzu Stories. Arterial Bloom has some great reviews from This Is Horror, Midwest Book Review, and the iconic horror magazine, Cemetery Dance. Here's the snippet about Kudzu Stories:

 Contributors to this anthology are diverse in their approaches, plot development, and themes, and so under the general 'horror' umbrella there is no unifying purpose other than to gather works that are truly exceptional.

Take, for example, Linda J. Marshall's 'Kudzu Stories'. In the hot, stifling heat of summer, Jenny can hear the kudzu growing (it's an invasive species known for its lightning-fast development, but here, that attribute assumes new forms). The meat of the story lies not in kudzu's reputation for astonishing expansion, but Jenny's magical connection with it, which leads to some deadly surprises and a strange interpretation of love. But, note that this promises kudzu stories, not a singular production. Kudzu thus plays a role in the dark purposes and perceptions of not just Jenny, but Clarice (married to suffering war veteran Roy) and Trish (who lives on the wrong side of the levee in a house on stilts).

 

The atmosphere of the South is captured by poetic references to kudzu and the weighty feel of a night in which "...that old alligator...goes boom all night long. It thinks it's singing." (Or, is the kudzu making that deadly noise?) 

Buy Arterial Bloom now from Amazon.com  13.99 for the paperback. 3.99 for the kindle book. From the best indie publisher of horror, Crystal Lake Publishing.

Let me try again!

I forget to make the link clickable for Lanternfish Press. See post before this for submission guidelines. https://lanternfishpress.submittable.com/submit/161699/spring-2020-call-for-submissions

Call for Submission April 15 2020 deadline

Lanternfish Press has a call out for novels and novellas in the gothic and speculative fiction veins.
April 15 deadline. Their webpage has all the details. Here's your chance to get that gothic tale told!

60,000 to 95.000 words for a novel.  20,000 to 40,000 for a novella.

You can do it! Link below.

https://lanternfishpress.submittable.com/submit/161699/spring-2020-call-for-submissions

Cemetery Dance Reviews Arterial Bloom

Cemetery Dance has a nice review of Arterial Bloom. Read my story, Kudzu Stories in this strange and brooding horror anthology. Edited by Mercedes Yardley. From Crystal Lake Publishing, the finest in indie horror.

Here is the snippet from Cemetery Dance's review:

"The stories in Arterial Bloom work in tandem, enticing the reader into rapturous melancholia. The end result is both comforting and unsettling, my favorite way to feel."--Sadie Hartmann, Cemetery Dance

This Is Horror review of Arterial Bloom

Wonderful news! This is Horror, a respected review of everything horror, from books, to movies, to TV and streaming shows, printed a nice review of Arterial Bloom. This horror anthology has my not-to-miss (in my opinion) story, Kudzu Stories. After reading Kudzu Stories, you may not want to sleep with the window open.

The editor, Mercedes Yardley, is a Bram Stoker award winner for her novel, Little Red Dead. The publisher, Crystal Lake Publishing, has won multiple Bram Stoker awards, the highest award in the horror genre.

Arterial Bloom is available from Amazon.com.  13.99 for the paperback. 3.99 for an ebook. 
https://www.thisishorror.co.uk/book-review-arterial-bloom-edited-by-mercedes-m-yardley/?fbclid=IwAR1D8bNo-VwCnBb_TM_gVGLrpqZ30QELt4JjEuE-TFIWsTI2VA-D_Eb1hEg

The Procrastinating Writer

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/smarter-living/tips-to-stop-procrastinating.html?algo=random&fellback=false&imp_id=818045671&imp_id=899685036&action=click&module=Smarter%20Living&pgtype=Homepage


Are you the type of writer who would rather do laundry or clean the kitty litterbox rather than write? It's not that you're lazy. You're nervous about your writing. This interesting article from The New York Times tells you have to get over procrastination. It focuses on two writers, Douglas Adams who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe and Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale.
So writers, you know this was meant for you.

If you have trouble putting off that short story or novel, take a look at this dandy article.

Preorder Arterial Bloom!

It always looks good to get a bunch of preorders. That's one way they judge the success of a book. So, here's your chance!  Arterial Bloom, a fantastic anthology of short horror, is coming out April 2, 2020 from Crystal Lake Publishing. Available for preorder from Amazon.com. 13.99 for paperback. 3.99 for ebook.

My short story, Kudzu Stories, is in this. In the Midwest Book Review, the story was singled out for recognition.

If you like horror, you need this book! Why? It's good, it's inexpensive, I'm in it, and if you look closely at the cover, there is a little snail amongst the ooze. What's not to like?

Preorder now and make the writers, the publisher, and me happy. And the little snail, too.

https://www.amazon.com/Arterial-Bloom-John-Boden/dp/1646693108/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=arterial+bloom&qid=1583953846&s=books&sr=1-1

A Blurb From Richard Thomas

Richard Thomas is a fantastic horror writer and a nice guy. He's also a great teacher. A friend of mine has taken classes from him and he's been an invaluable help in her writing career. I'm happy that he's added a blurb to the upcoming anthology I'm in, Arterial Bloom. Out March 3, 2020!

And here it is, but two of them, because I'm a doofus when it comes to computers and if it can be screwed up, I will screw it up.

Thank you, Richard, not for my screwing up but for the blurb.

150,000 dollar prize for novel written by a woman. What are you waiting for?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/books/carol-shields-prize-fiction-women-writer.html

A $150,000 prize for a best novel written by a woman to encourage more writing and publication of books by women. Get your novel engines running!

It Helps a Writer to Have a Large Vocabulary. Reading Helps Make That Large Vocabulary

Anu Garg on words

“A large vocabulary is like an artist having a big palette of colors. We don’t have to use all the colors in a single painting, but it helps to be able to find just the right shade when we need it.”

The True Horror Story in a Writer's Life

What next? Book burnings?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/16/missouri-could-jail-librarians-for-lending-age-inappropriate-books-parental-oversight-of-public-libraries-bill


The Missouri Congress wants to jail librarians if they let minors check out books like Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. A friend of mine said Slaughterhouse-Five was required reading when she was in high school. Now, a librarian can be arrested for letting a high school student read the book. What will we have next? Book burnings in the street?

My Winning Story for Free at Flame Tree Press newsletter!

Here is your chance to read a marvelous (in my opinion) winning horror story, Skin Deep, written by the marvelous (in my opinion) writer, Linda J. Marshall who shares the same name as me.

Every month Flame Tree Press, our horror friends in London, has a flash fiction contest for horror and science fiction. They give the theme and writers write because that's what writers do.

You, too, could win this! Subscribe to their newsletter to see each months' themes and then write, write, write!

Meanwhile, read my story. The theme was Slaughterhouse. It's the second story down.

https://www.flametreepress.com/newsletters/flame-tree-fiction-newsletter-slaughter-pirates-2/

The State of Science Fiction and Fantasy Genre Magazines Today

This is a in-depth investigation into the state of Science Fiction and Fantasy magazines today, including the ability to pay writers and staff. It's a little long, but if you are a reader or writer of genre fiction, you'll find this interesting. Good news and bad news, but the best news is that there are still a lot of readers and some healthy magazines out there!

This is on patreon but it's a free article to read.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/sff2020-state-of-32729082?utm_source=Jane+Friedman+%2F+Electric+Speed&utm_campaign=44f8716b19-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_30_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b84a4334ba-44f8716b19-332644641

So Much Better Looking Than in the Movies

       

                                             

        Now, this is how witches ought to look. This painting is by David Gardner, 1775. and it's
The Three Witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth. I played one of the witches (don't remember which one) in a high school play and the drama coach put us in gray rags and white greasepaint, which took about a week to wash off. The greasepaint, not the rags. I'd play one of the Weird Sisters all over again if I could look like this. Of course, I don't exactly look like I did in high school.

Think about this as a writer. We picture the three witches as old and ugly because the movies show them like that. But, what if they weren't? What is they were old but pleasant? Young and adventurous? Why are they living in the wilds of Scotland all by themselves anyway? There is so much more to this story than Double, double, toil and trouble. Can you think of the story behind the Weird Sisters of  The Scottish Play?

Love this quote from Ray Bradbury

It's the story of my life.

Any writers hanging around out there?