Although I can’t say I agree with all of the PSA’s fatherhood.org has put out, these I found particularly meaningful. Enjoy.

More on this later. Quite interesting!

Over at Permuted Press, they’re releasing some great new books, especially some dark, apocalyptic fiction. I’m going to be doing some interviews with a few of the authors/editors there so I hope you’ll take the time to check out their work. Last week I interviewed author, Kim Paffenroth. Today, please welcome author, Brian Easton.

————

To start, can you tell me a little about yourself?

Well, I'm originally from a small town in southern Illinois. My father was a minister, as was my grandfather, my brother, two uncles and two cousins – this is my pedigree. My exposure to spirituality and faith-based phenomena cultivated a lifelong interest in the religious systems of the world, but it was the occult that I've spent more time studying than anything. In 1984 I began a research campaign into the occult, and majored in socio-cultural anthropology to that end. I'm also obliged to tell you, lest anyone think I've spent my life with my nose in a book, that I've trapped wild boar in Tennessee for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, been a cowboy in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains, and worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad across Colorado and Utah.

How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?

My mother gave me her old manual Royal typewriter when I was about ten years old. I immediately tore out a piece of spiral bound notebook paper and wrote my first story on it. I was a "monster kid" in the 70's. I loved the Wolf Man and Frankenstein and the Mummy, so that's what I wrote about. Oh, and I made whole typewritten comic books of my own super heroes.

In my twenties I decided to compile a bunch of my short stories into a three-ring binder. I cleaned them up, filled in the gaps and called it a book. By the time I was 30 years-old I'd written six manuscripts with the same characters and ongoing story. I sent some of them to random publishers, not knowing then what we all know now, that publishers ignore unsolicited manuscripts. It wasn't until 1999 that my girlfriend (now my wife) encouraged me to get serious about my writing. She introduced me to Print-on-Demand Publishing. The costs were minimal compared to what I'd seen from vanity presses, and I thought that if I could just get my stuff out there maybe a publisher would notice me and offer to take me on. I ended up self-publishing two novels, first in 2003 and again in 2008, and they both won Independent Publisher awards. Last year Permuted Press contacted me and offered me a contract for both books, so I guess the plan paid off.

You have a new book coming out, Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter. Tell me what inspired you to write this?

Autobiography is the first book I was telling you about, except it used to be called: When the Autumn Moon is Bright. Remember those homemade comic books I mentioned? One of them featured two monster-hunting superheroes, a werewolf hunter and vampire killer. I've always been infatuated with werewolves, so I think it was only natural that I developed the Werewolf Stalker character. He became Sylvester Logan James, the central figure of both books.

I think my earliest inspiration for a werewolf hunter goes back to my father, because he absolutely hated the whole idea of werewolves. I remember when I was nine or ten; I had Power Record's "The Curse of the Werewolf," one of Marvel Comics old 70's horror titles. I was listening to the 45 and following along in the comic when my dad overheard the narration and turned off the phonograph. He didn't like all the talk of curses and evil, and he saw the werewolf as a hateful, demonic creature, so he confiscated the record. I still remember the conviction in his voice as he explained to me why I couldn't listen to it. It didn't stop me from liking those things, but it made a lasting impression.

I have a keen interest in dark fiction. Tell me how you would classify this novel and what’s dark about it?

Dark is my middle name, and this book (and its sequel) definitely falls, four-square into that category. In fact, one reviewer said the sequel was, "Much, much darker in tone than the first book in this series, though you wouldn’t think that could be possible." As far as I'm concerned, dark fiction is about more than a high body-count, and gratuitous violence just doesn't cut it; you have to create and sustain an atmosphere. As I see it, there are two basic sources of darkness – the world we see and the one we don't. Some horror novels use crime and human depravity to create their darkness; others focus on supernatural entities and powers. What I've tried to do is merge that human corruption with those diabolic agencies, and showcase the dark side of everything from religion to relationships. The book is written from Sylvester's point of view and Sylvester has a very haunted and dark-turned mind. Sylvester harbors an internecine hatred for the Beast (werewolves), the kind that burns people up from the inside. It's the very foundation of his life, and that by itself makes for a frighteningly dark world.

You quoted Nietzsche when you described the main character to me. He sounds complex. Tell me about him.

Yes, I was referring to Nietzsche's quote: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." This describes Sylvester's condition to a tee. Because here's a man who has always wanted to be honorable and decent, and yet can't really afford to be because he has this blood-feud with the Beast. He goes through periods where he accepts his own evil as a necessity, and then turns around to resume his struggle to be something better than he has become. I think that's what keeps the character, anti-hero that he is, from becoming an all-out villain…he may do horrible things but he is never at peace with them. If a protagonist loses the readers sympathy, it won't be long before he loses their interest as well, and when that happens they stop reading. This is the most delicate line I have to walk with Sylvester, and the idea behind it is that even a bad-guy can be a hero if he's going against someone or something even viler than he is. That gives me some latitude with the character because I see the werewolf in the same terms my dad did. It also gives me a chance to pit the two kinds of darkness against one another.

This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something you’re particularly fond of.

This is the piece I used for the frontispiece of the book before it was re-issued:

"What are we running from, Logan?" Samantha shouted through her tears. "I'll tell you everything later—I swear I will! But please don't ask me now. Just hang on to Josh." The road to the cottage was patched with ice, and despite the truck's four-wheel-drive capability, I could feel the tires slipping. I slowed down as much as I dared. A single peal of metallic thunder rumbled from the roof of the cab as it buckled inward. Samantha screamed as the truck fish-tailed side to side, narrowly missing the embankments. My fight with the steering wheel was handicapped by the Colt, which I refused to release. The windshield had split into a "V," and the maddening screech of talons against painted steel made my blood run cold. I regained control of the truck, smashed the .45's barrel into the overhead bulge and pulled the trigger. The report exploded inside the cab and shattered the back glass, but it didn't stop a demon's claw from bursting through the roof! As the monster fished for prey through ruptured steel, the truck careened out of control. Sam huddled with Josh against the passenger door. Her eyes were ablaze in terror at the sight of the werewolf's groping limb. I fired in repetition at the arm and the more vital areas at the other end of it, covering the upholstery in a steaming blood bath. The road ahead curved, but the truck continued its broadside slide. There was neither time nor opportunity to react as the earth dropped off beneath the wheels. The last things I was aware of were upside-down trees, and Samantha crying out my name.

What can we expect from you next? Is this the beginning of a series?

It is. As I've said, Permuted Press contracted with me for my first two books. The second, Heart of Scars, should also be available this year. I have a third installment in the series in mind, but I won't be starting on that until the first two are up and running again. Beyond that I want to do a prequel that covers the life of Sylvester's mentor Michael Winterfox.

Where can we find you on the internet?

My website is www.hauntedjack.com, and that contains information and updates on the novels. You can also find me on Facebook under Brian P. Easton, I update that more regularly.

Who would you say your primary literary influences are?

HP Lovecraft is by far my most prolific literary influence. He remains the only author I've read who has the ability to get under my skin and into my head. On the other hand, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is my favorite book of all time and represents my other favorite genre: the western. Cormac writes extreme violence as if it was verse, and depicts scenes of atrocity with such grace that it's almost poetic.

————

Brian, this sounds right up my alley. Congratulations on finding your way to a great publishing house (I hope I get that lucky!) and thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions. I certainly hope I can have you back for the next book in the series!

I’m a complete victim of the 80’s. From time to time I pine for the days of cheesy videos, big hair, and acid-wash jeans. So here at Random Musings, I’ve declared it Thompson Twins Day. Enjoy!

Over at Apex Book Company, they’re releasing some great new books, especially some wonderfully dark fantasy. I’m going to be doing some interviews with a few of the authors/editors there so I hope you’ll take the time to check out their work. Last week I interviewed Sara M. Harvey and earlier this week was Maurice Broaddus. Today is editor, Jennifer Brozek.

————

To start, can you tell me a little about yourself.

I am an author, award winning editor, award nominated RPG writer and small press publisher who should probably sleep more than she does. I’ve been a full time freelance writer for 3.5 years and have never worked harder in my life. I can’t decide if I want to be Neil Gaiman and Stephen King’s unholy literary love child or a clone of anthologist editor Ellen Datlow. I’m married, have three cats and over one thousand books. In general, I consider myself a wordslinger and an optimist—which you kind of have to be in the publishing industry.

How long have you been writing/editing and how did you get to this point in your career?

I have been writing since the early 1990s and have been a professional author and editor since the year 2000. To get to this point in my career, I took a leap of faith in November 2006, quit my tech job and spent a year “just writing.” During that year, I met up with a freelance tech writer who got me an “in” at a big corporation who uses freelance tech writers all the time. I learned how to do that on the fly while I wrote more than 330,000 words of fiction that year—half of which was published in the following year.

The editing came later when I had the idea for my award winning anthology Grant Pass (Aug 2009, Morrigan Books). Turns out I had a knack for editing as well as writing and many projects came along for the ride. Now, I split my time between all of my loves: writing, editing, and publishing. I’m a bit like a Swiss Army knife in the publishing industry.

You have a new anthology out, Close Encounters of the Urban Kind. Tell me what inspired you to put this together?

In June 2010, I have a horror collection, called In a Gilded Light, coming out from Dark Quest Books. It is a collection of horror and supernatural vignettes. One of those vignettes is called Snipe Hunting. I had a “what if” thought wondering what would happen if someone sent a city boy on a hunt for a snipe… and he found one… and it turned out to be an alien? It got me to thinking about how urban legends would change if there was an alien encounter component to the story. I chatted with the idea with Apex Publications owner, Jason Sizemore, and he liked what he heard.

I have a keen interest in dark fiction. Tell me how you would classify this collection and what’s dark about it?

I don’t think you have any worries with Close Encounters of the Urban Kind being dark fiction. It very clearly is. There’s a lot of scary urban legends investigated with an even darker element of the alien encounter. While I do have a couple of nicer stories in the anthology, that is just to bring the reader up towards the light a little before I plunge them back down into the dark. There is a high body count, several stories that I wouldn’t read at night and, did I mention the alien clowns? Seriously. Evil alien clown.

You are exploring urban legends in this in addition to alien encounters. Give us a hint as to some of the more popular urban legends you explored.

The biggest thing I wanted to bring forth was that when urban legends or aliens are concerned, there is no safe haven. The most popular urban legends in the book are the ones that deal with people being chased in their car of having something evil in the car with them: the ax murderer in the backseat, the gang initiation, the mysterious black SUV chasing you, being kidnapped in your car and running over something living. People spend a lot of time in their cars and feel very safe there. I liked the idea of removing the car as a safe haven. Other urban legends involved strangers in the house or breaking into the house— again destroying the safe haven.

Was this a particularly difficult anthology to edit?

Honestly, no. It wasn’t. Not once I figured out two things about the overall arcing themes of the anthology. First, every story had to be about or start with an encounter. There are no prior relationships between the human encountering the alien in the setting of the urban legend. Then, as most urban legends grow from mere encounters to full stories of why the ax murderer was in the backseat, I turned reading the anthology into a journey. The beginning stories have no explanation at all. The middle ones have some explanations. The ending stories give a lot of detail on why things are happening.

The hardest part about editing this anthology was rejecting certain stories—not because they weren’t good—but because they did not fit the encounter theme of the anthology. I sent a couple of those stories up the line to Jason who published them in the April 2010 companion issue of Apex Magazine.

This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something you’re particularly fond of.

This quote comes from Jennifer Pelland’s story, The Invitation, and it has stuck with me ever since I read it.

"Everything comes from something, Daniel. Urban legends come from folklore and myths that were once born in truth." She stabbed at her floral flannelled chest, her expression pleading. "I've merely made the connections. Why can't it be everyone else who is wrong?"

Sometimes, the craziest people among us are the ones that know what’s really going on.

What can we expect from you next?

Quite a lot actually. This is a big publication year for me.

May 2010 – Shanghai Vampocalypse – Published by Savage Mojo, this is an RPG book using the Savage Worlds rules. The year is 2048 and high tech Shanghai is about to meet a supernatural monster of its own creation. If one vampire is a monster, eight million is an apocalypse.

May 2010 – The Little Finance Book That Could – Published by Lean Marketing Press, this is an autobiographical book on what I did to get out of debt and stay out of debt. It has my ten rules for getting out of debt and five principles of financial responsibility.

June 2010 – In a Gilded Light: 105 Tales of the Macabre – Published by Dark Quest Books, this is a horror collection of stories from me where I take common events and twist them into something dark and horrible. There is a high body count and most of the people I kill off are my friends. Every reviewer has admitted to nightmares or uneasy sleep after reading this collection.

September 2010 – Beauty Has Her Way – Published by Dark Quest Books, this is my next anthology. It is about women across the ages using all of their assets to get what they want. This is not a heroine’s book unless she knows how to do bad in the name of good. Beauty will have her way…even if she has to get down and dirty to do it.

Where can we find you on the internet? Blog? Twitter? Web site? Book trailer?

I live online. 100% of my work is due to the internet. You can find my portal at www.jenniferbrozek.com. I blog over at Livejournal and I twitter under the name JenniferBrozek. Finally, I am on Facebook as an individual and I have a fan page. Feel free to add me to your FB, LJ, Twitter feeds.

Any final comments or thoughts you’d like to convey that you haven’t covered?

I am a big supporter of small presses. Every company I mentioned is a small press and I publish my small press magazine, The Edge of Propinquity. I would like to encourage everyone to support their small presses, the people who work there and the authors they publish. Our supporters and our readers really are a deciding factor in whether or not we eat, pay bills and can afford to go to conventions. Please think of your small presses when you go looking for something new to read. We do appreciate it.

—————

Jennifer, you do, indeed, have a busy publishing year ahead of you and I agree about small presses. Everyone should support them. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions, I really appreciate it, and I certainly hope I can have you back for future works! I want to know what else you plan on dreaming up!

Results are in (see below). I’ll blog about this later.

Over at Permuted Press, they’re releasing some great new books, especially some dark, apocalyptic fiction. I’m going to be doing some interviews with a few of the authors/editors there so I hope you’ll take the time to check out their work.

First up, Kim Paffenroth.

————

To start, can you tell me a little about yourself.

I'm a professor of religious studies and at first I wrote theology books. But even in those, there was kind of a dark side – sin, theodicy, evil, doubt, that whole looking into the abyss thing. And I also wanted to look not just at scriptures and narrowly theological works, but at pop culture – movies and novels that affect more people than just believers. So I wrote Gospel of the Living Dead, a look at Romero's zombie films and their moral outlook and their critique of our society. And that made me think it was time for me start writing my own zombie fiction.

How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?

That's a really convoluted journey. I wrote a lot of fiction when I was in middle and high school. My mom died when I was 14, and that made me write even more, I assume as an outlet for a lot of the anger and hurt I had. I'm sure none of the writing was any good, but it was useful for what it was, at that point in my life. But when I went to college, I stopped from the first day I got off the bus in front of the dorm. I just didn't need to anymore right then. Instead I read everything I could, and kept on reading through grad school and my years of teaching. And somehow it was all preparing me for another crack at writing in middle age. I never could've planned it that way, but I'm glad it went the way it did, as I think the lull and the absorption and fermentation of all those ideas over a couple decades made my writing better (not that I say it's any good – but it's better than it would've been).

You have a new book just out, Valley of the Dead. Tell me what inspired you to write this?

I've been fascinated by Romero since I saw Dawn of the Dead in its theatrical release. When I read Dante in college, I found it matched up with a lot of the questions I was having about God and grace and evil at the time. So maybe it was inevitable the two come together – first in my analysis of Romero's films (which draws heavily on parallels with Dante), and then in this version of Dante (which draws on Romero's zombies as analogous to Dante's damned).

I have a keen interest in dark fiction. Tell me how you would classify this book and what’s dark about it?

Boy, that's hard, 'cause I think people sense and respond to different kinds of darkness. In other words, there's plenty of killing in this book, and then that gives way more to torture, sadism and cruelty – and I guess most people would call those things "dark." But for me, as I was writing it, those became (as I think they do in Dante's poem) just the landscape of Hell – you take them for granted. What for me was dark (and was an addition to Dante's original, though I'm willing to bet not totally unfair to him and what he went through in his real life), was seeing a man of profound faith come to the edge of losing it, to see him consumed by doubt and anger, until he repeatedly wishes he could just sit down and die. And I don't know that he ever regains his faith: he keeps a faith in beauty and love, he even gets back a little faith in humanity, but I didn't want to make it clear cut at the end that he's fully at peace with God, after what he's seen. There's a reason we use the phrase "child-like faith" – it's because it's the kind of faith we don't have as adults, but that faith we have as adults is a sometimes a grim, dark, most unsatisfying affair.

This book draws from Dante's Inferno. Tell me about that.

What I take away from Romero are three main things that I see meshing perfectly with Dante. First, both men are incensed against the society they live in (as are the Hebrew prophets, many of whom use ghastly and violent images in their works), and they use their fictions to castigate their contemporaries. So don't be surprised at my swipes at modern day American society (though I hope they're hidden enough to be subtle and fun). As to the zombies and the damned, there are two main resemblances. Dante says that the damned in the upper levels of hell are guilty of less serious sins, for they "made reason slave to appetite" and "lost the good of intellect": well, that's a zombie right there – a mindless machine pursuing its endless, unquenchable hunger. So I have Dante encounter mostly zombies first in his journey through the valley. But Dante claims that in the lower circles of hell, people are guilty of much worse things, sins that are not just appetites run amok, but are acts of deliberate, calculated cruelty and deceit. So in my story, Dante increasingly encounters more live humans and their perverted abuses of both the living and the dead. It's a wild ride that I think anyone will find dizzying and enjoyable, whether or not they know the original.

Sometimes we have to be ruthless in writing/editing. We cut scenes, eliminate characters or even kill them off. Tell me what was the hardest of these in this book.

I can think of lots of those instances in my other novels, so I know exactly what you mean. But this time – no, I'd read Inferno so many times by the time I sat down to write this that I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew what sins I wanted to leave out and which ones I wanted to focus on. If anything, I had the opposite experience – this time, new ideas kept creeping in, and I kept most of them, because they enriched and complicated the story so well.

This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something you’re particularly fond of.

"And with an empty feeling in his chest, Dante wondered why such a cry did not bring the mountains' stones crashing down on them, if such pillars were held up only by love and justice, and not by the kind of brute, soulless force that could noiselessly withstand the assault of so much power, passion, and pain." Gives me chills every time I read it and I can barely get through it when I try to read it out loud in public.

What can we expect from you next?

This year has a lot coming for me. My first novel, Dying to Live, will be out in a new edition from Pocket Books this fall. My novelette, Orpheus and the Pearl, is also coming out at the same time in a new edition from Belfire Press, bound with a story by the fantastic Dave Dunwoody. Then the third installment in my Dying to Live saga will be out early next year. And I'm shopping a non-zombie novel at the moment: I think like every zombie author, I'm looking forward to publishing something without my favorite monster, just to prove to myself that I can.

Where can we find you on the internet?

Blog: Gospel of the Living Dead
Twitter
Web site: Just the blog. Updated regularly and I like to keep it nice and tidy with lots of links!

Book trailer:

Any final comments or thoughts you’d like to convey that you haven’t covered?

Just that I love to interact with fans, so please stop by, leave a comment, or if you see I'm at a con, come and chat for a bit!

—————

It sounds like you have a lot coming, Kim! Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions, I really appreciate it. Best of luck with the books and please feel free to drop by again with your next installment!

Over at Permuted Press, they’re releasing some great new books, especially some dark, apocalyptic fiction. I’m going to be doing some interviews with a few of the authors/editors there so I hope you’ll take the time to check out their work.

First up, Kim Paffenroth.

————

To start, can you tell me a little about yourself.

I'm a professor of religious studies and at first I wrote theology books. But even in those, there was kind of a dark side – sin, theodicy, evil, doubt, that whole looking into the abyss thing. And I also wanted to look not just at scriptures and narrowly theological works, but at pop culture – movies and novels that affect more people than just believers. So I wrote Gospel of the Living Dead, a look at Romero's zombie films and their moral outlook and their critique of our society. And that made me think it was time for me start writing my own zombie fiction.

How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?

That's a really convoluted journey. I wrote a lot of fiction when I was in middle and high school. My mom died when I was 14, and that made me write even more, I assume as an outlet for a lot of the anger and hurt I had. I'm sure none of the writing was any good, but it was useful for what it was, at that point in my life. But when I went to college, I stopped from the first day I got off the bus in front of the dorm. I just didn't need to anymore right then. Instead I read everything I could, and kept on reading through grad school and my years of teaching. And somehow it was all preparing me for another crack at writing in middle age. I never could've planned it that way, but I'm glad it went the way it did, as I think the lull and the absorption and fermentation of all those ideas over a couple decades made my writing better (not that I say it's any good – but it's better than it would've been).

You have a new book just out, Valley of the Dead. Tell me what inspired you to write this?

I've been fascinated by Romero since I saw Dawn of the Dead in its theatrical release. When I read Dante in college, I found it matched up with a lot of the questions I was having about God and grace and evil at the time. So maybe it was inevitable the two come together – first in my analysis of Romero's films (which draws heavily on parallels with Dante), and then in this version of Dante (which draws on Romero's zombies as analogous to Dante's damned).

I have a keen interest in dark fiction. Tell me how you would classify this book and what’s dark about it?

Boy, that's hard, 'cause I think people sense and respond to different kinds of darkness. In other words, there's plenty of killing in this book, and then that gives way more to torture, sadism and cruelty – and I guess most people would call those things "dark." But for me, as I was writing it, those became (as I think they do in Dante's poem) just the landscape of Hell – you take them for granted. What for me was dark (and was an addition to Dante's original, though I'm willing to bet not totally unfair to him and what he went through in his real life), was seeing a man of profound faith come to the edge of losing it, to see him consumed by doubt and anger, until he repeatedly wishes he could just sit down and die. And I don't know that he ever regains his faith: he keeps a faith in beauty and love, he even gets back a little faith in humanity, but I didn't want to make it clear cut at the end that he's fully at peace with God, after what he's seen. There's a reason we use the phrase "child-like faith" – it's because it's the kind of faith we don't have as adults, but that faith we have as adults is a sometimes a grim, dark, most unsatisfying affair.

This book draws from Dante's Inferno. Tell me about that.

What I take away from Romero are three main things that I see meshing perfectly with Dante. First, both men are incensed against the society they live in (as are the Hebrew prophets, many of whom use ghastly and violent images in their works), and they use their fictions to castigate their contemporaries. So don't be surprised at my swipes at modern day American society (though I hope they're hidden enough to be subtle and fun). As to the zombies and the damned, there are two main resemblances. Dante says that the damned in the upper levels of hell are guilty of less serious sins, for they "made reason slave to appetite" and "lost the good of intellect": well, that's a zombie right there – a mindless machine pursuing its endless, unquenchable hunger. So I have Dante encounter mostly zombies first in his journey through the valley. But Dante claims that in the lower circles of hell, people are guilty of much worse things, sins that are not just appetites run amok, but are acts of deliberate, calculated cruelty and deceit. So in my story, Dante increasingly encounters more live humans and their perverted abuses of both the living and the dead. It's a wild ride that I think anyone will find dizzying and enjoyable, whether or not they know the original.

Sometimes we have to be ruthless in writing/editing. We cut scenes, eliminate characters or even kill them off. Tell me what was the hardest of these in this book.

I can think of lots of those instances in my other novels, so I know exactly what you mean. But this time – no, I'd read Inferno so many times by the time I sat down to write this that I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew what sins I wanted to leave out and which ones I wanted to focus on. If anything, I had the opposite experience – this time, new ideas kept creeping in, and I kept most of them, because they enriched and complicated the story so well.

This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something you’re particularly fond of.

"And with an empty feeling in his chest, Dante wondered why such a cry did not bring the mountains' stones crashing down on them, if such pillars were held up only by love and justice, and not by the kind of brute, soulless force that could noiselessly withstand the assault of so much power, passion, and pain." Gives me chills every time I read it and I can barely get through it when I try to read it out loud in public.

What can we expect from you next?

This year has a lot coming for me. My first novel, Dying to Live, will be out in a new edition from Pocket Books this fall. My novelette, Orpheus and the Pearl, is also coming out at the same time in a new edition from Belfire Press, bound with a story by the fantastic Dave Dunwoody. Then the third installment in my Dying to Live saga will be out early next year. And I'm shopping a non-zombie novel at the moment: I think like every zombie author, I'm looking forward to publishing something without my favorite monster, just to prove to myself that I can.

Where can we find you on the internet?

Blog: Gospel of the Living Dead
Twitter
Web site: Just the blog. Updated regularly and I like to keep it nice and tidy with lots of links!

Book trailer:

Any final comments or thoughts you’d like to convey that you haven’t covered?

Just that I love to interact with fans, so please stop by, leave a comment, or if you see I'm at a con, come and chat for a bit!

—————

It sounds like you have a lot coming, Kim! Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions, I really appreciate it. Best of luck with the books and please feel free to drop by again with your next installment!

This is one of the best Earth Day ads I’ve seen. Way to go Greenpeace!

Going to see this show!!!

Over at Abaddon/Solaris Books, they’re releasing some great new books, especially some wonderfully dark fantasy. I’m going to be doing some interviews with a few of the authors there so I hope you’ll take the time to check out their work.

First up, Rebecca Levene, who’s book Cold Warriors is being released in May 2010.

————

To start, can you tell me a little about yourself.

As a friend of mine once said, I want to be known for my work, not my face – like an arsonist. I don’t really know what to tell you. I grew up in rural Suffolk – used to milk the goats when I was a kid – and for obvious reasons escaped as soon as possible and have been living in London ever since. Other than that, it’s just been a life, filled with the kind of stuff lives are filled with. So instead, here are three random facts about me:

a) My dad made some of the costumes for Lawrence of Arabia.
b) I worked on mainland China’s first soap opera – which was originally intended to feature a eunuch travelling back through time to recover his lost genitalia.
c) I once accidentally started a religion.

How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?

Like most writers, I imagine, I’ve been doing it since I was a kid – I used to distract myself from my carsickness on long journeys by making up stories in my head, and some of those characters have been living in there ever since.

I’ve been writing professionally for around twelve years now. I’m not quite sure what stage you’d call this in my career – the ‘not struggling quite as badly as before but still not always making ends meet’ stage? Anyway, I got here by writing whatever someone would pay me to write – that included a beginner’s guide to poker and a novelisation of a video game. People can be snobby about that kind of work-for-hire stuff, but it’s how I learnt my craft.

Your new novel is called Cold Warriors. Tell me what inspired or drove you to write this book?

Cold Warriors‘ initial inspiration was probably John Le Carre. I read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold when I was quite young, and it made a huge impression on me, the page-turning action combined with the aching melancholy. I also loved fantasy books, and a combination of the two seemed like the best thing ever to me then – and still does.

Other than that, I think it was the usual: I wanted to write something I would have enjoyed reading in that magical, voracious, book-consuming period of my youth when I truly could get lost in a work of fiction in a way that’s frustratingly elusive now.

I have a keen interest in dark and paranormal fantasy. Tell me how you would classify this book and what’s dark about it?

I’ve always described the book as a supernatural thriller – it’s about a British spy agency seeking out occult means to defend the nation. I guess the darkness comes from my interest in the terrible things people can do, and what motivates them to do them. I’m not just talking about the big, ending-the-world stuff, although that too, but also the smaller cruelties even good people are capable of.

Often there are characters in a book that we just love, but what character of yours would you completely despise if you were to meet them in real life? Why?

Hmm… I usually have a sneaking fondness for even the worst of my characters, but – without giving too much away – there’s someone in this book who’s committed a crime I find utterly unforgivable. I think readers will know who I’m talking about when they get there.

There’s a Richard Prior routine – this is relevant, honest – in which he talks about spending time in prison to research Stir Crazy. When he first gets there, he looks at all the inmates and thinks what a terrible waste it is to lock them up. And then two hours later he’s thinking, thank god these maniacs are in jail – let’s throw away the key. I worked in Brixton Prison for a while, and that really is the mental process I went through about the inmates. You start off feeling sorry for them, and then they scare the shit out of you, and you finally end up feeling sorry for them again – because many of them are victims – but also hoping very hard you’ll never meet them in the outside world.

I think that’s how I feel about my villains. They can be charming or funny or pitiful, but they really do need to be stopped.

Sometimes we have to be ruthless in writing/editing. We cut scenes, eliminate characters or even kill them off. Tell me what was the hardest of these in this book.

Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever cut a scene I truly mourned – I trained as a sub-editor in magazines and that’s made me pretty brutal with material that’s surplus to requirements, even my own. There is a decision I made about one of my characters in this book which was very hard. I hadn’t planned to do it in my original synopsis, but when it came to the moment I realised it had to happen.

This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something that you’re particularly fond of.

Hmm… How about:

"He was huge, a beached white whale in this shallow pool, roll after roll of fat leaving the greying head on top looking too small, like a deformity."

What can we expect from you next? Is the next book in the series already written?

The next book is written and out this summer, possibly as early as July. It’s called Ghost Dance. I did actually take a year to write it, not 2 months – my editor held off until he could publish the first two close together, to get some momentum going for the series. I’m also working with a friend on a non-fiction book about the videogame industry that I’m very excited about, but I shouldn’t say more till I know whether it’s been commissioned.

Where can we find you on the internet? Blog? Twitter? Web site? Book trailer?

I’m afraid you can’t – I really know I should do some of those, but I’m terrible about keeping that kind of thing going. Like most writers (well, I tell myself it’s like most writers) I’m horrifically lazy. Writing is my job and I write what I have to, but the thought of producing a word more than that makes my heart sink.

You could check out the Abaddon website, though. And my friends’ wonderful site refers to me now and again.

Any final comments or thoughts you’d like to convey that you haven’t covered?

Nope – I think your questions have pretty much done the job. Thanks for taking the time to come up with them!

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I really like the insight you have into the criminal mind. There is understanding and empathy, yet revulsion. I can’t wait to read this. Thank you, Rebecca, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions. Looking forward to the May release of Cold Warriors!

Over at Apex Book Company, they’re releasing some great new books, especially some wonderfully dark fantasy. I’m going to be doing some interviews with a few of the authors there so I hope you’ll take the time to check out their work. Last week I interviewed Sara M. Harvey. Today, we have Maurice Broaddus.

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To start, can you tell me a little about yourself.

I’m just me. Father of two (rambunctious boys), husband of one. Full time writer, sometime editor. All around bon vivant and mischievous imp.

How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?

Been writing as long as I can remember. In second grade, my teacher didn’t know what to do with me. She had an overloaded class and I could be a handful since I was easily bored. So she put my desk in a corner, gave me a stack of paper and just told me to “create”. I guess I’ve been doing that ever since.

I started to seriously begin pursuing being published in 1999, when my story Soul Food was published in a little known magazine called Hoodz. I started my blog in 2004, had a column in a local paper, and had a few dozen short stories published. All of which brings me to now.

You have two new works out, a novel and an anthology, King Maker and Dark Faith, respectively. Tell me what inspired you to write the one and edit/compile the other?

Oddly enough in both cases, my faith. I was working with a homeless teen ministry called Outreach Inc. After talking to many of the kids, I got this sense that they couldn’t think of themselves with a future. It was difficult for them to conceptualize of survival further out than a week. So I began writing a story, more as a lark, imagining some of them as knights and princesses of the streets. Eventually, it led to King Maker.

Dark Faith sprang from my eponymous conference, MoCon. Originally we wanted to produce an anthology which was a tribute to it and its guests. The premise was any of the themes of some of our MoCon panels: spirituality, race, sex, art. The prospect of writing stories revolving around the idea of faith caused us to be hit with a lot of submissions and the anthology grew into something more. So we have science fiction, horror, and fantasy writers all playing with the idea of faith from various perspectives.

I have a keen interest in dark fantasy. Tell me how you would classify both of these books and what’s dark about them? In particular, tell me more about what you are trying to explore in the “dark side of faith” with the anthology.

King Maker is urban fantasy, after all, it’s the re-telling of the legend of King Arthur except playing out in our modern, inner city streets. I’ve had many folks come up to me and tell me “I couldn’t read your other stuff because you’re a horror writer. King Maker sounds like something I can read.” I guess they forget that I *do* have a horror writing background. So there is definitely some dark scenes. It really isn’t too different than the kind of horror I typically write, as I like exploring the dark side of humanity and the evil that people do to one another. This is no bunnies and rainbows version of King Arthur.

In Dark Faith, I wanted artists to engage the idea of faith and let it take them wherever the stories take them. Some stories are dark (like Douglass F. Warrick’s Zen and the Art of Gordon Dratch’s Damnation) and some are a little lighter (like Jay Lake’s Mother Urban’s Booke of Dayes or Kyle S. Johnson’s Go Tell It on the Mountain).

Which was harder to edit: the anthology or your own novel? Can you explain?

Yes. I should probably mention that King Maker is book one in a trilogy called The Knights of Breton Court. Book Two is King’s Justice and Book Three is King’s War. I was editing Dark Faith while writing King’s Justice, as both projects were due at the same time. Once it became evident that I was going to be deluged with submissions, I brought in co-editor supreme, Jerry L. Gordon. He made it his mission to keep my anthology plate as clean as possible and give me room to write book two. We made a great team as we both had similar tastes and ways of working.

In many ways, editing was easier. It’s not really a chore to take breaks from writing to “have” to read stories from Catherynne M. Valente, Alethea Kontis, Kelli Owen-Dunlap, and Brian Keene, if you know what I mean. It was also a HUGE learning experience. I think every writer needs to have to deal with a slush pile and see the submission process from the other side.

This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the books – something that you’re particularly fond of.

So I whisper his name. And he tells me to call him Jeezy. “Seriously, man. Everybody does.” (From Kyle S. Johnson’s

Go Tell It on the Mountain)

What can we expect from you next?

King Maker hits the U.S. shores in August. King’s Justice around December. In between, I have stories coming out in the following anthologies: Dark Future, Dead West, and Ancient Shadows.

Where can we find you on the internet? Blog? Twitter? Web site? Book trailer?

Oh, you can’t avoid me on the interwebz. I blog at my web site, I tweet endless gibberish about my life, and you can find me on Facebook.

Any final comments or thoughts you’d like to convey that you haven’t covered?

Buy my books because I speak of the pompetous of love.

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And I thought I was busy! Wow! Thank you, Maurice, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions. Best of luck and looking forward to reading both of these works.

Well, the results are in (see below). I’ll blog about this more later.

I’ve had a couple of interviews lately. Feel free to check them out. Nikola’s Book Blog – where I’m giving away 5 free ebooks! Curling Up By The Fire Also, some great reviews at the following sites: The 24/7 Mom Gnostalgia Ebook Alchemy Amazon Smashwords Goodreads And I have some interviews lined up with authors from Apex Book Company and Solaris/Abaddon Books. There’s some really great dark fantasy coming from these publishing houses, so check back for more! Oh, and if you’re a paranormal/fantasy author (particularly dark paranormal/fantasy) looking to do an interview, feel free to drop me a line! I’d be more than happy to host an interview here.

Over at Apex Book Company, they’re releasing some great new books, especially some wonderfully dark fantasy. I’m going to be doing some interviews with a few of the authors there so I hope you’ll take the time to check out their work. ———— First up: Sara M. Harvey, author of The Labyrinth of the Dead, which is now available for pre-order! To start, can you tell me a little about yourself. My day job is as an instructor of fashion design and fashion history at the International Academy of Design and Technology. I have a master’s degree in costume history from New York University and I’ve worked for the costume shops of Walt Disney World and the Renaissance Pleasure Faires of California and Wisconsin. I am a native Californian and a huge hockey nut (a loud and proud Nashville Predators fan, also known to root for the San Jose Sharks and occasionally the Pittsburgh Penguins). Here in Nashville, I live in an older neighborhood that is chock-full of delicious ethnic diversity (mmmm authentic tacos for $1 down the street and a wonderful coffee shop on the next block!) with my husband and three dogs: two of which were strays that adopted us from the neighborhood, the other was one we actually went out and got from a shelter. (For anyone who cares: Guinevere the border collie/blue heeler mix, Eowyn the basenji/yellow lab mix, Javert the german shepherd/hound? mix.) I do a lot of writing, reading, cooking, and gardening. Life is good. ^_^
How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career? I started writing about age 10 or 11 and have just been at it since then. I wrote my first complete novel, A Year and a Day, in 2003 and sold it in 2006. Since then there have been a lot of non-fiction costume history textbooks, a few short stories, and the novella trilogy for Apex Book Company. I have a another novel out for consideration right now and one that I am in the middle of. How did I get here? A metric buttload of tenacity and no shortage of charm and luck. Your new novel is called The Labyrinth of the Dead, the second in a series. Tell me what inspired or drove you to write this series? I had this crazy dream, years ago, about these young people in a magical boarding school where a murder has taken place and the ensuing witch-hunt (pun sort-of intended!) puts most of the teachers and some of the students in peril at the hands of a treacherous betrayer, sort of a very dark version of Harry Potter but years before the books existed. I wrote a little snippet of what would become The Convent of the Pure, the first book in the trilogy. The second books came out of the plot that grew way too big for a single 35,000 word novella. I would love to put out a larger volume of the whole trilogy collected into a single book, or even expand each novella into its own full novel. That would be great fun. I have a keen interest in dark and paranormal fantasy. Tell me how you would classify this series and what’s dark about it? Classify? Bah, I can’t hit the broad side of a genre barn! Jason Sizemore, my editor, refers to it as Paranormal Steampunk: there are angels and demons and magic and ghosts and a deep, abiding sense of spirituality. And there is betrayal and true love and life and death and heartbreak. There’s a lot of dark elements in Labyrinth, especially seeing as how it takes place in the underworld and puts the heroine at the mercy of a demon queen and her creepy constructs that do her will, which is to consume souls. So yes: dark, paranormal, fantastical, Steampunk. All of the above. Often there are characters in a book that we just love, but what character of yours would you completely despise if you were to meet them in real life? Why? It’s too easy to say that I’d hate Nigel, the villain in Convent but he’s so oily and cunning that he’d fascinate me more than disgust me. In Labyrinth, I have to say I probably like Lahash, the demon general, the least. He’s just a bastard, plain and simple and not in a cool, curmudgeonly way, and has a tendency to follow the person with the biggest gun rather than have any sense of loyalty or decency. Sometimes we have to be ruthless in writing/editing. We cut scenes, eliminate characters or even kill them off. Tell me what was the hardest of these in this book. The middle of this book got rewritten about three times. The start of it got rewritten about four times. And the end, at least twice. So lots got cut and lots got rearranged. And although it hurt at the time, they made for a really kick-ass book at the end. In terms of killing characters, actually, the body count in the short story we put out to promote Convent, called “A Prelude to Penemue,” had a pretty high body count including a character that was the first piece of fan art ever done for the series. She’s in the story for a few hundred words but she stole everyone’s hearts and her fate really sucked. But fret not, fans, when writing about ghosts and the undead, no one is ever written out of the series for good! This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something that you’re particularly fond of. This is Portia talking to Belial, the Demon Queen of the Underworld: "I had no idea who you were until a moment ago. You aren't Lilith, for crying out loud. Your name was never taught to me in Penemue, where we were schooled on all of the important demons and fallen angels. But yet you think so much of yourself." "I have been compared to Satan!" "Really? So have I. Ask my mother." What can we expect from you next? Next? So many things! I have a short story out in the Dark Futures anthology coming this summer from Dark Quest Books and edited by our fearless leader over at Apex, Jason Sizemore. There is also a short story of mine in the Trafficking in Magic anthology out from Drollerie Press also this year, in the autumn. I have a stack of story requests through which I am currently working. Even though I started with short stories as a teenager, I have evolved into a novelist and short work is a real challenge for me, but I never shy away from a challenge so keep your eyes open for more short work from me! Based on what I read, there seems to be a queer element to this series.
Tell me about that. Well, Portia had been basically hashed out and then when I placed her into the world of the town of Penemue in the first book, I stumbled across the love of her life and it turned out they were both women. I think it was as much of a surprise to me as it was to Portia who had never given love much thought until a certain redhead came into her life. The strength of their love never ceases to surprise and amaze. And, to me, that is the important part, not their genders. Although my very first review called the book “fluffy, lesbian erotica” which still boggles my mind. Ah well, the book has found a lot of traction in all corners of the world and with all sorts of people, which pleases me greatly. Where can we find you on the internet? Blog? Twitter? Web site? Book trailer? I am all over the internet! My website is www.saramharvey.com. I blog both at LiveJournal under the username of Saraphina_Marie and at Charmed and Dangerous. I tweet also under the username of Saraphina_Marie . Labyrinth doesn’t have a book trailer yet, but check out the amazing one made by the one and only Catherynne Valente and featuring the awesome music by Abney Park. Any final comments or thoughts you’d like to convey that you haven’t covered? Buy my books? Oh, and also books with my short stories in them! And lastly, come see me at a convention near you, I love to meet new people! ——— Thank you, Sara, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions. Sounds like you have a lot going on and lots to look forward to. I wish you the best of fortune with it all!

Wow, this ad had a huge impact on me.

This is Justin, or as he was named in his native Russia, Artyom. He’s seven years old. Yesterday, Justin was shipped out like a piece of luggage to his country of origin because he was no longer wanted. He was sent alone. Justin was adopted from a Russian orphanage last year. I have no idea what the circumstances of his past are. I’m sure it wasn’t good. I’m sure he’s been seriously affected by trauma, both from his birth parents, or lack there of, and by his time in an orphanage. He’s seven. He will remember a lot of what has happened to him. I’m sure he has behavior issues. Likely he has problems remembering things, has difficulty in school, and might have some social issues. Not pretty. In fact, let’s look at what his adoptive mother had to say about him:

“This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues….I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues…”

And according to his grandmother,

the child had a "hit list" of people he was targeting, including her daughter, who he said he "wanted to kill for the house." He threatened to kill her grandson for a videogame, she said.

And apparently,

the final incident that convinced Hansen she should send the boy back to Russia was when she caught him starting a fire with papers in his bedroom last Monday, she said. She feared the child might burn down the house and kill her family, she said.

The Russian orphanage even called the boy “stubborn”. For the sake of argument, let’s even say he has oppositional defiance disorder. That’s stubborn times ten. I’ll take all of this as truth. Let’s just assume for one moment that there’s no way the mother or grandmother are stretching the truth or even lying. What I see here is a seven year old boy that has been taken from or abandoned by his birth parents and dumped into an orphanage (and I’m sure there was mistreatment in one case or the other). After that, he was ripped from all that he knew, including his own mother tongue, and placed in a strange land where he doesn’t speak the language with a woman that he knew for all of four days. This child needs help. Possibly a lot of help. He’s acting out. He’s screaming for attention. He has likely been severely neglected and needs a lot of empathy, compassion, and understanding. He needs a decent play therapist that can help him cope. All of this takes a lot of effort, patience, and work. A lot. Let me repeat that. A LOT. The issues that this child has will require years of work. But let me reiterate: this child, like all children, want what we all want. Happiness. Love. Laughter. It’s very simple. Children are not inherently bad. Sometimes they make poor choices. Their behaviors develop due to the circumstances around them and it’s our job as parents to guide and teach them. It takes work. A lot of it. It takes patience. Even more. But these are children. And when it comes to adopting older children, there is a lot of work to undo what has happened to them. But let me tell you, OMG is it worth it! I should know. We adopted three boys (brothers) between the ages of 6 and 9. Justin is the same age as our middle son when we adopted him. In this particular case, and what really upsets me, is that this mother obviously had no clue what she was in for. Again, let’s assume all of the worst possible things here simply because we don’t know the actual facts. I’m not going to run under the assumption that this child was perfect with no behaviour issues. But I think this woman was so blinded by her desire to have a child that she foolishly overlooked the risks. I don’t know what her credentials are, but here is some information that is troubling and makes me question her ability to parent.

Nancy Hansen outlined for CNN the process she followed after she decided Justin must go back to Russia. When the lawyer she found online advised her the adoption could be reversed, Hansen booked the flight and paid the fee for a steward to escort Justin through the airport, she said. She hired a driver in Moscow she found online to pick the child up from the Moscow airport, she said. She found "safe references" for the driver online, she said. She then prepared a letter for Justin to present to Russian officials, which included a photo of the driver, whom she identified as "Arthur," she said.

She followed the advice of an online lawyer on how to handle this situation and found references for a driver over the internet. If this is what she does with a seven year old child in trying to return him like a pair of shoes, I can just imagine what her parenting skills must have been like. And this makes me question the credibility of any of her statements. As far as I’m concerned, this should be investigated as child abandonment. No biological parent is allowed to abandon their children in this manner. It is just as unacceptable if the child is adopted. There are resources and services out there to help parents who need it. And what’s also a shame is that the private adoption agency should have ensured that this woman had all of the resources and support in place to handle an older child as part of the screening process. If she couldn’t handle the potential issues that could arise, she should never have been approved in the first place. The focus on ALL adoption should be what is best for the children. At the end of the day, this is about finding the right home for a child, not fulfilling a parental need. Just because you have the money to pay for the adoption process/fees, it doesn’t make you a fit parent. What concerns me the most in all of this, though, is what will become of seven-year old Justin. This is more trauma that this child has suffered now with a failed adoption. And it will take even more work from, hopefully, a more competent parent to undo. I wish him nothing but the very best because goodness knows he deserves it.

If you didn’t enough of this song the first time,…try it with a cat.

Here’s a brilliant feature that I’m looking forward to in the next release of Adobe Photoshop!

To celebrate Easter, why not try something completely sacrilegious….The Second Coming.
Now on Kindle, Nook, Sony, and the iPAD! Only $1.99!! To purchase at Amazon for the Kindle ($1.99)
To purchase on iTunes for iPhone/iPod Touch ($1.99)
To purchase in various formats (ePUB/MOBI/PDF/LRF/PDB) for Nook/Sony ($1.99) visit Smashwords
And to purchase on iBookstore for the iPad ($1.99) you’ll need to search for it. I don’t have the link yet, but if someone has it, please let me know what it is. Five hundred years have passed since the Earth shifted on its axis – a catastrophic event that wiped out civilization and released the powers of the dead back to Earth. With technology long abandoned, a dark age has shrouded our world once more. Travel to a future of blood sacrifice, demons, witchcraft, and an immoral God that has returned to reclaim his former dominion. “Beautifully written, dark and eerie vision of an apocalyptic future.” - New York Times Bestselling Author, Margaret Weis. “David H. Burton is a dark new talent in the genre.
This one will make you leave the lights on for a week!” - USA Today Bestseller, Cathy Clamp.