January 21, 2008
Farewell; ChiZine Publications
Well, everyone, this is my last post as Indie Artist-in-Residence. I hope you've discovered at least a couple of new dark fiction writers and publishers, and enjoyed my occasional rants and sundry postings. Before I go, I thought I'd leave you with the URL of the small press I just started with my wife, Sandra Kasturi. It's an extension of my webzine and is called ChiZine Publications. Here's the URL: http://chizinepub.com Our first title, Brent Hayward's weird SF/dark fantasy novel, Filaria, should be released sometime in mid-2008, if all goes according to plan. Alright, I'm outta here. Got a story to write for the Halloween 2008 issue of Taddle Creek, as well as a third novel to beat into shape. Keep reading and writing, folks—and don't be afraid to let your dark side take over once in a while. It's fun as shit and half the calories.... Read more.
January 7, 2008
The Horror of Two Spaces After a Period!
Not that it has anything to do with horror, per se, but I definitely want to spread this far and wide. Taddle Creek echoes my thoughts exactly on people who still insist on putting two spaces after a period, even though no magazine, newspaper, or publishing house publishes like this. I, like most people, had the two-spaces rule driven into me in school, but once I saw the pointlessness of it—that it would be removed from the final product, anyway—I weaned myself off it and now quite comfortably only use one space after periods. Maybe we need a national helpline for people to call: "Are you struggling with only hitting the space bar once after a period? Do you feel that a part of your childhood is being ripped away from you by ceasing to add that extra space? If so, please call 1-800-JST-1-SPCE. Operators are standing by to take your call. We're here to help." Anyway, read Taddle Creek's piece on it—and if you're one of these Two-Spacers, please make an effort to reduce your waste... Read more.
January 3, 2008
The 35th issue of my Bram Stoker Award-winning webzine ChiZine is now live! Fiction: "Dust and Bibles" by Michael Colangelo "The Mystery of the Missing Puskat" by Lavie Tidhar "Matthew" by A. C. Wise Poetry: "A Brief History of Night, Before Sleep" by Leah Bobet "King Kong's Last Poem" by John Grey "The Aviary" by Joanne Merriam "Meth Beauty Queen" by Samuel Minier Go here to access the new fiction and poetry: http://chizine.com/fiction.htm There's also a new column by David Niall Wilson here: http://chizine.com/dnw.htm The site also features book reviews, films reviews, and a bunch more. Please stop by and give it a read. Broken Pencil digs it and so should you. Truth. ... Read more.
January 2, 2008
I've never seen this kind of articulate defense of so-called "torture porn", a la the Hostel and Saw films. I've seen the first two Saws and both Hostels, and I have to say that this article pretty much reflects my own views on them. Sure, they're not the best-written films in the world, and they're certainly not everyone's cuppa, but I also don't think they deserve a lot of the scorn people heap on them. Check out the article; at the very least, I think you'll agree that the writer raises some fairly solid points. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20070716.html... Read more.
December 14, 2007
The Machine Girl, coming 2008!
No words need be used. ... Read more.
December 13, 2007
I attended Centennial College for their Book and Magazine Publishing program back in 1997. My teacher was a woman who some of you reading this have probably either heard of or have had as a teacher yourself. While some of the stuff she taught was good—and overall, I quite enjoyed the course—she did one thing that, to me, was unforgivable. I can’t recall what the assignment was, but I remember that, for whatever reason, she asked us to bring in one of our favourite books or stories. I, being the sole horror-head in the class, brought in Clive Barker’s Books of Blood—specifically the short story “In the Hills, the Cities.” I explained that I thought it was one of the best stories I’d ever read, and was my favourite of all-time. It still is to this day. Well, she went away and read it, then called me in to her office a few days later. She told me how the story was rubbish and that basically Barker was a hack. She said that when she worked at a major Canadian publisher, his Books of ... Read more.
November 28, 2007
Burning Effigy Press, Necro Publications, Small Beer Press, and Prime Books
First things first, since I currently have this venue through which to toot my own horn. My novel In and Down was named one of Quill & Quire’s “Books of the Year.” Goddamn, that feels good. Second things second, with the help of my friend and fellow writer Cory Doctorow, I’ve made one of my novels, The Distance Travelled, and my short story collection, No Further Messages, available for free PDF download through a Creative Commons license. You can get them both here. Download and enjoy! (Then, if ya dig them, buy them and make my publishers happy.) Okay, back to business. Four more dark fiction presses that don’t suck balls. Once again, the blurbs are directly from the publisher's sites, so that you have it in their own words. * * * Burning Effigy Press was founded in 1999 as a way to bring fringe poetry, prose and fiction out from the trenches and onto the pages of chapbooks and anthologies. The driving force of Burning Effigy has always been that we are writer... Read more.
November 16, 2007
Raw Dog Screaming Press, Night Shade Books, Delirium Books, and PS Publishing
Okay, so here are a few small presses putting out some of the good stuff. Like all other kinds of presses, there are going to be hits and misses from each of these houses, depending on your tastes, obviously, but in my opinion, they're each doing something of serious note within the horror/SF/fantasy/spec-fic community. The blurbs are directly from the publisher's sites, so that you have it in their own words. * * * Raw Dog Screaming Press is dedicated to putting into print the highest quality literature from the fringe. If it's dark, deviant, off-kilter, and thought-provoking, we will sniff it out. The experiment began with The Dream People, an online literary journal featuring the best in bizarre, surreal, and experimental writing. After almost two years of publishing mind-altering works online, we decided to expand into print. * * * Night Shade Books is dedicated to publishing quality books, from a broad spectrum of genres. Writing that inspires a sense o... Read more.
November 15, 2007
Savory, Kasturi, Lalumičre signing in Montréal
For those in the Montréal area, there's a book signing event happening at Paragraphe Books on November 23rd, featuring me, Sandra Kasturi, and Claude Lalumičre, with the possibility of Nancy Kilpatrick and Jean-Louis Trudel, as well. All the information is here. Hope to see you there!... Read more.
November 8, 2007
Carroll, Davidson, Link, Barker
Jonathan Carroll is my wife’s favourite author. Sandra has every one of his books, all first editions, to my knowledge, and multiple copies in most cases. I’ve read two of his novels, so far: Bones of the Moon (Sandra’s favourite) and Voice of Our Shadow. I much preferred the latter. It’s much darker than Bones—and just rereading the synopsis online, I think that probably some of it seeped into my subconscious and leaked out into my novel In and Down. The ironic thing about that is that when my publisher sent Carroll the manuscript for IAD, he passed on blurbing it, saying that it wasn’t his kind of book. Luckily, though, it turned out to be Peter Straub’s, James Morrow’s, Ramsey Campbell’s, Michael Rowe’s, and some guy named Hal Niedzviecki’s kind of book, so that’s alright. Carroll’s work is probably the ultimate example of what I consider genre/literary straddling. He has an incredible imagination and a gift for saying a lot with few words. It’s tough to blend such fantastical st... Read more.
November 6, 2007
Danielewski, O'Nan, Tremblay, Gaiman
Alright, so let’s cut the shit and dive right in. If you haven’t read Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, you really, really need to. Yeah, some people whine about how it’s convoluted and pretentious because you have to pick it up and turn it upside down or on its side and look at certain parts in mirrors, etc., but that’s part of the fun of it. However, strip all that shit away and you’re still left with a very solid narrative, and one of the best and creepiest endings I’ve ever read. It’s about 700 pages and filled with cool typographic features, including coloured text, various fonts, font sizes, text placement, as well as two overlapping stories, both of which are equally intriguing. I mean, come on, check out the premise of the main layer of the story: A man discovers that his house is a quarter of an inch larger on the inside than it is on the outside. Fucking cool. Creepy, disturbing, innovative, and well-written. Unfortunately, Danielewski’s follow-up, the N... Read more.
November 2, 2007
Coming soon: Horror fiction that doesn't suck!
I received your book on Tuesday and have just finished it this evening. I pretty much couldn't look away, I sat alone for hours and just read and it was everything I hoped for. I'm kind of a deep thinker, at least I like to think I am, and your book added to my thoughts—made me think a lot, which I appreciate from anything (and anyone). Thank you for writing such a thought-provoking book, I've always been looking for something like that. First off, the imaginative lives of "Michael's" thoughts reminded me of the movie Mirror Mask, which is also a very creative movie that has also inspired my thoughts. You should definitely check it out, I guarantee you'll like it. When the twists first began, I was getting pretty confused, but later on everything was brilliantly brought back together, questions were answered and, like "Michael," I like to have answers to questions . . . and questions to answers. One of my favorite parts of your book is, "Stephen's just crying and crying a... Read more.
Brett Alexander Savory
Brett Alexander Savory is the Bram Stoker Award-winning Editor-in-Chief of ChiZine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words. ChiZine (reviewed in issue 35) is a dark fiction and poetry lit-ezine that can be found at chizine.com. He is also a Senior Editor at Scholastic Canada, has had nearly 50 short stories published, written two novels and writes for Rue Morgue Magazine.
In 2006 his horror-comedy novel The Distance Travelled was released by Necro Publications. His latest dark literary novel In and Down was just released in September 2007 through Brindle & Glass. Finally, his first short story collection, No Further Messages, will be coming out through Delirium Books at the end of 2007. In the works are three more novels, and a dark comic book series with artist Homeros Gilani. When he's not writing, reading, or editing, he plays drums for the hard rock band Diablo Red. All of these dark connections make Brett the perfect person to take on the Indie Artist in Residence moniker for the horror issue of Broken Pencil.