Watch the Lovecraft eZine for a New Story from Me!

Ia! Ia!

Greetings fellow cultists! It gives me great pleasure to announce that I will have a very dark short story titled “The Dig” in an upcoming issue of the Lovecraft eZine.

The Lovecraft eZine is a monthly magazine for aficionados of fiction and other content with a Lovecraftian flair. Think Cthulhu! Dagon! The Necronomicon! Star vampires! But also. . .themes that were inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s stories.

I have a soft spot for “The Dig” because its evolution is dark and dire, indeed. In many ways, I had to dig through revisions, continually adding more text and revising it’s tragic end once, twice, and three times to finally get it into a state I was happy about. It was rejected in a previous state, but luckily I had a fantastic editor who was so, so kind enough to provide comments. He was right. Hence, the incarnation submitted here.

And you’ll get to read it. For free. Sometime this year. But I can’t tell you when. . .yet. Muwahahahahaha.

Please, do not be afraid. Go check out the other stories and illustrations in the Lovecraft eZine today!

Extreme Zombies Anthology Announced!

Extreme Zombies Anthology from Prime Books

I am thrilled to announce a new zombie anthology! The other authors in this collection are fantastic and I am humbled to be included with such fine wordsmiths. This collection is edited by the esteemed Paula Guran.

From the publisher’s website:

It’s too late! The living dead have already taken over the world. Your brains have been devoured. Nothing is left but spasms of ravenous need—an obscene hunger for even more zombie fiction. Forget the metaphors and the mildly scary. You want shock, you want grue, you want disturbing, gut-wrenching, skull-crunching zombie stories that take you over the edge and go splat. You want the bloody best of the ultimate undead. You have no choice. . . you. . . must. . . have. . . Extreme Zombies!

Extreme Zombies Table of Contents

“Charlie’s Hole” by Jesse Bullington
“At First Only Darkness” by Nancy A. Collins
“The Blood Kiss” by Dennis Etchison
“We Will Rebuild” by Cody Goodfellow
“Dead Giveaway” by Brian Hodge
“Zombies for Jesus” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
“An Unfortunate Incident at the Slaughterhouse” by Harper Hull
“Captive Heart” by Brian Keene
“Going Down” by Nancy Kilpatrick
“On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks” by Joe R. Lansdale
“Susan” by Robin D. Laws
“Makak” by Edward Lee
“The Traumatized Generation” by Murray Leeder
“Meathouse Man” by George R.R. Martin
“Abed” by Elizabeth Massie
“For the Good of All” by Yvonne Navarro
“Home” by David Moody
“Jerry’s Kids Meet Wormboy” by David J. Schow
“Aftertaste” by John Shirley
“Viva Las Vegas” by Thomas Roche
“In Beauty, Like the Night” by Norman Partridge
“Romero’s Children” by David A. Riley
“Tomorrow’s Precious Lambs” by Monica Valentinelli
“Provider” by Tim Waggoner
“Chuy and the Fish” by David Wellington

Extreme Zombies is scheduled to debut in August 2012 and will be published by Prime Books. Be sure to check out other books in the Prime Books catalog, there’s a lot of great titles in there.

“Tomorrow’s Precious Lambs” first appeared in The Zombie Feed, Volume One which was published by Apex Book Company and edited by Jason Sizemore.

The Dragon Screams for the Sun

A Blue Painted Cat

Phil Reed’s passion, as seen through www.battlegrip.com/, is infectious. It fills me with absolute glee that someone can get so excited about “X” whatever “X” happens to be — and sometimes? Well, I have to dive into the fun to see what that perfect moment of happiness is all about. So, for the second time in recent memory, I invested in something I wouldn’t normally get for myself.

Enter “Screaming for Sunrise.” I can’t really call this a toy. It’s more like a vinyl sculpture and it was modeled after the original painting by the same name, Screaming for Sunrise. Produced by Munky King, when I opened the box I was in total shock. My dragon is gorgeous! Yay! You know I’m impressed when I sit here trying to figure out how the artist Yoskay Yamamoto designed, produced and painted this. 🙂

This particular dragon is pictured without the wire-frame ribbon because I wanted to highlight the mold. It’s on him now, though!

(P.S. Huge apologies for the shots. Been having trouble with my camera and I’m strongly leaning toward hunting down a commercial photography class and better equipment. You can see Screaming for Sunrise on the toy manufacturer’s website.)

    Mood: The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.
    Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: No tea or tomato juice.
    Work-Out Minutes Logged Yesterday: Walk this way.
    In My Ears: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…
    Game Last Played: Battle Nations
    Movie Last Viewed: Young Guns
    Latest Artistic Project: Cross-stitch
    Latest Release: Redwing’s Gambit for Bulldogs! the RPG

The State of this Author’s State

The Tick Weapons Lab Avatar

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letter “W.” Without words, we will wither when wit weakens weary.

I haven’t written about the state of the state for some time, so I thought I’d drop in an talk about all that’s happening in my planet.

Let’s see… Well, for my day job we launched a Kickstarter for the Designer’s Edition of Ogre. You can find a list of articles and interviews about the project on the Ogre Sixth Edition web page. For John Kovalic of Dork Tower fame? He just finished Munchkin Apocalypse and had an appearance at ACD Games Day that I helped manage. I’ve edited REDACTED now and am working on another small project. Plus, we’re gearing up for a ton of goodies, but Munchkin (always) comes first. One of the best things about John, though, is his passion for all things — including gaming. A lot of old school games I haven’t played yet and he’s gleefully whipping out his own Ogre minis and games like A Ticket To Ride. Tons of fun, to be sure.

On the heels of my recent appearance at OddCon, where I read excerpts from Redwing’s Gambit for the first time, I was attacked vigorously by con crud. It lasted for about two weeks and forced me to stop drinking diet soda. I’m now trying to quit that completely, but it’s very, very hard. I would like to have that cut completely out of my system by the time I appear at Balticon. (Note: they do not have me listed on the website, but I am appearing on panels and doing a reading there.) The side effects so far are very strange and involve changes in hunger pangs, anxiety, and an abrupt shift in (of all things) breathing. Weird.

During this time, I had three really cool things happen. The first was that the anthology dubbed Don’t Read This Book debuted. It includes “Don’t Ignore Your Dead,” which is a very dark, gritty story penned by yours truly.

The second, was that Brennan Taylor asked me to be part of my first Kickstarter for the Have Blaster, Will Travel Bulldogs! anthology. Yay! Not only was I part of a successful stretch goal, but readers got to pick what Fang blows up in the story! Hoo-ray! Of course, one of the best side effects of this project, was that more readers became aware of Redwing’s Gambit. This is such an important novella for my career because of the way it was structured and designed. I also got a rejection letter for a short story, but I’m waiting to hear back about two others, both of which I’m *very* excited about.

The third is a publishing milestone. One of my stories will appear in an anthology with none other than George R.R. Martin, Joe Lansdale, Nancy Collins, and a variety of other amazing authors!

More updates as I get them, but those are the highlights. Due to a number of factors outside of my control, I am behind, but I am FIRED UP. Also, I wish I wasn’t so sensitive to diet pop, but the benefit to breaking myself of that addiction, is that I’ll spend more time on other healthy things. Just call me zen. 🙂

    Mood: Contemplative. As in contemplating hunger.
    Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: Ice tea. Three glasses. Shaken and stirred.
    Work-Out Minutes Logged Yesterday: Cleaned. MORE SUCKAGE.
    In My Ears: Nox Arcana
    Game Last Played: Battle Nations
    Movie Last Viewed: Young Guns
    Latest Artistic Project: Cross-stitch
    Latest Release: Redwing’s Gambit for Bulldogs! the RPG

Thank You! Fang will blow up. . .

First and foremost, thank you. I’m really happy I can write about Fang again and if there’s one thing I hope I can convey always and forever in my work, is just how much you, the reader, means to my future as an author. After all, I have not yet begun to fight! Er… Write!

Secondly, you really like explosions. Since two of the listed options tied for first place, you’ll get a bigger bang for your buck. (See what I did there?) 🙂

Not only will Fang blow up his own ship, but he’ll also exact a little revenge on the headquarters of Redwing Securities.

Now, to figure out a plot that won’t disintegrate when the building does…

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