Posts Tagged ‘Bizarro’
It’s a charity anthology and, while I did get an author’s electronic copy, I prefer to read print. So supposedly being a “Bloodsaint” myself, it made sense to order a paperback of the BLOODSAINTS ANTHOLOGY (see March 1, below, et al.) to have for my own. And now as of this afternoon it is already here!
My story in this is “Mr. Happy Head,” originally published in WICKED MYSTIC, Spring 1996, about a person who thought he might want to become a dentist’s hygienist when he was a child, but ended up settling for being a serial killer. But that was just when he was alive. And — funny story! — the issue of WICKED MYSTIC it was in had a subscription copy sent back by the Texas Prison System on the grounds that it contained material unsuitable for reading by a person on death row. My story? Well, we don’t really know but I have my suspicions.
BLOODSAINTS, however, is more benign with profits earmarked for UNICEF COVID-19 relief, albeit with contents leaning toward the extreme horror, splatterpunk, bizarro, dark psychological horror spectrum. Having just dipped in, I would say the first two stories do offer a promising beginning. If you should like such things yourself, it can be ordered on Amazon right now by pressing here.
And, with the donations, it might have a part in ameliorating a real-life horror.
No, that’s not the name of a new rock group. It is, in fact, the BLOODSAINTS ANTHOLOGY with my story in it called “Mr. Happy Head” (see October 23, 12, et al.). And it’s a charity anthology to boot, with profits to go to help out with COVID-19.
The general theme(s): Extreme Horror, Splatterpunk, Grindhouse, bizarro, or extreme dark psychological thriller. O-o-o-o-kay! You can see the attraction, why it’s one I was quick to submit to myself. And, reprints being allowed, the tale I chose was one originally published in WICKED MYSTIC for Spring 1996, as well as reprinted in UK publisher Flame Tree’s omnibus MURDER MAYHEM SHORT STORIES twenty years later, in 2016. It holds up well, yes?
To let present publisher Terror Tract explain: In this no-holds barred collection of grizzly tales, the BLOODSAINTS ANTHOLOGY takes you places that you’re glad only exist on paper. These authors, called the Bloodsaints, have donated their dark stories for the greater good. With the world attacked by a pandemic, these dark scribes have assembled to pool their proceeds to be donated to UNICEF for COVID 19 relief. To see for yourself or, better, order a copy one need but press here. But — word to the wise — don’t look to Mr. Happyhead, of the story of his name, to be counted among us saints himself.
No, he’s rather nasty.
The road to publication continues, today with an email from BLOODSAINTS Editor Dale Eldon:
Hello fellow Bloodsaints!!!! Dale Eldon here, and I got some awesome news. Some of you already know for those of you who follow me on Facebook, but I wanted to bring everyone up to speed.
We now have a new cover which I like a lot better. Bloodsaints is now a non-profit imprint of Terror Tract Publishing. I still have creative control over Bloodsaints, but the amazing Becky Narron agreed to team up with me. She also designed the new cover. We will have some late comers to the anthology who are established authors from Terror Tract. Which is awesome, because that means we are expanding the sainthood.
The anthology will be released soon, but due to the new arrivals, it will be delayed some.
BLOODSAINTS (the book as opposed to the imprint, cf. October 12, July 2), as we may recall, is a charity anthology with earnings to go to UNICEF COVID-19 relief, and contents to feature dark psychological horror, splatterpunk, extreme, bizarro . . . you get the idea. My spook in the stable is one reprinted from WICKED MYSTIC, Spring 1996, as well as more recently in the UK’s Flame Tree Publishing’s 2016 MURDER MAYHEM SHORT STORIES, “Mr. Happy Head,” the tale of a man who pursues his joys in non-standard places. And, oh yes, is also dead.
Publication, finally, should be fairly soon as the email suggests, with details to come here when they are known.
Sometimes we need just a little reminder. Thus today’s email contained this notice: Hello, Bloodsaints! I am sorry for the lack of news, I have posted some on Facebook, but not everyone follows me there. The anthology will be finishing up soon. I am editing the stories and finishing up a couple of mine. I had a few people back out on me, a writer and a friend who agreed to help in editing. Not to mention I have been dealing with a pandemic as I work in direct care for those with disabilities. Shit has been crazy to say the least on many fronts, but the anthology is still on track to finishing up.
And so it continues, I want to thank all of you for your contributions and your patience! When I do this again, I will see about finding a team to split up the work so that way the process can move quicker. I know none of us was ready for 2020 to be so crazy, but it is what it is, and us writers must carry on!
The book in question is to be called BLOODSAINTS ANTHOLOGY (see July 2) and with, yes, a reprint from me originally published in WICKED MYSTIC for Spring 1996. It’s also to be a charity anthology with profits to go to COVID-19 relief with UNICEF, a worthy cause or so it seems to me, with stories to contain elements of either: Extreme Horror, Splatterpunk, Grindhouse, bizarro, or extreme dark psychological thriller. Or in other words, who could resist?
So my puck in the pack is a 2700-word opus called “Mr. Happy Head,” about a man who seems to find true happiness in others’ pain (when he was little he’d aspired to become a dentist’s hygienist, but ended up having to settle for being a serial killer) and, oh yes, he’s dead. Of which more will appear here as it becomes known.
It looked to me like a worthy cause, a charity anthology for “COVID 19 relief with UNICEF.” Who are the Bloodsaints? the call had begun. They are the authors and editors and anyone else who are involved with making any charity relief collaboration happen, and this would be, as it were, the first “volume.” 2,000-8,000 words max . . . must have elements of either: Extreme Horror, Splatterpunk, Grindhouse, bizarro or extreme dark 
psychological thriller. So what’s not to love? And [r]eprints are cool if they are top notch. So . . . I happened to have, I thought, just the right story, originally published in WICKED MYSTIC for Spring 1996, a 2700-word piece about a man not that long ago deceased titled “Mr. Happy Head.”
Also the deadline was July 1 (I sometimes come across these things a bit late) so, it being June 28 already, off it went. A short trip, it turns out, as today, July 2, the reply came back from Dale Szewczyk: I have ready your submission, congratulations, you have been accepted into the BLOODSAINTS ANTHOLOGY! You’re a Bloodsaint now!
Monday, a new week, but after a weekend that saw some action. Saturday was my “SCIFI” Writers Group critique session, always fun for the socializing whether or not for the actual comments. My meat for the griddle this time was a 500-word absurdist tale about something improper – at least unusual – found in the protagonist’s mailbox which, it seemed to me, survived quite well. Though probably not “extreme” enough to call Bizarro, marketing could still be a challenge (actually it’s at a contest right now that unfortunately had its deadline the previous Thursday, that supplied the “prompt,” but it was fairly high level and I doubt my piece will have much of a chance).
Then, speaking of prompts, Sunday afternoon brought a Writers Guild workshop on writing on moderator-supplied subjects (see, e.g., July 17), this time that didn’t suggest to me any actual stories, but was still enjoyable as a set of exercises. Thus I wrote personal mini-essays on “I ____” (in my case “I Steal . . .,” which was also the subject of the example we were shown first, and thus one I stole); “What’s in a Name?” (on the origins, or anything else, of the essayist’s personal handle); and an incident involving one of a group of ten friends one was to dredge from his or her past (“But I don’t have ten friends,” “Oh, but what about Facebook?”) on which I wrote of a long-past girlfriend whose name I omitted to protect the, well, maybe not quite innocent.
Bottom line on this: maybe not entirely useful this time, but a break from routine and, again, socializing, so maybe I’ll do it again next month.
“THE MUSEUM OF ALL THINGS AWESOME AND THAT GO BOOM is an anthology of science fiction featuring blunt force trauma, explosions, adventure, derring-do, tigers, Martians, zombies, fanged monsters, dinosaurs (alien and domestic), ray guns, rocket ships, and anthropomorphized marshmallows.” So it says on Kindle where Upper Rubber Boot 
Books’s eclectic (to say the least) anthology has now been posted. Curious or wish to order? press here. Or for pre-ordering both print and/or electronic versions, plus a plethera of other info, one can visit the Museum’s own gift shop by pressing here. So says Editor/Publisher Joanne Merriam.
As for me, remember the TERROR TREE PUN BOOK and “Olé Bubba and the Forty Steves” (cf. June 22 et al.)? Well here we have another Bubba (a Bubba brother?) in a tongue-in-cheek tale of Christmas gone wrong, “Bubba Claus Conquers the Martians” (cf. June 13, March 17, et al.), originally published in HOUSTON, WE’VE GOT BUBBAS (Yard Dog Press, 2007). With . . . zombies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS (so okay, you saw it March 17 too, but so much stuff in it. . . .)
Khadija Anderson, “Observational Couplets upon returning to Los Angeles from Outer Space”
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, “Photograph of a Secret”
Kristin Bock, “I Wish I Could Write a Poem about Pole-Vaulting Robots”
Alicia Cole, “Asteroid Orphan”
Jim Comer, “Soldier’s Coat”
James Dorr, “Bubba Claus Conquers the Martians”
Aidan Doyle, “Mr. Nine and the Gentleman Ghost”
Tom Doyle, “Crossing Borders”
Estíbaliz Espinosa, “Dissidence” (translated by Neil Anderson)
Kendra Fortmeyer, “Squaline”
Miriam Bird Greenberg, “Brazilian Telephone”
Benjamin Grossberg, “The Space Traveler and Runaway Stars”
Julie Bloss Kelsey, two scifaiku
Nick Kocz, “The Last American Tiger”
David C. Kopaska-Merkel, “Captain Marshmallow”
Ken Liu, “Nova Verba, Mundus Novus”
Kelly Luce, “Ideal Head of a Woman”
Tim Major, “Read/Write Head”
Katie Manning, “Baba Yaga’s Answer”
Laurent McAllister, “Kapuzine and the Wolf: A Hortatory Tale”
Martha McCollough, “valley of the talking dolls” and “adventures of cartoon bee”
Marc McKee, “A Moment in Fill-In-The-Blank City”
Sequoia Nagamatsu, “Headwater LLC”
Jerry Oltion, “A Star Is Born”
Richard King Perkins II, “The Sleeper’s Requiem”
Ursula Pflug, “Airport Shoes”
Leonard Richardson, “Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs”
Erica L. Satifka, “Thirty-Six Questions Propounded by the Human-Powered Plasma Bomb in the Moments Before Her Imminent Detonation”
G. A. Semones, “Never Forget Some Things”
Matthew Sanborn Smith, “The Empire State Building Strikes Back!”
Christina Sng, “Medusa in LA”
J. J. Steinfeld, “The Loudest Sound Imaginable”
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, “The Wanderers”
Lucy Sussex, “A Sentimental, Sordid Education”
Sonya Taaffe, “And Black Unfathomable Lakes”
Mary A. Turzillo, “Pride”
Deborah Walker, “Sea Monkey Mermaid”
Nick Wood, “The Girl Who Called the World”
K. Ceres Wright, “The Haunting of M117”
Ali Znaidi, “A Dolphin Scene” and “Australian Horoscope”
Add flash to your writing. Be not like all others but dare to venture beyond the beaten path. Well, some have done this — one might recall even I had a story in Bizarro Pulp Press’s BIZARRO 
BIZARRO (see January 30 2014, December 27 2013, et al.). But that’s just the tip of the much-clichéd iceberg, as witnessed by Nathaniel Woo in “10 Bizarre Literary Movements and Genres,” published on LISTVERSE and for which see here.
(And should you be tempted, or, hey maybe I can sell a book too, for more information on BIZARRO BIZARRO one may press here.)
Thursday night, one may recall, brought readings of poetry. These were followed a half hour later by a panel on TERRIFYING TROPES: DARK CARNIVALE: FREAKS, GEEKS, MAGICIANS AND SPIRITUALISTS covering, well, just that. “Magic, mystery, and romance” — except you don’t know what hides under the greasepaint. The panels I got to struck me as quite good in almost all cases, in this case also touching on nostalgia — weirdness and whimsy — and different takes between children seeing the glitter and wonder, rides, excitement, lots to do, versus teens where it becomes highly sexualized, a place to take girls where anything can happen, versus adults who now take their kids. And the carnies themselves as playing roles, but even after the gates are closed as members of a separate culture (cited here was Tod Browning’s movie FREAKS).
Friday brought more TERRIFYING TROPES: POE-ETICS: SETTING SCENE AND ATMOSPHERE IN SUPERNATURAL FICTION, with a note that “The Dark Place” in horror is any place in that it’s being seen through the protagonist’s eyes. So, in writing, establish the protagonist’s hang-ups — what’s in his mind — and think like an actor to not just see but react to a setting (and don’t forget other senses too, especially sound). And look for details, especially ones the reader might not expect, as well as picking your own words carefully, also with an ear to their sound and their connotations, in setting a scene in the reader’s head too. Then WEIRD SOUTH: FROM VOODOO TO RATTLESNAKE REVIVAL: SOUTHERN FOLKLORE IN HORROR LITERATURE brought in mixtures of cultures, especially in places like New Orleans, and distortions brought through oral retellings. Thus the Devil may have been to some people an African god, yet close and personal to a Christian. In that the South industrialized late, people still live close to the ground, and folk magic plays in people’s minds — the idea of Hoodoo, a large collection of magical techniques, versus Voodoo and Santeria which are actual religions. But the truly frightening person is not one the Devil speaks to, but the one who says he’s been spoken to by God, because he’s the one who’s going to act on it. DEADLY DEFINITIONS: WE ARE BIZARRO! BEATING ON THE BONGOS AND SCRAPING THE VISCERA OF HORROR’S ZANIEST SUBCULTURE then spoke to “the weird stuff” — Burrough’s NAKED LUNCH, BUBBA HO-TEP, David Lynch movies, THE KAFKA EFFECT. To try to add something that “completely f ***s up, doesn’t blend in, twists 180 degrees” . . . but still works. Surreal, or told in a surreal way. Or, as one panelist put it, think Dr. Seuss, noting that that’s one of the first things, with talking animals, that we give our children.
Also on Friday were several showings of short films that I got to, in whole or in part, plus PANEL/READING: DARK POETS FACE TO FACE in which a group of poets (one, though, in absentia whose plane hadn’t come yet) read one another’s works, explaining why they chose that particular poem and commenting on it. This was a repeat of a panel I was on in New Orleans two years before (cf. June 19 2013) and then, as now, it was interesting as a look into the poets’ minds as well as just fun, whether as audience or at the table.
Saturday’s fare included more panels, with DEADLY DEFINITIONS: WHEN THE WEIRD GO PRO: EXPLORING THE PARAMETERS AND CONSIDERING THE DIRECTIONS OF A LITERARY RENAISSANCE concluding that maybe the “new weird” isn’t that new. There’s Lovecraft too, where when you end with a monster too big to kill, that’s “weird, not horror.” Post-Lovecraft we’ve become more self-absorbed, but the knowledge at the end of a story that here’s a thing we’ll never understand, that’s weird. Giant butterflies that will eat your soul . . . a magician with a spell that will destroy everything . . . that’s weird as well. But there’s always been weird fiction, it’s just that we’re talking about it in a perhaps new context. Also weird fiction “works better in short form, while longer novels need to include redemption.” WEIRD SOUTH: I WILL NEVER GO HUNGRY AGAIN: WHY ARE SO MANY CONTEMPORARY VAMPIRE NOVELS SET IN THE SOUTH spoke of Southern traits, as surface politeness that may mask darker feelings underneath, as well as the South’s dark history in general (“that’s why we fear clowns, they have smiles painted on and you know it’s hiding something”). Thus vampires, beautiful people, cultured, walk among us and, unlike, e.g., zombies, we don’t smell the rot that lies underneath. Then add tradition, strong religious feelings including the darker parts of the BIBLE, resistance to outsiders and “foreign” ideas (such as fearful Counts from places like Transylvania), master/slave relationships which the South still has trouble handling, and like the South, lush and green where everyone flourishes except the outsider, like kudzu and vines that grab hold and won’t let you go, so is the vampire both beautiful and grasping.
Earlier Saturday but to the point too, was SPECIAL PRESENTATION: DACRE STOKER: BRAM STOKER/TRAVEL GUIDE NEW DISCOVERIES 118 YEARS LATER, a PowerPoint presentation by Bram Stoker’s grand-nephew on Stoker’s life and experiences that led to the writing of DRACULA, with places and backgrounds, plus some recent discoveries adding to our understanding of the novel; plus a presentation, MEDIA: WHCFILM: SKIPP’S SATURDAY SINEMA FUNTIME, in which Director John Skipp showed a short film and possibly pilot for a TV series, BOMBO AND FLOPSY IN “AN HONEST MIS-STAKE.” Clowns . . . and vampires.
And then Sunday, finally, brought WEIRD SOUTH: THE DEVIL CAME DOWN: GROWING UP LOVING HORROR BENEATH THE MASON-DIXON LINE which amplified several themes from the days before, on the South’s unique features, but authors too including Edgar Allan Poe (though born in Boston, brought up in Virginia), story-telling traditions that affect all classes, folk expressions and word choices and multiple meanings and high-context cultures. Then, one hour later, from noon to 1, TERRIFYING TROPES: THE DEATH PANEL: FUNERALS, CEMETERIES, BURIAL, AUTOPSIES, AND DECOMPOSITION brought the convention for me back to DEATH TO DUST (as in my mis-citation in my Friday panel) with many excursions from mourning customs, to green burials and “death composting,” uses of cremains, paintings and photography of the dead, “death cafes,” food used in funerals, medieval medicine, books bound in human skin, and other objects preserved in museums.
After which time it was time to go.
To all, a stellar Holiday Season! But for those perhaps a bit melancholy, for Christmas can sometimes bring that feeling too, press here for a story for cheering up — for no matter how bad things might seem now, somewhere, at some time, things always could be worse. “The Worst Christmas Ever” was originally published in DARK JESTERS (Novello Publishers, 2006), with the version here appearing in FLASHES IN THE DARK on Christmas Day, December 25 2008. It has never been posted on this blog before, but did get a mention earlier this year (February 2 and January 31) as having been accepted as a reprint for a charity anthology, but which to my knowledge has not been published.
Then for those with more poetic, um, tastes (depending, to be sure, on one’s personal dining habits), herewith a short verse on a more upbeat note, written just yesterday, Christmas Eve. Read and enjoy!
CHRISTMAS VAMP
she’s so excited
vampire Santa left a gift —
stocking filled with blood
And to all, my best for a truly happy Christmas and year to come!
jamesdorrwriter 