Archive for February, 2019
generally terrorizing those around them, these souls have a bone to pick with the living. Inexplicable events, angry demons and psychological games are just some of the things these movies have to offer. Additionally, there is something about having unforeseen forces terrorizing people in places we deem safe that is truly frightening. And, yes, we have the “usual suspects,” PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, POLTERGEIST, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, but there are some good movies, even a bit off the beaten track, that are on the list too. THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE, THE ORPHANAGE, THE OTHERS, THE INNOCENTS (1961), and even some that are just plain fun like William Castle’s THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959) — the original one with Vincent Price!Another voice from the past received (cf. December 11 2017) with today’s email: It’s been a long time coming, but issue 27 of BÊTE NOIRE is finally coming together. Attached is your poem as it will appear in our magazine. If you could, please take a moment to look it over and let me know if everything looks okay. Publication originally had been planned for 
October 2018 but, as we know well in the writing biz, delays sometimes do happen.
Looking back to the guidelines, BÊTE NOIRE specializes in fiction and poems that are well written, character driven and have a dark bent to them. We are open to most genres as long as they have a dark side. This includes horror, dark sci-fi, dark fantasy, crime, mystery or dark humor. For myself I think of “Even Odds” as falling into the “dark humor” category there, but it’s also a bit on the nihilistic side (being as it’s about the end of the world and such) which might suggest a gloomy tinge too.
But to the point, corrections (just a small one and that in my biographical note) went back this afternoon, with more to be here as it becomes revealed.
February’s Bloomington Writers Guild “Last Sunday Poetry Reading and Open Mic” (cf. January 27, et al.), co-sponsored by the Monroe County Convention Center, saw a rather small turnout this time, perhaps in part due to a rare sunny, bright day, even if windy and still chilly. The announced readers were Writers Guild newcomer Joe Betz with five poems from a working manuscript plus one just drafted, followed by Tony Brewer, past Guild chairman and “old hand,” with a selection of poems and an explanation of the title of his upcoming book HOMUNCULUS. After the break I was second among four open mike readers with “The White Worm: On the Death of Virginia Poe, by Consumption,” the second of my two poems from the ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT (Unnameable Press, 1995) Edgar Allan Poe based anthology, as a follow up to “The Resurrection Man” from last month.
Then another short note, the “other” Kickstarter we’ve been following for Gehenna and Hinnom Books (see February 16, 1) will be ending this Saturday, March 2. Those interested in helping a good cause — as well, perhaps, in some tasty rewards — are invited to press here.
After a hectic afternoon including finalizing the PDF for A JAMES DORR SAMPLER (see February 21, below), yesterday evening saw me arriving a half hour late for the “Players Pub Second Thursday Spoken Word Series” (see December 15, et al.), co-sponsored by the Bloomington Writers Guild but on the third, not the second Thursday and not at Players Pub this month but, temporarily, Th
e Blockhouse, another downtown Bloomington bar. So not to worry, due to a problem involving the band “The Paperback Riot” the program started late as well with featured readers Ian Uriel Girdley and Tony Brewer reading poetry and Joan Hawkins with an elaborate reading of an imagined dialogue between William S. Burroughs and his wife, “William and Joan in the Bardo.” This was followed immediately by four open mike readings, with the musical part just after, in which I was last with a reprise of my January “First Sundays Prose” (cf. January 6) reading of my building walls satire-with-zombies “Steel Slats.”
Next month the series will move again, this time to a new night, Wednesday, and a newer location at the university area pub Bear’s Place. More as it develops.
Say what? Yes, the Itty Kickstarter (see February 3, January 31, et al.) for funding ITTY BITTY WRITING SPACE — as well as its authors! — will end at midnight EST tonight. That’s the book of one hundred flash fiction stories, by one hundred authors, all genres, all styles, including my epic “The Junkie” of (un)life as a zombie on the mean streets of the city. And Editor/Publisher Jason Brick has added a new reward, an “Ebook Extravaganza” (also included in the “Book Me + Ebook Bundle” option, plus two at the $60 level and one at $85), to wit: You get everything in “I Love Living In The Future” PLUS a collection of 12 full-length ebooks by our authors! How cool is that? It’s like getting a book for a buck twelve times! How cool indeed!
The authors included are Ahmed A. Khan, Craig English, Randy Attwood, Cathy Smith, Halli Lilburn, Jean Harkin, Ian Jedlica, Karen Eisenbrey, Russell Nohelty, James Dorr, Ali Lauderdale, Melissa Dull, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Lisa Love, plus Jason Brick according to a recent email, actually a few more than
“At midnight it all turns back into a pumpkin.”
12 if I have it right, but there is one disclaimer. My entry, anyway, is in the just over 30,000-word range which is a bit short of novel-length by most standards, so if it counts as a “full-length ebook” may be in the eye of the beholder. The title is A JAMES DORR SAMPLER: SEVEN STORIES OF FANTASY, SCIENCE FICTION, AND HORROR, and it consists of one story each from my early collections STRANGE MISTRESSES and DARKER LOVES (for more on all of these click the book’s picture in the center column), two from my Stoker(R) nominated THE TEARS OF ISIS, two from my novel-in-stories TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, and one uncollected extra, all in a somewhat “rough and ready” PDF format.
Seems like a pretty good deal to me, bit then I do have a rat in the race. But check out the kickstarter for yourself by pressing here — and remember to hurry, it all ends at midnight!
This is a quick addendum to February 12’s post on the acceptance of “Beefcaake and the Vamp” for MONSTERTHOLOGY 2. What, one may ask, of the original MONSTERTHOLOGY — to confess, I thought I’d probably remember if I’d had work there, so I thought I hadn’t. But this afternoon, quite serendipitously, I ran across evidence to the contrary. I’d just misremembered how much time there’d been.
Let us go back then to July 2 2012 and a similar call which brought my response: “For all the ‘creature features’ you’ve seen, from The Fly to the Swamp Creature to Sasquatch, I offer you ‘Stink Man’ which, if not a homage to any one particular movie, might stand in for a whole herd of related part man, part [you name it] pictures.” And so, that day, Editor Alan Russo agreed, and “Stink Man” came forth in the first MONSTERTHOLOGY (cf. September 12, July 18, 2 2012).
It wasn’t well attended on this cold Sunday afternoon, the kind of gray day where the sky spits tiny drops of freezing moisture, not sleet, not big enough to be rain, but just enough to accumulate and to add to discomfort. I wouldn’t blame people for staying home, especially with children who could catch cold — as, if I don’t watch out, could I. But inside the theater once things got going the screen was a splash of browns and yellows, reds and bright yellow-greens, tinges of purple. Blues for night scenes too — this was about a journey of children, Tito, his brave girl friend Sara, in search for his missing father and, ultimately, courage for himself.
As the IU Cinema blurb explains: Tito is a shy 10-year-old boy who lives with his mother. Suddenly, an unusual epidemic starts to spread, making people sick whenever they get scared. Tito quickly discovers that the cure is somehow related to his missing father’s research on bird song. He embarks on a journey to save the world from the epidemic with 
his friends. Tito’s search for the antidote becomes a quest for his missing father and for his own identity. In Portuguese with English subtitles.
One reviewer, I forget which — Rotten Tomatoes? IMDb? — made the comment that in terms of plot the film could have been anime, but he’s glad that it was instead done in a more earthy cartooning style, sketchy in places but rich in colors and texture as if an oil painting, as well as that Sara got to wear skirts below her knees. Well, some of that’s mine, too. As for the birds, we’re given to know that birds have long warned of coming disasters, fires, storms, things to be scared of. In Tito’s case the birds are pigeons which, as one homeless person on a bus tells us, get no respect. But they have hung around people for a long time, and if one could talk to them. . . .
Not giving overly much away, fear comes in part from isolation, but people are at their best working together, in flocks like birds. So brotherhood isn’t a bad thing to practice, perhaps a message for our present times. And there’s even a swipe at over-zealous capitalism which may exploit fear as a way to make money. These aren’t profound things, TITO AND THE BIRDS being, after all, a film for children, but it made for a well spent afternoon. Afterward I went downtown to the library, as I often do, the weather still cold but a few degrees above freezing now, enough to have melted whatever ice might have been on the sidewalks. Then after that, walking back across the campus on my way home, I heard other birds calling, a blackness above of crows flying to their roosts for the night, and it looked very much like some scenes in the movie.
And now for something completely different. Or, well, different at least, a recasting of an interview of . . . *moi* . . . by Rushelle Dillon (cf. October 22 2017) in a video format, or part of it anyway. The title is “Video Refresh: James Dorr Interview” by Stuart Conover and it’s on HORRORTREE.COM. Or, to let the poster speak for himself: A Sample of our interview with James Dorr by Ruschelle Dillon. In the interview, he has a lot of fun details on his take on the writing process. If you delve into the full interview there are a lot of playful details on his 
life on top of that! . . . This is a new format that we’re playing around with for articles, interviews, and potentially Trembling With Fear. Please let us know if this is something that you’d like to see more of!
For more, press here (yes, it is kind of fun)! And there’s also a link if you wish to read the whole interview as it had been originally posted.
Then a quick word on the two Kickstarters we followed earlier this month. The ITTY BITTY WRITING SPACE one (see February 3, January 29) will be over this Thursday, February 21, so there’s not much time left if you’re tempted to participate. The other for Gehenna and Hinnom Books (see February 1), with as of now a few extra rewards added, will end just past the close of the month, on Saturday March 2. Links to both can be found in their posts on the dates just noted.
Well, it’s on THE-LINE-UP.COM and it’s actually titled “10 Romantic Horror Movies To Watch on Valentine’s Day,” by MacKenzie Stuart, but I didn’t run across it until today. And anyway, really, ten movies on one day? To quote the author: Does the word rom-com send chills down your spine? If you’re a true horror flick aficionado, you’re likely to dread 
venturing outside of your comfort zone of zombies and psychopaths. However, horror and romance don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can enjoy the best of both worlds with a romantic horror movie that seamlessly weaves touching love stories into your favorite gory films.
And indeed, what films are being suggested, something for everyone starting with SWEENY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET all the way down to ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE (these two movies, by the way, with a strong musical interest too). With, in between, WARM BODIES, HELLRAISER, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES . . . and five in addition, all to be checked out by pressing here. So break out the amaretto along with the popcorn, snuggle up with your significant other (and/or the family cat — yes, Triana, you’re invited too) and enjoy, enjoy!
The Goth cat Triana, herself a lover of seafood, was given the choice of a short poem of mine to share for the occasion. Her selection, as it happens, might be dedicated especially to southern hemisphere readers who, in places like Australia where 100 degree plus temperatures appear to be common for this February, might plan to spend Valentine’s Day at the beach.
.
WET WORK
mermaid vampiress
scarlet billows greet her kiss
a sea of love
“Wet Work” was originally published in the Fall 2017 STAR*LINE.
jamesdorrwriter 