Archive for January, 2023
The premiere, that is the reprint of the original “casket girls”story — not too unexpectedly titled “Casket Girls” — in its latest manifestation, has now been released. The book: THE VAMPIRICON (see January 23, et al.), from Mind’s Eye Publications.
Or to quote today’s email: THE VAMPIRICON is published! [followed by a link to a special contributors-only PDF copy, whereas, for others] . . . This book will be available in print ONLY via the Lulu dot com service. I have priced it at $15.00. . . . Unless a forthcoming (to be announced) KICKSTARTER is successful — hoping to increase pay rates for successful contributor’s work and broader publication options — this will remain the standard for publications henceforth. Whereas, as for the Casket Girls themselves (to quote myself from December 5): These are the ladies sent [to New Orleans] from France in 1728, by orders of King Louis XV, to marry the colony’s most influential — and richest — men, to induce them to settle down and raise families. But who had brought with them the one named Aimée who had special dietary preferences, which the rest of them now shared too. And so they continue to this day, their original story, “Casket Girls,” first published on April 10 2014 in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION.
Thus “Casket Girls” is now in print in THE VAMPIRICON, for those who might not have seen it before. Editor/Publisher Frank Coffman does add that an electronic edition may become available at some future time, also through Lulu — while the hard copy version can be obtained now by pressing here.
Two days before the end of January, late Sunday, the 29th, the logjam burst! The first acceptance of the New year, for reprint rights to a story first published in THE STRAND MAGAZINE, Spring-Summer 1999. The market: NIGHTMARE ABBEY (see December 2, et al.).
It started, actually, two days before with a Friday email from Editor/Publisher Tom English: Hope all’s well with you. And I’m also hoping you’ll send me something for the 3rd volume. New or reprint. (Your reprint in #2 was fabulous.) I bumped up the reprint payment rate, too, by the way. This was followed by a re-iteration of the guidelines: ghost stories, weird tales, dark fantasy (surprise or twist endings are always good), gothic, light horror . . . creepy tales that rely on atmosphere, suspense, and/or building a sense of dread; with minimal or no violence and gore . . . which, as I read through them, brought a particular story to mind. A reprint as already noted, “about a tale heard by a possibly somewhat pacifistic Englishman in France” (quoting my subsequent cover letter), which I sent back yesterday morning, Sunday.
The story’s title is “The Great Man,” and it takes place sometime after the French Revolution. Thus the reply came Sunday night:
Thanks for sending this old-fashioned macabre tale! I’d like to include “The Great Man” in NIGHTMARE ABBEY 3 (due for publication in June). . . . Let me know if agreeable and I’ll send a contract.
I don’t always — or even necessarily usually, being primarily a prose writer — get to the Writers Guild’s Last Sunday Poetry (cf. October 30, September 25 2022, et al.). But today was an exception, being its first in a new venue, Morgenstern Books, and at a new afternoon 3 p.m. time. Moderated by relatively new Hiromi Yoshida, it featured two younger poets, Bloomington artist and writer Misty Joy, a sometime comedy club performer and organizer for local monthly Hyatt Art Walk; and Bloomington/Louisville KY reading/open mic series host and local poet, Ian Uriel Girdley, with current books COLLECTING THE GIRL and THIS POEM DRANK THE WINE, and a third in the works.
Then after a fifteen-minute break, six walk-on readers took three-to-five minute turns before an audience of perhaps fifteen to twenty people, followed by Hiromi to make it seven. I came in at number two, reading three poems as a kind of homage to actress Fay Wray and the 1933 film KING KONG, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” (“the fight of all fights”), “On the Other Hand” (“King Kong would have made a lousy husband”), and “Monkey See.”
In the mailbox. Yes. In a plain brown slightly-crinkled wrapper, wedged between a poetry book and an advertisement for TV GUIDE, LOLCRAFT (see December 29, et al.) lay, lurking, late Thursday afternoon. Rescued, lifted out, opened that evening, a hefty 392 pages of Eldritch Humor (not “Eldritch Horror” as an earlier, erroneous cover picture has it [e.g., right below], although of course it is horror too!), Dragon Roost Press’s promised anthology at last had come!
My story in this, number six in a lineup of three dozen, is titled “The Reading,” one of five reprints, originally published in UNIVERSE HORRIBLIS by Third Flatiron Publishing in 2013. While, edited by Michael Cieslak, the volume, in toto, attempts the question (as per the back cover):
Horror and Humor.
Mythos and Mirth.
Lovecraft and Laughter.
Each creates tension, then releases it with explosive results.
Still, Cthulhu and Comedy? Is that even possible?
For information, or ordering, press here.
So it’s a little late, but when not? This month I was intrigued by the fourth prompt for January’s Bloomington Writers Guild Third Sunday Write (cf. December 19, et al.), to “for the New year” respond to a poem, “Have Knowledge,” by Paisley Rekdal (on immigration questions and the Lunar New Year). From the poem, I chose this line:
How many water buffalo/ does your uncle own?
My uncle never owned any, to my knowledge. He may have seen them aplenty, however, when he flew a PBY* in World War II, in the Pacific Theater. Maybe even bombed one. I think he owned cats later, in California, or maybe those were his wife’s. And I think it was from him I got a Chinese-English dictionary — for just a few useful phrases, however, that came with the life raft if you had to ditch, along with to-the-point information no matter what island one might end up on: “Don’t mess with the native women.” (I was too young then to know exactly what that one meant. It was not about counting water buffalo.)
For me, however, I’m now the family “eccentric uncle.” My nieces know I have cats — serially, that is, just one at a time. As for water buffalo, though, I have no idea what they would guess.
Then on another subject, another short note Wednesday brought a followup to Sunday/Monday’s VAMPIRICON proof (see January 23): Here is the link to the PDF download of proofing copy #2 (and the last that will be sent). As before, search by your name or the title for your work — I’m still working on the TOC.
The book will publish on January 31st.
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*re. the “Cats” in the headline, the Consolidated PBY flying boat used by the Navy was also called a “Catalina.”
Sunday dawned with a sprinkling of snow — just enough to make the world beautiful; all gone today. A promise, however, in this morning’s forecast of possibly heavier snow about Wednesday, maybe beyond the “pleasant surprise” phase.
But more to the point, Sunday afternoon also brought a proof copy of Mind’s Eye Publications’ upcoming THE VAMPIRICON, with my story “Casket Girls” in it (cf. December 5).
Originally published in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, April 10 2014, “Casket Girls” is the “origin” story about the young ladies, les filles à les caissettes, who arrived from France in a recently founded New Orleans in 1728. Their mission, from King Louis XV himself, was to marry the colony’s most prominent men, to give them reason to stay and work to make the city prosper. But with one of their number, Aimée, they brought something more with them. Something unexpected.
And so they remain to this very day, immortalized as a real-life urban legend. While, as to the proofs, in a book of sorts of origin tales about vampires in general sprinkled with nonfiction (“Casket Girls,” for instance, follows an essay on the “Femme Gothic” as exemplified in Coleridge’s “Christabel” and the movie, JENNIFER’S BODY) and poetry, too, for various reasons I had to wait till the small hours of night to give them my attention. And that, too, to glance at the contents in general, poetry — and pictures — by people I know, plus the just-mentioned essay, and more stories with those: a book I’ll be waiting to see in print with large expectations. But also, in my case, very nicely printed as well with only one error (that may have been my fault) along with a missing attribution, which I reported back that night.
And so, this morning, from Editor Frank Coffman: Thanks for the prompt reply to my request for corrections. I’ll get them made.
January 19, 1809, Boston, MA — October 7, 1849, Baltimore, MD. A brief, burning star.
(Happy Friday the Thirteenth)
Well, this Sunday’s Bloomington Writers Guild First Sunday Prose (see December 4, et al.) was, indeed, on the second Sunday, but not because of a wayward calendar. Rather, the first Sunday was New Year’s Day, an official holiday, and so host-venue Morgenstern Books was closed, making this, thus, the first available Sunday reading to start 2023.
Then, also, it was to be all “open-mic,” with a special ten-minute time slot offered for readers, though many, it turned out, were still hooked on the more normal five-minute limit. Though I, taking advantage of a relatively short sign-up list, most likely went closer to about 12 minutes — and even that skipping over some phrases and sentences to keep it short. And one more thing out of the ordinary, usual coordinator Joan Hawkins would be a little late, and so had deputized Last Sunday Poetry leader Hiromi Yoshida (see, e.g., October 30) to start things going.
That being done, with an audience of perhaps about twenty I came in third of four signed-up readers as well as Hiromi herself leading off (with a short poem — as several others read poetry too, but as Joan later explained, “we’re easy”), plus two more readers including the by-then-arrived Joan, with a break and then three more audience recruitees. My story, originally published by Untreed Reads in 2011, was “I’m Dreaming Of A. . . .” (also to be re-published in MONSTORM: A CHARITY ANTHOLOGY, cf. December 21, et al.), on how one year’s hypothetical “white Christmas” proved instead to be a nightmare.
And then, event over (and, yes, I had myself checked the weather forecast before finalizing the story I’d read), one person glancing out a window noted that it had begun to snow.*
*Nothing came of it, though.
jamesdorrwriter 