I’ve got a ton of writing news to share, but in the meantime, here’s an interview I did with Gerald Ford of The Corner of Story and Game. (and I make him laugh so hard he cries at the end.)
Check it out!
Necon – This Year and Next
I just got back from an utterly fantastic time at Necon, held this year in Goffstown, NH. I saw old friends and made new ones, did a panel with luminaries like S.A. Cosby and Clay McLeod Chapman, hung out with the remarkable Gabino Iglesias, ran the improvisational writing game show Write Club to thunderous approval, shared good scotch with good folks, sold a bunch of books and bought a few as well, got some fabulous advice on my writing, and generally had a wonderful time.
Also, I got named Toastmaster for Necon 43 next year!
See you there!
Upcoming Appearances
The calendar has gotten quite full for the next few weeks. This past weekend was spent at the SAGA Writers Conference/ConGregate in Winston-Salem, which was a wonderful experience, but that’s just kicking things off.
This Thursday I head to New Hampshire to make my annual pilgrimage to Necon. This year, I’ll be on a panel with S.A. Cosby, Clay McLeod Chapman, Trish Wilson and Shannon Grant, moderated by the effervescent Michael Arruda, on how horror has changed since COVID. I’ll also be running a horror-themed variant on the ever-awesome Write Club – we will see if horror authors have what it takes to come up with the write stuff on the fly!
Two weeks later, I fly to Indianapolis for the magnificent chaos that is GenCon, where I will be participating in the Writers’ Symposium. As an added treat this year, I have a story in the Symposium’s anthology, Interdimensions, published by Atthis Arts!
Then the 13th of August, I join a lineup of local horror authors for Monsters In the Mead Hall, 7 PM at Moon Dog Meadery in Durham. It’s a showcase event for members of the North Carolina chapter of the HWA, and we will be bringing unseasonable chills and thrills to the heat of summer.
That Saturday is Pop!-Con down in Sanford. August 17th. I’ve never been to Sanford, but I’m looking forward to sharing my spooky stories with a new audience!
So it’s going to be a busy few weeks, but I’m looking forward to it. See you here, there and everywhere!
All The Things!
Hello there! All sorts of wacky stuff is going down in the near future! But today, we’re just going to focus on three things,
For one, the talented Pamela Raymond wrote up a review of my story “Wishing Won’t”. It’s an in-depth analysis of the second-darkest thing I’ve ever written and it’s a great read. Check it out here!
For another, I had the distinct pleasure of getting interviewed on the Halfling and the Spaceman podcast, talking about all sorts of stuff including stories from the good old days at White Wolf. You can find that here, or wherever your fine podcasts are sold.
And finally, Saturday June 29th at 7 PM, I am going to be part of a group reading for Noir At The Bar in Wilson, NC at the Larema Coffee House. I’ll be reading something brand new…so come out and join us!
Against The Siren Song
Hey there, Reb Palache fans! I am pleased beyond words to announce that the fourth story in the magical pirate rabbi’s ongoing adventures is now live! You can get it by downloading the Sudden Fictions podcast – available in all the usual places – or by following this link.
Enjoy!
Carolina Fear Fest And More!
Starting tomorrow evening, I will be vending at the 5th iteration of the Carolina Fear Fest, held at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. If you’re in the area, want to meet Heather Langenkamp or David Arquette, or otherwise want to get spooked – the evil-clown-to-normal-human ratio is waaaaay off at this thing – come on down!
Also, June 29th I will be taking part in a group reading at Larema Coffee in Wilson, NC at 7 PM. Join us for an evening of spooky goodness. I’ll be reading a new story I just sold entitled “Last Supper”.
And come July, I will be a guest at ConGregate 10/SAGA Writing Workshop in Winston-Salem, NC. Come for the genre writing workshops, stay for the panels!
But wait, there’s more!
My first novel, Clan Novel: Lasombra for Vampire: The Masquerade is now available and back in print! The fine folks at Crossroad Press have resurrected the Clan Novels and much more, so if you missed the saga first time around, now is your chance….
And I’ve had the good fortune to sell not one, not two, but three stories of late, including a new tale of Reb Palache and a tale of a visit from Santa in South Philly gone horribly wrong. That one, believe it or not, is based on a true story….
Catch you soon….
In Memoriam – James A. Moore
Reposted from Facebook:
The thing you have to know about Jim Moore is this:
When I was still a little baby fiction writer churning out White Wolf tie-in novels, Jim advised me that I should seek broader horizons and that I needed to come to this gathering of horror writers called Necon. He explained what Necon was to me and who would be there, and I said it sounded really interesting but that I didn’t know if I could do it (because in those days I never let myself do anything). Jim nodded and then told me that if I didn’t go to Necon, he would rip my legs off and beat me to death with them on the spot. So I went to Necon. One of the best decisions I ever made.
Then again, it might be the time he encouraged me in 1997 to use the HWA directory to cold call Ray Bradbury’s house for reasons that are unimportant now. It was a terrible idea, but it reflected perfectly Jim’s belief that we were all here, the mighty and the meek, to help one another, and that to not attempt the impossible was to guarantee failure.
Or it could be all the times he would walk into my office at White Wolf when he was freelancing game writing for us. For a big man, he could move like a cat, and he would materialize behind me, put his hands on my shoulders and ask pleasantly, “Do you have any work for me?” I pretty much always answered yes – he was a valuable and trusted and imaginative writer, and he made such lovely toys for the sandbox we were playing in. But he never knew what I was doing behind the scenes. If Jim had one flaw, he was a classic over-writer. If I contracted him for 10K words, I would get 20K, and I wouldn’t be able to use them all (and if I didn’t use them, I couldn’t pay for them, so….). What I ended up doing was that every time I needed 10K words from Jim, I would contract him for 5K, knowing that he was going to give me 10K. I would then cheerfully take what he delivered, make sure he got paid for the whole thing, and we were both happy. He didn’t know that until 2 years ago, and when I told him, he laughed uproariously.
Or maybe it’s the love he had with his first wife, Bonnie, that made them a joy to be with. And that love, after Bonnie’s passing, was purified and transformed into the heartbreaking DINNER FOR ONE: A JOURNEY TO HEALING. To go from monsters and gore to something so delicate and warm was an act of consummate love and skill.
No, no, it’s the fact that in his first attempt at X-Files style sci-fi paranoia horror, FIREWORKS, he Tuckerized me as a rabbi, all because previously I’d managed to explode a Tupperware container of homemade matzah ball soup I was bringing to him all over the back seat of my car. The car smelled like soup for a solid year, and it was a constant source of laughter.
Who knows? It could have been the joy he found later in life with his old high school sweetheart, Tessa, who put a smile back on his face that was so good to see.
Perhaps it was the way he was always encouraging others to stretch their boundaries and bust out of their self-described envelopes. With me, he hounded me to try my hand at sword and sorcery because he was having so much fun doing it, and when I finally worked up the nerve, he snatched the story up with words of praise I had never been expecting.
Many people would think it was the way he was always excited to greet new friends and old with one of his bone-crushing Sasquatch-level hugs. He shared that love equally with everyone he met, a constant font of affection that raised the spirits of the already happy and brought comfort to those who needed it.
Other folks would say that it was his relentless efforts to elevate new writers. He always had someone for you to meet, and nine times out of ten it was someone you had professionally admired for years who just happened to be there. Jim’s introduction was the golden ticket into the secret world, and he shared it freely with any he thought would benefit. I remember telling him back in the day how much I loved the work of a particular author, and he remembered. Two years later, he grabbed me at a White Wolf party at DragonCon, hustled me across the floor, and introduced me to the object of my professional admiration. He had remembered, and he had gone so far above and beyond to do so that my head spun.
Or maybe…..maybe not.
I have a million Jim Moore stories, and they are all written in the language of love and laughter and respect.
And now, sorrow, because I will never get one of those back-cracking hugs again. Because he is gone.
All I can do is share those stories in the spirit of love, and to try to carry on what Jim taught me: about professionalism, about writing, about life, and about people.
May his memory be a blessing for all of us.
North Carolina HWA Chapter Reading Tuesday Night
Join the NC chapter of the Horror Writers’ Association for a five-headed monster of a reading Tuesday, March 26th at 7 PM at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh! They’re even letting me read – it looks like I’ll be doing a bit of “Meemaw’s Frogs” from A Meeting In The Devil’s House.
So join us! And RSVP here – the event is filling up fast!
Some Love From A Goat
Kayleigh Dobbs of Happy Goat Horror was kind enough to turn her eye to me and A MEETING IN THE DEVIL’S HOUSE. She reviewed it, and you have to love any review that includes a break in the action to question whether the author is all right – which you can find right here.
She also sat down for a pleasant hour’s conversation which covered everything from writing for games to the true story behind the zombie frog tale “Meemaw’s Frogs”. If you have the time, check it out – the conversation was a lot of fun. You can find it here.
Meanwhile the reviews keep rolling in on Amazon – two new ones say nice things like “MEETING IN THE DEVIL’S HOUSE is a meeting you don’t want to miss” and “The amazing thing is that each story is a master class in short fiction. Dansky’s writing in this collection reminds me of the first time I read Bradbury’s October Country. That’s the highest praise I can bestow!”
Upcoming Goodness
So a lot has happened recently, and there’s a lot coming up that I can’t give you all the details of. But here’s the basics:
1-I’m going to be doing 2 readings in March in North Carolina. The first one will be on March 7th in Rocky Mount. The second will be March 26th at Quail Ridge Bookstore at North Hills in Raleigh. More details on both as soon as I have them.
2-I will be in the dealer room at Ret-Con in Cary March 1-3, selling books and telling the hidden stories behind the stories to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen. Come on by – it’s a great small con!
3-Once again in March I will sojourn west to San Francisco for Game Developers Conference and the Game Narrative Summit. During the main conference I will be running 2 days of Narrative Round Tables for all and sundry at the conference to attend.
4-April 12-14, I will be heading back to Williamsburg. VA for AuthorCon III, where I will be sharing a table in the dealers’ room with the award-winning horror author PD Cacek. Check out her stuff – Leavings is my favorite of hers, with Sebastian close behind – and swing by!
5-The speakers at GenCon’s Writers Symposium have been announced, and I’m one of them. More details as we get closer to August.
6-I will also be attending Necon and StokerCon this year. Everything else is up in the air.
7-An astonishing writing opportunity has come my way, and I am energetically exploring it. It’s something completely new that I’ve always wanted to try, though my past attempts haven’t really gone anywhere. When the time is right, I will reveal all.
And that’s all for now.