Tuesday's Overlooked A/V: Abed

My post is actually over at The Girls' Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse -- Abed (The Film):

What would you do to keep your family alive?

Watch the trailer to see if this is something you'd like to check out (i.e. not for the faint-hearted!)




Or just buy Beth's story for 99¢ on Amazon:





And be sure to pop over to Todd's to see the round-up of overlooked sights & sounds. Busy week: news soon! So little time, so much to do...

Writer Wednesday: Reviews

PLAGUE TOWN
DANA FREDSTI

Ashley Parker makes a winning heroine: she's a bit older than her fellow students and while she's got the classic California co-ed looks, it's her intelligence and integrity that you'll remember. Fredsti's writing is always full of good humour and arch observations, but it's also chock full of action and really gruesome horror. The alternation in narrative between zombie hunters and zombie sufferers gives a chance to recognise the human price of the plague, something that doesn't come across in a lot of more depersonalised tales. At times the in-jokes come a little heavy, but the story cracks right along with both intense and grisly action, but also complicated interactions between characters you will root for. Looking forward to the sequels!

THE LANGUAGE OF DYING
SARAH PINBOROUGH

In this intense novella we see an already damaged family dealing with the impending death of their father. Our narrator is the beleaguered middle child and daddy's girl, who seems to be the rock holding everything together -- until the cracks in her façade begin to show. Interactions with her siblings bring out the comfort of that shared experience, but also the strains of their lives together. As her father's life ebbs, she drifts into remembering the very worst times in her life and a memory of something that may or may not have happened -- and something that waits outside the house. In his introduction, Graham Joyce calls it 'fractured realism' and it fits. A strong exploration of the dark spectre we must all find a way to deal with sooner or later.

SNAPSHOTS
PAUL D. BRAZILL

As indicated on the tin, twenty-one short sharp tales of crime, despair and bizarrely comic misadventures. Not so much the world of the rich and famous as of the spent and fumbling, observed through a bleary eye of cynicism gilded with a mordant sense of humour that will have you laughing even as you wince. If there's a fault here, it's that they read too quickly. It would be a treat to see Brazill tackle something lengthier.

[Apologies for the wonky formatting; the mobile Blogger app leaves a lot to be desired.]

Six Sentence Sunday: High Plains Lazarus

I began writing this story about a day before I went off to Trinoc*coN one year, because I knew I had to read something and I suddenly decided I hated everything I'd ever written (yes, I have those kind of days). It came from the voice: as soon as I heard Finn's voice in my head, I knew I had a winner. I hadn't planned to write a zombie western -- and I didn't know that it would end up being a 10,000 word novelette that really would like to be a novel. In time, in time.

As another bottle went whizzing by my head I knew that I had made some serious miscalculations. I knew too that Jim was like to kill me because of those miscalculations, but at the moment the shambling wreck of a corpse was a much more pressing issue. I had unloaded most of my pistol into it already when Jim shouted that I should quit wasting bullets like they were made of manure and throw something more substantial, but somehow guns still seemed like a good idea. Cursing his illustrious forebears, I finally holstered my beloved pearl-handled Colts and looked around for something heftier. The dead guy continued his staggering plunge toward me, so I grabbed a chair and flung it wildly across the room. It fetched up a glancing blow on his shoulder, which spun him around to the left...

You can pick this story up in the collection Rotting Tales from Pill Hill Press. Fun stuff there -- get your zombie on and go west.



 

Top Ten: "High Plains Lazarus"

Picking up the Chalk Again

I have to be on campus early to teach today and I'm still playing catch up, so here's a "golden oldie" and a couple of bits of news:

There's still two more days to vote for my voodoo zombie western "High Plains Lazarus" as best horror short of 2010 in the Predators & Editors poll.

Keep your fingers crossed: I may soon have some good news to announce regarding a non-fiction project that has been in the works for a while.

Kit Marlowe and I are both doing guest blogs tomorrow! More later on that. I have a Tuesday's Overlooked Film, too.

And the certificate in Women's and Gender Studies received state approval! Hurrah, it's official.

The re-run is my essay "Picking Up the Chalk Again" which was written when I was teaching in Houston. Although it's written about returning to teaching after the summer, in some ways the return for the spring semester is even harder (and that's without the subzero temperatures predicted for tonight). The break is just too short and usually full of events that don't help with getting work done. By the end of it I'd been feeling so exhausted that I just wasn't being effective any way. I have to remind myself that my brain needs rest and refilling, too. So as I type this Sunday night, feeling dissatisfied with my work this weekend, I remind myself of Emerson's wise words:

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Let it be so; let today be a day of high spirit and some satisfaction.

Publications: High Plains Lazarus / Fear and Loathing in Deptford

I'm pleased to let you know that the zombie anthology, Rotting Tales, is now available from Pill Hill Press and it features my short story "High Plains Lazarus" -- obviously influenced by spaghetti Westerns as well as Joe R. Lansdale his own self, but with a mystical twist.

The book will be available on Amazon soon, but until Thanksgiving, Pill Hill will be selling the collection for a discounted rate of $15.49 so if you're thinking of picking it up, that's a great reason.

The story has a funny history, having been written at the last minute as I headed off to Trinoc-con one year and hated everything I'd ever written (it happens) and so started writing something just for fun. It was a big hit, with one exception: I'd only got half the story written. People were ready to kill me for stopping in the middle, but that's all I had. I finished (and read the rest the following year at Trinoc-con) and sold it to an anthology, who then proceeded to slowly reel out the days while contributors waited, and waited, and were reassured that it was coming, it was coming -- and then after two years, they just stopped responding. Sigh. Unfortunately, that's the life of small publishers. I'm glad it's got a home at last.

Over at the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, where the first issue of the journal is available for a mere 99¢ (such a bargain!), you can get the lowdown this week on our design director, Stephanie Johnson AKA the Queen of Everything, editor Vicky Squid and, er, me. We'll be getting to know many of the contributors to the first issue throughout the month. Enjoy!

Albacon & Publishing News

Yes, I'm going to be tied up all this weekend at Albacon, so if you're trying to reach me, you may have to wait a bit for me to get back to you. Here's my schedule, but you can see the entire schedule on the wiki and see the website for a full list of guests who are not me (there are many friends!):

Thu 7.30pm
Writers & Artists Reception

Fri 3pm
Social Media & Promotion
How to use the myriad frequencies of social media to promote your work without allowing it to suck up all your time
Alexandre (M), Holzner, Laity, Roman, Ventrella

Fri 5pm
General Signing with All Workshop Authors

Fri 8pm
Ice Cream Social AKA Meet the panelists

Fri 9pm
Fantasy Ball

Sat 1pm
Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Reading:
Arthen, Kempe, Laity, Rogow, Westfield

Sat 11pm
Steamy Romance Reading
The stories don't have to be scorching, but it helps! This is a 18+ event. Attendees will have the chance to win some swag thanks to Authors After Dark. 
Alexandre, Arthen, Crowley, D'Arc, Darvill, Jamison, Kempe, Lynne, Marlowe, Price, Westfield [MC: Laity]

Sun 2pm
Comics that Rock
What should you be reading right now?
Fludd (M), Laity, Martineck, Prellwitz

And of course, I will be running around meeting and greeting all weekend. It's also Kit Marlowe's debut on Monday :-) She's pretty excited about her cover for her first publication, the novella:

Though I'd have loved to have something like you find here, I understand the need for corporate branding -- and the need to keep costs low! And I just got the proofs for the zombie Western novella, High Plains Lazarus, in the collection that now has the name Rotting Tales from Pill Hill Press. Now I just need time to go through them carefully -- why do I write such long stories! The edits for The Mangrove Legacy took a long long time because it's over 100,000 words -- insane! But you knew that, right?

Zombie Land

I came out of The White Guard today, hopped on my bike and thought I had landed in 28 Days Later. I had misgivings about the Waterloo roundabout, always an insane mess of cars, bikes and other vehicles and there was --

no one.

I have never seen the streets of London so empty (at least not since the zombie flick). Yeah, it was the England v Slovenia match of the World Cup. I cycled off to meet a friend at the Black Prince, where we had a beer before the crowds started gathering for the next match (Germany v Ghana). Who knew there were so many Germans in south London? They came to the Black Prince because "the other German pub was full." Har!

Reviews of the Russian play and the Scottish one to come --

Get Your Zombie On!

The fabulous Elena Steier illustrates a wild zombie adventure written by Andrew Steier (hmmmm, wonder if they're related?).