Welcome, Black Glove readers. This month’s Horror News has some exciting developments in fiction, film and poetry.
Irish writer, Derek Gunn's latest thriller,The Estuary, has been released by Permuted Press and promises to hit it big with the horror crowd. According to the author, 'The Estuary' is a fast-paced, horror adventure tale, about a desperate plan formulated in the darkest years of an evil empire, which now threatens to engulf the residents of a small community in Southern Ireland. “I’m delighted that The Estuary is now available from Permuted Press, who are making tremendous strides forward in publishing horror/post-apocalyptic genre fiction” says Derek.
Permuted Press are a US based publisher of apocalyptic horror including bestselling and cult-classic titles from Bram Stoker Award winner Dr. Kim Paffenroth, David Wong, J.L. Bourne, Z.A. Recht and many more.
Derek Gunn is the author of the post-apocalyptic horror saga, Vampire Apocalypse, a series of novels released through US publisher, Black Death Books. An earlier work of Derek's has been optioned for film by producer/screenwriter Richard Finney. Finney and screenwriter, Franklin Guerrero Jr., recently penned a script based on the book. Their adaptation led to a recent partnership on the project with producer, Robert Lawrence (Die Hard: With a Vengence, Clueless, The Last Castle). Currently the project is being represented by the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) who is packaging the project for the studios.
THE ESTUARY is available (or can be ordered from) most booksellers.
A founding father of the Splatterpunk movement in horror, author/editor/filmmaker/musician John Skipp, announced the near future publication of his ‘gigantic 700-page opus, spanning the full history of the written zombie word’. Skipp was the co-editor of the landmark undead anthology ‘The Book of the Dead’ with Craig Spector back in the 80s. The new anthology, ‘ZOMBIES: Encounters With the Hungry Dead’ will surely be as important to horror literature as his duo of classic zombie anthologies twenty years ago. Some of the names listed to appear in this massive anthology of zombie fiction include such horror masters as Leonid Andreyev, W.B. Seabrook, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Theodore Sturgeon, Steve Duffy, Neil Gaiman, George Saunders, Dennis Etchison, S.G. Browne, Justine Musk, Adam Golaski, Mehitobel Wilson, Les Daniels, Steve Rasnic Tem, Joe R. Lansdale, Steven R. Boyett, David J. Schow, Robert R. McCammon, Jack Ketchum, Kathe Koja, Eric Shapiro, Max Brooks, Poppy Z. Brite, John Skipp and Marc Levinthal, Cody Goodfellow, Lisa Morton, Carlton Mellick III, Terry Morgan and Christopher Morgan, Douglas E. Winter, and Adam-Troy Castro.
ZOMBIES: Encounters With the Hungry Dead should be available as early as October 09 from Black Dog and Leventhal!
Karen L. Newman announced her third poetry collection, ‘Toward Absolute Zero’, was released by Sam's Dot last month. It contains forty-two dark poems and is for sale at The Genre Mall.
Author Shaun Jeffrey announced his newest novel, The Kult, is now available
Available now from Leucrota Press: Paperback $9.95. Ebook $3.95.
And check out the associated competition to win up to $100 in gift vouchers to Amazon, Horror Mall or Shocklines: http://www.shaunjeffrey.com/kultcompetition.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2jVDiJfNbo
The Kult - People are predictable. That's what makes them easy to kill.
http://www.shaunjeffrey.com
From the back cover: “People are predictable. That's what makes them easy to kill.
Acting out of misguided loyalty to his friends, police officer Prosper Snow is goaded into helping them perform a copycat killing, but when the real killer comes after him, it’s not only his life on the line, but his family's too. Now if he goes to his colleagues for help, he risks being arrested for murder. If he doesn't, he risks being killed.”
PRAISE FOR THE KULT
“With Kult, Shaun Jeffrey hits one out of the park with this creepy, character-driven thriller that starts with a jolt, stays in the fast lane, and plunges into the darkest territory of the human mind. It’s a bumpy ride through nightmare country.” --Jonathan Maberry, multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of PATIENT ZERO and PUNISHER: NAKED KILL
Jeffrey Thomas says he’s been interviewed at the German web site Rock N Roll Reporter
And his newest works have finally been released. The Punktown novel, HEALTH AGENT,
and the Punktown short story collection, VOICES FROM PUNKTOWN, are both available now.
Author and editor AP Fuchs announced that Nick Cato's ‘DON OF THE DEAD’ is now available from Coscom Entertainment
From the back cover: “Two mob families go to war after one family’s main hitman switches sides--and to show his newfound loyalty, he has to whack his former boss, who also happens to be the current Don. The Don is buried alive on a mob-controlled construction site that was once the location of a church that had banned the same Don’s ancestors, causing them to invent their own religion.
The Barrlucio and Piranzza families battle for control of the underworld before their main henchmen find out a Don has been offed without permission. Major problems arise when a group of mysterious Sicilians arrive from Italy and manage to retrieve the Don’s corpse.
Well, his living corpse.
Before long, the Don’s undead state leads to the outbreak of reanimated dead, including a showdown at the Staten Island Mall and NYC’s Central Park. Add to the mix a corrupt military general that is bent on using the outbreak to bring down the mob and the entire city and an even more corrupt Catholic priest who is responsible for the whole mess in the first place.
Ah, nothing like a few bowls of scungilli, classy suits, bullets and zombies.”
Editor/author/poet Christopher Conlon and Dark Scribe Press have announced that Conlon will helm a HITCHCOCK POETRY ANTHOLOGY FOR DARK SCRIBE PRESS
LONG ISLAND, NY, July 27, 2009 — Dark Scribe Press announced today that it is partnering with award-winning poet Christopher Conlon on A SEA OF ALONE: POEMS FOR ALFRED HITCHCOCK, an anthology of poetry focusing on the late master of suspense. Slated for publication during the third quarter of 2010, the collection will be an exploration of Hitchcock’s life and work through poetry. Conlon will serve as editor on the collection.
Hitchcock is arguably the most popular and influential film director of Hollywood’s classic age, and nearly three decades after his death, his image and voice are still instantly recognizable throughout the world. A SEA OF ALONE: POEMS FOR ALFRED HITCHCOCK will celebrate this one-of-a-kind figure in a suitably unique way — through verse. To that end, the anthology will feature original, unpublished poems on the subject of Hitchcock — his life, his films, his impact, his legend.
Conlon is the author of four books of poems, most recently STARKWEATHER DREAMS , and a novel, MIDNIGHT ON MOURN STREET, which was a finalist for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award. His work has appeared widely in magazines and journals including DARK DISCOVERIES, POETS & WRITERS, AMERICA, TENNESSEE WILLIAMS ANNUAL REVIEW, POET LORE, THE KING’S ENGLISH, and THE LONG STORY, as well as in such anthologies as MASQUES V and CALIFORNIA SORCERY. As an editor his credits include HE IS LEGEND: AN ANTHOLOGY CELEBRATING RICHARD MATHESON, POE’S LIGHTHOUSE, and THE TWILIGHT ZONE SCRIPTS OF JERRY SOHL. A former Peace Corps Volunteer, Conlon hails from Silver Spring, Maryland, where he writes, teaches, and hosts a popular quarterly poetry reading series.
Dark Scribe Press launched in 2007. In addition to its popular virtual publication, DARK SCRIBE MAGAZINE, the press published UNSPEAKABLE HORROR: FROM THE SHADOWS OF THE CLOSET in 2008 to widespread acclaim. The collection of GLBT horror originals went on to win the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology — the first time a GLBT anthology won the award in its sponsoring organization’s 22-year history. In addition to Conlon’s forthcoming Hitchcock collection, the company is readying IN THE CLOSET, UNDER THE BED, a short story collection from award-winning writer Lee Thomas, and BUTCHER KNIVES & BODY COUNTS, a collection of non-fiction essays on the formula, frights and fun of the slasher film.
“As a lifelong Hitchcockian,” Conlon says, “I’m thrilled to be working with Dark Scribe Press on this unique anthology. I first discovered the Master of Suspense when I was a child, through reruns of his TV series and a late-night broadcast of Psycho; his work has been a central passion for me ever since. Poetry came into my life at around the same time – Edgar Allan Poe was an early favorite – and it too has remained a lifelong love of mine. The idea of combining these two passions in a project for a hot new award-winning press like Dark Scribe is more thrilling than I can say.”
DSP President and CEO Vince Liaguno is equally excited by the prospects of what promises to be a singular collection. “We strive to acquire projects that are unique, projects that explore their subject matters in fresh and stimulating ways. When Chris approached us with his inspired concept, we were immediately struck by how perfect the marriage of Hitchcock, who was such a cinematic lyricist himself, and the poetic form was. I think the lyrical interpretation of Hitchcock’s life and works will add an entirely new perspective to the Hitchcock canon.”
For more information on Christopher Conlon: www.christopherconlon.com
For more information on Dark Scribe Press: www.DarkScribePress.com
For submissions guidelines: www.alfredhitchcockpoems.blogspot.com
And in film news, it was announced recently that Don Murphy of Angry Films would produce THE FLOCK, a surprise underground hit written by James Robert Smith.
This from the press release: “In the annals of Hollywood lore, there have been many strange ways that movies came to be made, but when cameras start rolling on it, ‘The Flock’ will be the first picture that came out of a flame war between the producer and the book’s author.
It started when producer Don Murphy was checking in on the message board of his friend Eddie Campbell, illustrator of the Alan Moore graphic novel ‘From Hell’, which Murphy had produced as a film. On the board, he found some critical comments about the picture that really upset him. Thinking he’d give as good as he got, Murphy discovered that the poster, James Robert Smith, had a book out, so he ordered it, expecting to read a self-published book he could shred publicly. To his surprise, Murphy found a book that Publisher’s Weekly called “an entertaining debut” in which “Smith maps out a complex living environment that makes the flock's continued existence almost believable and depicts human characters who match the killer birds in adaptability.” The story of a flock of prehistoric birds hiding in the Florida everglades until their habitat is sold off to developers grabbed Murphy, and he convinced John Wells that it should be part of a coproducing arrangement between the two Hollywood impresarios. Along with their respective partners Susan Montford at Angry Films and Claire Rudnick Polstein, President of John Wells Productions, they have optioned the film and are currently working with scribe Travis Milloy on translating it to the screen as a summer tent-pole release, most likely for 2011.
For author Smith, the process seems sometimes less than completely real. A postal carrier
by day, Smith has been working away at his writing craft in novels, short stories, and
comics for decades. Becoming an “overnight sensation” over an on-line disagreement
after all that hard work may not be the proscribed method of success in publishing, but as
most writers know, you take your breaks where they come.”
We’ll bring you more news about THE FLOCK the movie as we get it.
And, finally, author Maurice Broaddus would like to remind everyone that he’s putting the dark in dark fantasy and the urban in urban fantasy ...
Visit the uber-talented Maurice Broaddus at http://www.mauricebroaddus.com/2009/06/its-official and http://www.mauricebroaddus.com/blog.htm
--Nickolas Cook
