This Christmas...

...may Peace reign across the land and within our hearts.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa to all!

x/o Vince

Blogging Bits (and Pieces)

OK. First order of business, what’s a self-respecting gay guy like me doing with a gratuitous T&A photo (well, "T" anyway) on my blog? Well, gotta throw one out to my breeder readers (all two or three of them) once in awhile, no? So, for all those among the Slasher Speak straightest, this one’s for you. (Just don't get used to it, fellas.)

Now, on to more appropriate and important business…

It’s been a bit since I’ve rounded up the brightest and best (or is that darkest and worst?) from around the horror blogosphere. Lots of good stuff out there, so here are some of the highlights:

• There’s a very cool roundtable interview with several horror bloggers from the esteemed League of Tana Tea Drinkers over at Dark Scribe Magazine.

• Billy Loves Stu celebrated a birthday and joined me in celebrating Jamie Lee Curtis’ big 5-0.

• There was much ado about the Top 50 Horror Films of All-Time list compiled by Brian Solomon over at Vault of Horror. Culled from polling 32 cyber-horror notables (somehow including moi), the list was in response to what B-Sol and others deemed the highly flawed survey results of HMV’s own poll. His posting of the list received over 70 comments and got picked up by such newsy notables as Fangoria and Bloody Disgusting.

• Speaking of Brian Solomon, he also offered up a terrific ½ hour interview via podcast with original Friday the 13th scripter Victor Miller.

• Those clever boys over at Kindertrauma compiled their own list of snow-scare horror films and then inexplicably left Terror Train off the list(!). Much camp and mock indignation ensued. Ultimately, the kindly Unkle Lancifer and Aunt John were forgiven since they did remember to include my favorite unsung slasher, Curtains.

• Joining the Kindertrauma tots with her own list of winter-themed horror movies over at AMC was Final Girl’s Stacie Ponder. Although she also omits Terror Train from her list, she does include the overlooked slasher-on-the-slopes Shredder.

• Lots of deserved tributes to the legendary Forrest J Ackerman following his passing at the age of 92 last week. Read what Frankensteinia, Blogue Macabre, Vault of Horror, Dinner with Max Jenke, The Good, The Bad, and Godzilla, and Zombos Closet of Horror had to say about this great man and consummate sci-fi/B-movie champion and collector.

• Jeff Allard’s enthusiasm over the imminent arrival of the legendary lost footage from the original My Bloody Valentine rivals only mine. Read his insightful thoughts about the generation gap as it relates to lost film footage over at Dinner with Max Jenke.

• The legend of Bloody Mary (no, not the drink, you alcoholic queens!) was rehashed and remembered over at Paul Bibeau’s Goblin Books blog. The topic seemed to grab his interest a bit in subsequent posts here and here...and here and here. Oh, here, too.

• Groovy Age of Horror continued its series on supernatural horror with its sixth installment, Imagination, Feeling, & Belief. If you like what you read, check out the rest of the series here.

• Cinema Fromage felt little love for Return to Sleepaway Camp, while Ryne over at The Moon Is Dead managed to use the uber-cool word “festooned” in his review of the Prom Night remake. John Morehead of TheoFantastique offered up a critical analysis of the literary phenomenon-turned-cinematic success known as Twilight.

• CRWM over at And Now the Screaming Starts offered something for us bibliophiles and literary types (We need more blogging about books, folks! Not everything revolves around film!) with his review of the forthcoming Doubleday tome Glister, by John Burnside. While an excellent review in and of itself, it’s CRWM’s interesting theory on blurbs – which he somehow rather successfully links back to Russian gangsters(!) – that really grabs, informs, and entertains.

• Max over at The Drunken Severed Head offered up a travelogue of sorts, taking his readers to Zombie Fest 2008 at Pittsburgh’s Monroeville Mall, the infamous site where much of George R. Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead was shot. While there, Max ran into fellow LOTTD’er Kim (Gospel of the Living Dead) Paffenroth and KISS’ Gene Simmons. (Hey, I only report what I read!)

• Unspeakable Horror’s Chad Helder enjoyed an excellent review of his Vincent Price Presents… comic book series from Zombos Closet of Horror and offered the first of his recommendations for Xmas horror comics for all those bad little boys and girls – overgrown and otherwise – on your holiday gift-buying lists.

• Imagine my surprise when Ross Horsley of the fab-tacular Anchorwoman in Peril selected The Literary Six to mark Day 20 in his Sham Shocktober countdown! I was surprised, flattered, and humbled all at the same time. Ross, if you read this, you’ve got a signed copy of the book with your name on it. (I can’t seem to find a link to contact you on your blog, my friend.)

• Lastly, for all you writers out there, don’t forget that I’m editing an anthology of non-fiction essays on slasher films called Butcher Knives & Body Counts: Essays on the Formula, Frights, and Fun of the Slasher Film for Dark Scribe Press. A call for submissions went out in early October, but the holiday season has slowed incoming submissions to a trickle. No submissions, no book. So put down the holiday tinsel and get writing!

Unspeakably Busy

Jeez Louise. Where does the time go? Seems like the year was just beginning and it’s already coming to a close. Sorry I’ve neglected the blog a bit, but it’s been hectic with a capital “H” around here.

Some of you may know that a new book I co-edited with Chad Helder was just released. Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet is an anthology of 23 original short stories that melds horror and queer themes. Chad and I assembled an incredible roster of talent for the collection, including personal favorites like Lee Thomas (Lambda Literary Award winner for The Dust of Wonderland), Sarah Langan (Bram Stoker Award winner for The Missing and author of the equally outstanding The Keeper), Kealan Patrick Burke (Bram Stoker Award winner for The Turtle Boy and author of one of the year’s best collections, The Number 121 to Pennsylvania), and too many more fabulous writers that I could go on about for days on end. Check out more about the anthology.

This is my first attempt at editing anything of this scope and size, and I really hope readers respond favorably to the book. Waiting for the reviews to come in is always the worst part. The experience itself was most enjoyable (slush pile and all!). I hope you’ll mosey on over to Amazon or the Horror Mall and pick yourself up a copy. Chad and I also did a few interviews in support of the collection, which you can read here and here.

I’m also editing a new non-fiction collection of essays on (surprise!) slasher films for Dark Scribe Press. A call for submissions went out last month, but the incoming traffic has been slow. Hopefully, after the holidays my inbox will be bursting. This will be a very cool project, with essays on individual slasher films and more general pieces of the genre. There will be lots of trivia and interactive slasher quizzes to test your fanboy IQ, as well as some exclusive interviews with some of the great (albeit underrated) scream queens of the 80’s. We’ve already got interviews completed with Lesleh Donaldson (Happy Birthday to Me, Curtains), Jodi Draigie (The House on Sorority Row), and the super-reclusive Meg Tilly (Psycho II). This will be the ultimate in reading pleasure for slasher fans. Now, hopefully, we can get the submissions rolling in. Otherwise, I may just be penning the book myself.

Even with these larger projects, I still found time to do a little writing of my own. My short story “The Night Nurse of Cobblestone” will be appearing in the medical-themed Malpractice: An Anthology of Bedside Terror coming early next year from Necrotic Tissue. I’ve also contributed two poems to an intriguing themed poetry project called Death in Common: Poems from Unlikely Victims (Daverana Enterprises), edited by Rich Ristow. Both “Tyro” and “Chatroom Hustler” recount the last hours in the lives of two victims of a fictional serial killer. Finally, I’ll have an original essay appearing in the non-fiction anthology My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women who Inspire Them (University of Wisconsin Press) that was edited by Michael Montlack. One guess who my diva subject was(!). Still have one or two short stories out to various markets, so there may be more announcements if the acceptance gods smile kindly upon me.

Dark Scribe Magazine celebrated its one-year anniversary this past October. The wonderful Editor-in-Chief that I am, the milestone was completely overlooked until last week. To celebrate, the magazine is running an amazing contest that features a signed hardcover book club edition of Bentley Little’s The Academy and a one-of-a-kind (well, one of two — he signed one for me, too) signed publicity photo. If you know anything at all about Little, you know that he never does book signings or much PR for his books, and he related to me that he has never signed an author photo before (and then proceeded to tell me with his inimitable honesty that he’d never sign one again!). To enter, you’ll need to become a registered reader of DSM. Once registered, you can log in and the contest link will appear. Once you’re a registered reader, you can also vote in the magazine’s annual awards program, the Black Quill Awards. Nominations were just announced.

The Renewed and Final Girl are waiting patiently for their literary draftsman to put his pen to paper and resume their creation. Plus, Chad and I have been fleshing out a novel collaboration. Not sure if that’s ambitious or just plain crazy with all that’s on our collective plates.

Man, if there were only a few more hours in each day.