Friday, November 25, 2011

Horror creators and fans UNITE! !!




You give a child a toy. We'll give you a MONSTER-size library [over 3 dozen so far]!

http://www.facebook.com/ToysForTotsHorrorStyle#!/ToysForTotsHorrorStyle

As a writer of horror and weird fiction they say Pulver's bleak, brutal, DARK!, his work is a multi-verse of Hell, murder & madness are his loves. Guess that's fair. OK, OK, it hits the nail on the head! I've got friends who like to go to zombie cons and dress up, got pals who like to visit graveyards. I have many friends who are visual artists and their work gives me bloody nightmares, and I've got firends who watch scaryass horror films filled w/ demons and gore and MONSTERS and EERIE~sh*t even I can't sit through -- yep, fraidy cat me! !! And every one of them has a heart as big as Cthulhu or Gojira or King Kong. Bet all horror fans and creators have hearts that big! !! Hell, I know they do.

So I hoping the horror community ~who adore hauntings and baying all night long~ will take all that PASSION and creativity and support Toys For Tots~Horror Style. Please tell your friends--I know you're great at baying!, wear a hockey mask (or a gillman suit or get zombied-up) and threaten them if you like. Blog about this. G+, FB post, Tweet, v-blog, ETC! !!, but please share.

If you are a horror creator and would like to donate a book to the winner's goodie bag, great we'd love to have it. And we'd love to have your voice, your support as Hell's carnival barker as well!! And whom better than you weathermen and women of the DARKNESS, who write or paint with such magic & PASSION, to shout it loud?

Please send you friends and/or fans to the following link for details on entering and how to donate a toy for a needy child.

This year let's awaken joy in the heart of a child.

My deepest thanks to all of you! !!

http://www.facebook.com/ToysForTotsHorrorStyle#!/ToysForTotsHorrorStyle


To all horror writers, artists, and creators



Remember your 1st story sale, or the 1st time you held one of your books in your hands, or your new release?  Remember the first illo you did for a tale you loved, or your first cover? Remember that joy, the excitement? We all do. Walk over and look at that book or mag on the shelf, pick it up . . . Coming back to you? You feel that? It's great. You can give that feeling to a child.

You have a voice, a gift, you share it with your readers, with your fans, I'll like you to share your voice to support needy children this holiday season. Please help me spread the word about Toys For Tots ~ Horror Style. Blog it, tweet it, post news in forums, or on FB and G+.  Let your fans and friends and all the wonderful people in the horror community know that the heart of horror has and always will be about the thrill of sharing something amazing. When you give a needy child a toy, you give them amazing, you give them a dream. And dreaming is what we do best! Share the dream!

http://www.facebook.com/ToysForTotsHorrorStyle#!/ToysForTotsHorrorStyle

 

Monday, November 21, 2011

What is Toys For Tots ~ HORROR style?


To all entrants, please read this whole note!

What is Toys For Tots ~ HORROR style?

This is a group of writers/editors/publishers of Horror/Weird/Dark fantasy/etc. who want to do something nice for needy children this year. Each contributor will donate a signed book(s) of theirs [any book, chap, collection, HC, trade, mass market, novel, mag, edited by, etc.][sorry, no “eBooks” as we cannot be certain the winner will have a reading device] and *ONE WINNER* will win them all.

Folks post the pics [2 pics] of them donating to THIS page. One pic showing them holding the toy, one pic of the toy in the box. Sadly, there are a few who might try to cheat and not put the toy in the box, so we need to see the toy really was donated. Take a pic of you holding the toy, then take a 2nd pic of the toy in the box. The donated toy will need to have a price point of at least 5 dollars. I thought a lot of folks have cell phone cams so pics would be easy to take.

How do you enter?

Entrants will need to post a pic of them dropping a toy into a “Toys For Tots” donation box and when all is said and done, say the day after X-Mas, we’ll pick ONE WINNER. Kids get a bunch of toys and we do a little good for those in need in hard times. And someone out there gets a very happy new year! !!

Can a family enter?

YES! You donate a toy, you’re in. Your SO donates one, they’re in! But only one entry per person!

I picked TFT as it’s fairly common and most everywhere in the States. Sadly, due to postage, entrants must live in the States. I also picked this charity as I couldn’t think of another charity where we could be certain we’d be putting something “hard” under trees this year.

We’ll have a predetermined number to pick the winner, between 100 -200 it will be #?, 200-300 will be #?, 300-400, 400-500, 1,000+, etc., etc. [Yes, I hoping for a lot of entries! !!] Then I’ll post the winner’s name here (after X-Mas) and they can message me w/ their address. Then the books will start coming. Each contributor will be mailing the book(s) they’re donating to the winner, so they will not all come at the same time. Books will begin to be shipped after JAN 1st.

We are not a part of *any* group or affiliated w/ any organization. This is just a group of writers/editors/publishers who want to do something nice for children! !! We picked TFT as it will put REAL toys under trees this year!!

Please share this and help spread the word. If you have a blog please consider doing a blog post about this, Tweeting as well. Sharing means word gets out and that puts more toys under trees! !! I know there are no bigger hearts than those of the horror community, so let it bleed!! !

No dealers or booksellers please. This is not for profit in any way, shape, or form. If we find out an entrant is a seller that entry will be not be considered for the drawing.

I’ll be posting what books the winner will receive and adding to the list as I get word of new additions.

Note to any writers and editors and publishers I have not contacted, if you would like to be part of this, please message me here on FB. We would love to have you be part of this! !!

To all the current contributors, my deepest thanks! You make me very proud to be one of you! !!

All my bEastly BEST! !!

http://www.facebook.com/jspulver?ref=tn_tnmn#!/ToysForTotsHorrorStyle

Friday, November 18, 2011

FREE LEENIE! !!




That nasty-old MEANY, Dr. Archer, says the inmates, ah, make that, residents here in ZIMM’s are not allowed to vibrate w/ joy, or play cello, or guitar, or-- Archer suggests that could, under most conditionSSss;  ;;lead to various forms of HOWLin’’’’’’’’’’, and maybe prancin’ ‘bout ALLgleeful & bEastly under craZy moonrays. And they "most certainly are not allowed!" to own and read the "subversive, lurid filth" of muse-maddened poetS! !! Callin’ my pals D’if and Sharkey to help bust this lovely gal out outta her room, um, cell; ;;;;;;;;before any vile snicker~snack{!!!!!!!!!!!!~!~~!} starts  a-vibratin ’ and ruins her lovely & bEastlY brain! !!

Mr. .8gauge is LOCKED & LOADed~ ~~Gonna be a jailbreak tonight~ ~~~~~~~~~~..~.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Karl Edward Wagner

KEW is one of my idols! !! To me, "THE RIVER OF NIGHT’S DREAMING" is canon.


Taken from an interview that was conducted by Chuck Owston for "Dark Troubadour" #1, Autumn 1994.

"Q: In "THE RIVER OF NIGHT’S DREAMING" you make references to THE KING IN YELLOW. How much did this classic influence you?"


"KEW: Much of my work has resonances of Robert W. Chambers. While almost all of his books were hack-work romances, the best of his supernatural horror can stand with the very best. The primary lesson I’ve learned from reading Chambers was to create a deliberate barrier against final comprehension — thus creating the lost uncertainty of an extended nightmare."


Scripture! !!

Looking at "black wings" in Kinsport as Gordon Lightfoot and Libby Van Cleeve's oboe lead me through a night of sharp, cold shadows~ I wonder if there's a place to rest my head in these sunless corridors~~ guess we'll see . . .


Light what a steppenwolf smokes, dream! !!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Some things of note~ ~~


Yes, that's HAPPY DANCING here in Carcosa East! !!
Today I have the pleasure to share a few things...

It is always a delight to be praised by one's peers. Some may see it as merely pals patting each others' back, but these are the people who know what the craft demands, and their opinions count [as does every reader's], and they like you, are 1st and foremost readers. Today I received the following.

"I think T.S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings had a threesome with the Devil. Seems the only way to explain Pulver's masterful work." --Trent Zelazny, author of The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories
"Grim Reviews"  http://grimreviews.blogspot.com/2011/11/orphan-palace-by-joseph-s-pulver.html  also posted a rave review of my new novel, The Orphan Palace (Chomu Press). As I have said in the past, yes, I like these kinds of reviews and yes, I'm still very humbled when I read them.

Over the weekend I had the very great pleasure of reading some new submissions for both The Grimscribe's Puppets and A Season In Carcosa [both coming from Miskatonic River Press 2012]. Both of these tribute anthologies (Thomas Ligotti/Robert W. Chambers) are on track for their summer and fall release dates. I also recieved word from some of the contributors regarding their upcoming sbumissions, all the updates were very pleasing and make me all more the hungry to read them! !! I believe when I have the ToCs ready in a month or two, readers will indeed be very, very happy and there may be a WOW or 2 shouted.

I also recieved a story acceptance yesterday for a tale in a major anthology which caused much GLEE & JOY here in Carcosa East! Trust me, I will SHOUT about it the very second they take me off the leash!! !

Finally, and this is no small thing to me, Simon Marshall-Jones of Spectral Press,  http://spectralpress.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/musiks-and-mythos/  informed me he IS launching a series of Lovecraftain CDs. Each disc will pair a reading of an HPL tale w/ a work by a "modern" Lovecraftian writer. Each will be set to music. And it very much looks like I will be part of this thrilling series of "Musiks and Mythos" recordings! !! So put me down for a YAYYyyy! !!

There are many other things in the works, and I hope to have word of some more of them very soon!! !

Hope yer all well, and WARM! !!

As always, all my bEastly BEST! !!

Joe

Friday, November 11, 2011

Nightingale Songs by Simon Strantzas



Dark Regions Press is proud to announce Nightingale Songs by Simon Strantzas, a new collection that will be available on the DarkRegions.com website next Tuesday, November 15th! !!

In the dead of night, there are footsteps in the hall . . .In the dead of night, your past mistakes will haunt you . . .In the dead of night, you hear a discordant tune . . .In the dead of night, the nightingale sings . . .

Simon Strantzas, master of the subtle and the bizarre, returns with a dozen strange tales and eerie mysteries. From the shores of a remote oil-stained sound to deep within the familiar heart of suburbia, these are the songs of broken people who cannot find a way to fix themselves, who must search the dark for salvation. Like a siren, the nightingale sings them onward to face their end. But it sings for you too. A requiem in your honor. Because, for you, it is already too late.


Nightingale Songs is a dark gem. Strantzas demonstrates once again why he is so highly regarded amongst connoisseurs of the macabre and the fantastic. -- Laird Barron


Simon Strantzas displays a gift for evoking disturbing atmospheres and creating odd, frightening encounters with the uncanny . . .
-- Lisa Tuttle

He does not show you the gate to this new Golden Age of weird fiction that is upon us, but leads you through it.
-- Joseph S. Pulver
Strantzas deftly establishes ordinary and seemingly innocuous situations that spin out of the characters' control and always end with an uneasy sense of menace, even when their resolution is ambiguous or cryptic.
-- Publishers Weekly

Like the subtly disquieting locations in which they take place—a suburban house obscured by weeds and dark butterflies, the basement of a former home grown suddenly unfamiliar, a sleep clinic where the patients never meet—Simon Strantzas’ elegant stories worry at the reader’s sense of certainty. The songs they sing won’t comfort you. But you will remember them.
-- Glen Hirshberg

Monday, November 7, 2011

RICHARD GAVIN



In The Great North there is thunder. Gemma Files, Simon Strantzas, Ian Rodgers, and RICHARD GAVIN! These titans rest on my shelves close to Thomas Ligotti, perhaps that tells you what I think of them and their ability to take away your breath . . .

Gavin is the acclaimed author of CHARNEL WINE, Primeval Wood, The Darkly Splendid Realm, and OMENS.

Earlier this year in "Dead Reckonings" (No. 9) the Review of Horror Literature that's edited by S. T. Joshi and Tony Fonseca, Richard Gavin reviewed my 2nd collection, SIN & ashes. To say I was pleased by the review is a vast understatement. With my new novel, The Orphan Palace, just out from Chomu Press and my 3rd collection, Portraits of Ruin, in the pipeline for a 2012 release from Hippocampus Press I wanted to post Richard's review for those who do not get to see or read the acclaimed "DR".

"Down Dark and Lonesome Highways"

Richard Gavin

JOSEPH S. PULVER, SR. Sin & Ashes. Introduction by Laird Barron. New York: Hippocampus Press, 2010. 325 pp. $20.00 pb.

     If mimicry truly is one of the gravest dangers a writer faces when broaching weird tale country, then few writers are on safer ground than Joseph S. Pulver Sr. With Sin & Ashes, his second collection from Hippocampus Press, Pulver manages to further cement his reputation as one of the most daring stylists currently working in supernatural fiction. He is certainly no stranger to the realm of dark fiction, having built up considerable publishing credits over the years, primarily through the small and specialty presses. But his time as one of the genre’s best-kept secrets appears to be drawing to a close, as his books continue to reach an ever-broader audience and to garner fresh critical attention. With prose that hovers somewhere between the hard-boiled crime genre, poetry, and the sheer lawlessness of Dadaism, Pulver’s work is truly sui generis, so much so that it almost defies classification. This brazen originality is given a hefty exhibition in Sin & Ashes. Whether broaching more poignant fantasy (“Even Night” and “Long-Stemmed Ghost Words”) or the book’s hard-boiled forays into hexes and vengeance (“First There is a Mountain . . . Then”), Pulver invariably manages to impress his fingerprints upon the material.

      The collection’s inaugural tale, “Love Her Madly,” intertwines the postmortem wanderings of Doors lead singer Jim Morrison and those of a young woman adrift in an anguished, almost elegiac modern-day California. It is a bizarre carousel of a story, one that suitably sets the tone for the forty-eight (!!) other tales, vignettes, and prose poems that comprise this gripping volume. “Love Her Madly” grants the reader a survey of many of Joseph Pulver’s interests and inspirations: psychedelic rock, the gritty underbelly of contemporary culture, and an almost unbearable emotional pitch of isolation and despair. Pulver then smoothly switches gears for the second story, “She’s Waiting,” a haunting, heart-squeezing gaze into one woman’s sense of loss. This mournful riff repeats in several other entries, such as “When the Moon Comes to Call” and “As the Sun Still Burns Away.”

     The varied subjects and settings that comprise this book’s vast canvas, coupled with the sheer number of its pieces, make giving a tale-by-tale analysis all but impossible, for Pulver’s work is a gestalt, a tsunami of image and emotion. His words are unfailingly razor-keen, his tone beautiful and horrific at once. Stylistically, Pulver, with his penchant for fragmented, stream-of-consciousness narratives, is most strongly reminiscent of William S. Burroughs. One never sees all in a Joseph Pulver story; rather these narratives play out like scenes reflected in a shattered mirror. We are afforded glimpses and oblique representations, but are offered none of the pat comforts that a more conventional narrative might provide. For instance, in “Huddled in Rags in a Kingsport Alley . . .,” we see H. P. Lovecraft’s seaport town through the prism of one its dejected and broken inhabitants, a woman who has “no room for the devices of Christ-light in her fear-laced deeps.” For in the end, “the mouth of future closes. . . . No one is spared. . . . Little but the noise of the moon survives."

     This is heady stuff, yet it also exposes what might be the only artistic debit of Sin & Ashes: its stories offer no light of salvation whatsoever. The reader has no breathing room, no denouement which carries promise of relief or resolution. In fact, Pulver’s characters seem to relate to hope only as a quaint and hazy memory, an oasis that is now irretrievably lost. All these characters—and by extension, we, readers as well—have left to do is wait for that mouth of the future to clamp its jaws and drag us all down. However, this is not necessarily an indication of a deficiency in the writing. Rather, it stands as a testament to its complexity and relentlessness.

     Pulver is a demanding writer. The reader often has to work simply to navigate the murky, unnerving plots the book presents. The horrors of Sin & Ashes might often only be fleetingly illuminated by lightning flashes of words, but these hints are often brutal and are apt to haunt one well after the book’s covers are closed. Take, for example, this extract from the remarkable “Just Another Desert Night with Blood”:

      Highway. Ditches full of seasons (and the cast-out containers of thirst quenchers). Winds traveling. Red taillights—moon sold souls—bound for somewhere (easy?). Night’s not going anywhere. Never does. The lies cooling. Not going anywhere . . . moth and spider goin’ nowhere . . . phone booth with a broken interior light . . . owl . . . clouds, not built or elaborate, flat on the dark rug of sky . . . asphalt—solid ground has no point . . . boots notch the dust on a road goin’nowhere . . . This nowhere land, a flat leviathan wearing blades and puddles and smudges of black, seamed with memories, holds no scavengers, no mirages, no vultures.

     Here be a demonstration of one of Pulver’s greatest strengths: an almost uncanny ability to pull the reader into settings which are bewildering yet queerly familiar. We may not know who it is who wanders this highway, or indeed which highway it is, yet we do know this person, having roamed that roadway ourselves, if only in dreams.

     Another pervasive characteristic of Pulver is the manner in which he dovetails the supernatural with the banal. Resisting the often disastrous technique of describing the otherworldly with flamboyant language, Pulver details the uncanny with the same edgy, matter-of-fact tone he uses to shed light on the underbelly of American culture, or indeed the fractured spirits of his characters. Forbidden grimoires, ghosts, and dark gods do indeed lurk in these narratives, but they are presented as elements no more or less startling than neon signs or strip clubs or a long vacant road at night. In this respect, Sin & Ashes might be thought of as an extension to the mythopoeia of William Blake—whose London streets were populated simultaneously by merchants and criminals, angels and demons—as it is a current spin on the mythos of H. P. Lovecraft or Robert W. Chambers (a visible influence here). We need not find the cursed grove or the haunted farmhouse, Pulver seems to tell us; the powers of darkness are in fact roaming right alongside prostitutes and gangsters, working-class loners and wrecked dreamers.

     If you are a reader who seeks lulling escapism, this book offers no such creature comfort. Pulver tales are not the kind of stories one slips into like a warm bath. They are splashes of frigid water, which constantly jar and twist rather than flow headlong. This is what makes Sin & Ashes such a potent volume. Pulver is a writer who takes risks with each story he fashions, which in turn makes reading them exceptionally rewarding.

(C) Richard Gavin 2011

Links:

RICHARD GAVIN http://www.richardgavin.net/

HIPPOCAMPUS PRESS http://www.hippocampuspress.com/journals/dead-reckonings/dead-reckonings-no.-9

http://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/fiction/sin-ashes-by-joseph-s.-pulver-sr.






 

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Rue Morgue / Chomu Press



In issue #117, "Rue Morgue" shines its spotlight on Weird fiction publisher, Chômu Press.

Chômu has released 12 books so far. It's mind-bending roster contains, among others, Michael Cisco, Reggie Oliver, Rhys Hughes, and Mark Samuels.

“Remember You’re a One-Ball!”, by Quentin S. Crisp
I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like, by Justin Isis
The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale, by Reggie Oliver
Revenants, by Daniel Mills
The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales, by Mark Samuels
The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children, by Brendan Connell
The Great Lover, by Michael Cisco
Dying to Read, by John Elliott
Link Arms with Toads!, by Rhys Hughes
Nemonymous Night, by D.F. Lewis
Jeanette, by Joe Simpson Walker
The Orphan Palace, by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Boy is there some TALENT on that list! !! And yep. The last one is mine. Talk about glee, amazment, and humbled [! !!] seeing my name with those, that's, to me, pretty mind-bending.

I'm also happy as heck to see my favorite horror icon, the Phantom of the Opera on the cover. I know he has nothing to do w/ Chomu, but yeah, I'm weird, so I got a kick out of it.Why's The Phantom my boy you ask? Music, a love story, a MASK!! ! You know, all the things I try to squeeze in my stuff . . . When they let me . . .

I'm dying to see what "Rue Morgue" has to say about CP, and word is I might even get a mention [insert bEastly grin and a wink].

Well the Muse is standing here, under the chilly-looking moon, holding open the door to the coach. Guess she wants me to hop in and start tonight's trek to Hammersmith . . . Tea, smokes, gris-gris bag, a new playlist, WORDS~ ~~ guess I'm ready to ride . . . I'll see you in some seedy, back-alley bar in Hammersmith. I'll be the bEast sitting in the deep shadows w/ the grave-robbers. We'll save you a seat. And be sure to bring yer own shovel.

[soundtrack~ ~~Leon Russell “Tightrope”, Mountain “Nantucket Sleighride”, Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive”, Donna Summer “I Feel Love”, Herbie Hancock “Actual Proof”]
http://chomupress.com/





Friday, November 4, 2011

The New School ~ ~~ E



The wheel, sliced bread, CDs, information devices of every stripe, ATOMIC everything, and now eBooks [Yeah, might have left a few thing out...] . . . Like it or not, welcome to the 21st century, P'uul-yverre. Yep. Chomu Press has released The Orphan Palace as an eBook.

I like old school--PAPER! But I put these words out in hopes of finding readers, so if E is another way to share with/find readers, so be it. Bottom line - if somone is reading, no matter what thier choice of platform might be, that's a good thing! !!

PAPER or nope, VIVA WORDS! !!

Here's the link

http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Palace-ebook/dp/B0062SBXOG/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A12MGAGPLUJEQK

Old schoolers here's the PAPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !

http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Palace-Sr-Joseph-Pulver/dp/1907681116/ref=tmm_pap_title_0