A Cornucopia of Mysterious Creatures: A Review of Carnival of Cryptids

So, last week I interview several of the authors associated with the Kindle All-Stars Carnival of Cryptids anthology, but I hadn't a chance to read through t thoughts on it he entire anthology and give my thoughts on the ARC I received from a representative of the authors. For full disclosure, I am also friends with one of the authors, though I didn't know any of the others until interviewing them last week.

I always approach anthologies with trepidation. If an anthology is remotely worthwhile, it won't be filled with the same sort of story over and over. I typically expect a sort of normal distribution of story quality and interest, whether they are by one author playing around with style or a multi-author affair where the differences in stories often are even more extreme. Accordingly, I usually find a few stories I adore, a few that were okay, and a few that just plain annoyed me. Surprisingly, that didn't happen to me with this anthology.

In Carnival of Cryptids, the unifying concept of the anthology is that each story contains a cryptid in some way. A cryptid is a creature that is alleged to exist yet is not recognized to exist by the general zoological community. Although in the early days of zoology, this applied to a lot of creatures, advances in technology and science over the years have winnowed most cryptids down into a smaller group of legendary monsters. The Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch/Bigfoot are perhaps two of the most well-known cryptids.

Given the subject matter, it would have been far too easy for the various stories to end up some sort of feeble X-Files clones where various mysterious monsters are encountered in roundabout places doing the sort of spooky-boo things that people often associate with mysterious creatures of legend. It is a testament to the imagination and quality of the anthology writers that, instead, these variety of creatures are approached in radically different types of stories. Indeed, there's no real general style, theme, or approach used. Some stories are rousing tales of action and pure-fun; others are thoughtful meditations on the nature of existence. Even style is played with rather widely, and the anthology is almost worth checking out for the various approaches to writing used alone.

Admittedly, it's hard to love every single story in an anthology, depending one's personal tastes in terms of content and style. That said, this is the first anthology I've read in a while where I didn't dislike any of the stories. I have my personal favorites, but, in general, enjoyed all the stories, albeit for different reasons.

I'll also note that though I have a particular interest in cryptids, I don't actually think that knowledge or previous exposure to the concept or creatures is necessary to enjoy the stories. In fact, several of the stories involve some pretty obscure creatures that aren't as famous as something like the Loch Ness Monsters.

So unless you positively hate the very idea of stories featuring cryptids in some manner, you should check out this anthology.

Carnival of Cryptids is available for purchase at Amazon.

Caging the Yeti: Introducing Simon John Cox

The Kindle All-Stars Carnival of Cryptids interview week continues! The anthology is available from Amazon. Please note that I've only interviewed half or so of the authors, so there are even more cryptids, subgenres, and styles on display in the anthology than I've shown this week.

This will be my last interview, but this weekend I'll be reviewing the anthology.

The Kindle All-Stars are a select group of authors from around the world who donate their work in the name of charity. All profits from Kindle All-Stars anthology are donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Today I'm talking with Simon John Cox, author of the "The Cage" in the anthology. He was born in Tunbridge Wells, England, has a degree in chemistry, a job in marketing, and a black belt in Taekwon-Do, and has been writing fiction for as long as he can remember. He has had various short stories published and is currently focusing on writing novels.

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1) Please give a brief blurb about your story.

A ringmaster in a travelling circus is quickly making his fortune from a captive yeti, but when he discovers something shocking about the creature his plans - and his perspective - are thrown into disarray.

2) The Yeti is among the most famous of cryptids. Even people who otherwise have no clue what a cryptid is probably have heard of it. Do you feel this added any pressure to your story depiction that may not have been felt by some of your fellow authors who wrote about cryptids  that are a bit more obscure?

I don't think so - at least, I didn't feel it - as for me the story isn't really about the yeti being a cryptid, it's more about the idea of keeping an intelligent creature in captivity. Rocky isn't really about boxing - it's the same kind of thing. Except that the yeti is a better actor than Sylvester Stallone.

3) One of the interests of this anthology is the varied tones and angles the various authors utilize in their stories. You went for a more philosophical approach. Tell us a bit about why you decided on that course and a story featuring a cryptid either facilitated that or made the task more difficult?

As I alluded to above, what interests me most about the yeti is that it could feasibly be a "missing link" or a near relative of homo sapiens (I have a deep affection for Tintin In Tibet, which also makes that point), and as a result I think the approach wouldn't have worked with most other cryptids. I couldn't see it working with the Mongolian Death Worm, for example.

4) Do you feel your particular setting was critical for the themes you were exploring, or was that more an aesthetic choice on your part?

It was mostly an aesthetic choice, as I just think that something that sets up for one day and then disappears the next is somehow magical and unreal. That said, the circus has traditionally been a place for freaks and sideshow acts, so the yeti seemed to fit nicely into that as well.

5) Please give us a brief overview of your other works.

All of my other works are linked to on my website, www.simonjohncox.com, but the one I'd most like to draw attention to is my novella The Slender Man, which is a horror story based on an internet meme - and what could be more exciting than that?

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Thanks, Simon.

Check out www.simonjohncox.com for more from Simon.

The Carnival of Cryptids is available from Amazon.

And The Secret Ingredient Is WHAT!?: A Kindle All-Stars Interview With Matt Posner

The Kindle All-Stars Carnival of Cryptids interview week continues! The anthology has been released earlier than anticipated at Amazon.

The Kindle All-Stars are a select group of authors from around the world who donate their work in the name of charity. All profits from Kindle All-Stars anthology are donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Today, I'mm talking with Mat Posner, who contributed the story "The Paring Knife" to the anthology, a dark satire on modern competitive cooking shows.

1) Please give a brief blurb for your story.

In a mysterious future, underground cooking show The Paring Knife has the flesh of mysterious animals for ingredients. Who will win the contest? Who will be peeled away (and attacked by knife-wielding children)? And will announcer Bruce ever stop insulting his sister?

2) You actually feature, in a way, multiple creatures in your story. How did you decide what to feature?

Mostly, I wanted to use cryptids that wouldn't be represented in other stories. But the one, skunk ape, was a natural for a cooking show because the stench would be a challenge for the chefs to deal with.

3) The cryptids are, in a way, less of a central focus in your story given that it's more a dark satire of competitive cooking shows, and arguably even Food Network's Chopped, in particular. Do you think that not having the cryptids would radical alter the themes of the story, or do you think they are vital for what you're trying to convey?

I think the cryptids are necessary for the reason that Bernard highlighted in his introduction. This show has removed a sense of mystery from the world. The unknown, amazingly fascinating animals are now nothing more than grist for the consumerist mill.

The challenge for a cryptid-based anthology is not to have every story be about a person stalking a cryptid or a cryptid stalking a person. I'm relieved that I was able to come up with something different. If I hadn't been able to, I might not have been able to produce anything for KAS 2.

4) One major stylistic difference between your story and the others in the anthology is rather noticeable, in that you've written it as a television transcript rather than as a conventional short story narrative. Why did you decide to approach your story in this way, and is this an off-shoot your previous stylistic experiments with scripts inserted into narratives featured in some of your previous works?

I didn't think a standard narrative form would work for this story, because although it has characters and conflict, its primary source of drama is the same as shows like Chopped -- who will win? There are subtexts, of course. As far as other writing in this format, there's a chapter written in film script format in my third novel, and I do often think cinematically, although the screenplay is not my native format. I wrote plays as a young child before I wrote fiction. I like to tell a story through dialogue; I always have.

5) Please give us a brief overview of some of your other works.

I've been publishing the School of the Ages series of novels and short stories since 2010, about a magic school in New York City. I'm also the co-author, with that gem of a human being Jess C. Scott, of Teen Guide to Sex and Relationships. Everything is at Amazon; my novels are also for Nook; and Teen Guide is available everywhere in all formats. In India, School of the Ages is available exclusively from Times Group Books.

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Thanks, Matt

If you'd like to see more from Mat, please check out his previous interview about his School of Ages series and his website http://schooloftheages.webs.com/.

Carnival of Cryptids is available at Amazon.

Carnival of Cryptids Day 2: The Jungles Are Not a Place For the Arrogant: Introducing Jeff Provine

The Kindle All-Stars Carnival of Cryptids interview week continues! I originally said it would be out on the 1st yesterday, but I've heard it may be available for sale as soon as later today. Again, a reminder:

The Kindle All-Stars are a select group of authors from around the world who donate their work in the name of charity. All profits from Kindle All-Stars anthology are donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

I'm only interviewing four of the authors, so there's even more cool experiments in style and cryptids from a variety of authors in anthology (which, I'll be reviewing this weekend).

Today, I'mm talking with Jeff Provine, who contributed the story "Where is Captain Rook?" to the anthology, a slightly subversive take on the great jungle adventurer genre of old.

Jeff Provine was born May 2, 1984 (thus sharing a birthday with Catherine the Great and The Red Baron), in the wide, open plains of Oklahoma. He grew up a Country Boy on the old family farm, running barefoot through creeks and climbing trees. All the while he seemed to like best making up stories, writing them down as soon as he learned to hold a pencil. Carefree childhood days gave way to education, and Jeff graduated high school with two diplomas: one from the Oklahoma Bible Academy and the other from Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. In his senior year, he began writing Celestial Voyages: The Moon, which would be published as his first novel at the tender age of 18. Jeff attended the University of Oklahoma, getting a Professional Writing degree (He was going to write anyway, so he might as well study it). Jeff spent a year abroad at the University of Hertfordshire, just north of London, England, and spent several months traveling and writing. He is currently a lecturer in Composition and Mythology and works remodeling his home and writing in every spare moment.

1) Please give a brief blurb for your story.

River-guide Joao Paulo Nativo recalls the story of famed Amazon explorer Captain Rook's final adventure, hunting the elusive giant ground sloth, believed to have been extinct for thousands of years but known to tribes as Mapinguari, the fetid beast.

2) While far from an expert on all legendary beasts, I am genuinely surprised when I run into one I'd never heard anything about before, such as the creature in your story. Why did you decide to feature this creature, and how did you come across the legends concerning it?

I've been fascinated by the mylodon, and its bigger brother the megatherium, ever since first seeing them in the back of one of my dinosaur atlases as a kid. Then I heard a little blurb on the History Channel about a band of conquistadors supposedly fighting one (the natives said arrows just bounce off it; the Spaniards laughed until their own musketballs bounced, too), which pretty much sealed the "awesome cryptid" deal for me. When I heard of a cryptid anthology for charity, I knew exactly which cryptid to feature. Most of my research was online, digging through various cryptid websites, an old Brazilian newspaper article about a rash of Mapinguari attacks on cattle in 1937 (coinciding with a drought), and an online copy of the 1896 Orchid Review that gave descriptions of real-life adventurer and orchid-hunter Charles Fosterman to provide a feel of exploring the Amazon.

3) You've gone for a very classic jungle horror/mystery approach to your creature here. What attracted you about that particular style of engaging with your creature?

What interested me most about the pulpy classic jungle story was that there were actual explorers like Fosterman and Percy Fawcett who saw strange things no one has been able to prove. I was expecting to set my story earlier in the '20s, but once the legend popped up about Mapinguari hating water alongside the drought and the attacks in the 1930s, I had to make it closer to WWII. Why I wanted this time period overall was to give a hint of historical while fairly modern (we still use many of the same handguns developed even before then). The arrows of the natives and the musketballs of the Spaniards supposedly bounced off the creature's hide, which fits the "dermal ossicles" of the mylodon, bits of protective bone grown like armor plates inside the skin. The question I wanted to ask was, what if someone shot it with a .45?

4) Should we parse any of this story with a socio-political subtext, or is that just reaching on my part?

My story's definitely got its share of socio-politics. Originally, I was just going to have leather-jacketed Indiana-Jones types shoot the mylodon and then find out it had magic powers. As the story was rewritten, though, it became clear that it wasn't interesting enough. Instead, I wanted to look at the socio-political situation of Brazil and changed the protagonist to the mixed-race guide who saw the best and worst of living on the edge of civilization. It discussed a good deal of imperialism with the Great White Hunter getting in over his head and then losing it. Perhaps my favorite line in the story is about Mapinguari's powers over the rain to end the drought as well as potentially reaching to Europe to cause a war to bring back the Rubber Boom. Who's really controlling the world then?

5) Please give us a brief overview of some of your other works.

My first major project was Celestial Voyages, a trilogy of steampunk about interplanetary expeditions in 1900 with ant-men dwelling in caverns in the Moon, treelike Venusians who take "knowledge is power" literally, and Martian greys living on a world that has long past its prime. Currently, I'm at work on my webcomic about a magnet school, The Academy, and This Day in Alternate History, a blog taking events of a particular date and twisting them, such as "What if Will Rogers had survived his plane crash?" I've also released an ebook, Dawn on the Infinity, about a fourteen-year-old girl kidnapped by inter-reality pirates with zombies, hackers, vampires, robots, fairies, spaceship battles, and trolls, oh my!

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Thanks, Jeff.

If you would like to learn more about Jeff, please check him out http://www.jeffprovine.com/.

The Carnival of Cryptids is now available at Amazon.

Two-Fisted/Six-Gun Alt Reality Meets Lovecraftian Menace: Introducing William Vitka

As a perusal of my old Magical Mondays segments might indicate, I've more than a passing interest in various mysterious monster beasties and their related legends. Thus, I was very excited to hear about the second upcoming Kindle All-Stars Anthology project: Carnival of Cryptids. The anthology is scheduled for release on February 1st.

The Kindle All-Stars are a select group of authors from around the world who donate their work in the name of charity.  All profits from Kindle All-Stars anthology are donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

This week I'll be interviewing four of the Kindle All-Stars who contributed to the Carnival of Cryptids and reviewing the anthology this weekend.

Today, we're starting off with William Vitka, author of "Six Gun Diplomacy" and an NYC-based journalist and author. He's written for CBSnews.com, Stuff Magazine, GameSpy, On Spec Magaine, and The Red Penny Papers.



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1) Please tell us about your story. 

A human town is haunted by monstrous natives who dwell in the waters off their shores. Two diplomats arrive in an attempt to establish peace between the species … But it all goes very wrong, very fast.

2) What went into designing the cryptids/monsters featured in your story? Though the tone is obviously quite different, would it be incorrect to say there's a bit of Lovecraftian literary DNA in there, as it were? 

Yeah, you could argue that there's a touch of Lovecraft in all of my fiction. Not in terms of tone, as you noted. Lovecraft was my first introduction to Horror fiction. In fact, I can still remember my old man reading The Colour Out Of Space to my brother and I when we were younger – I think I was 9 or 10. Why he thought this was suitable bed time material, I'll never know. But I'm quite glad he did read it to us.

As for the creature design, it seemed logical because of where and when I wanted to tell the tale. I love huge tentacled beasts (Thanks, Lovecraft). Hence our Kraken. Then I wanted to make things even worse. Hah! The best part is that The Kindle All-Stars lets me get away with all that. I wanted to tell a story not just about monsters, but also about a place and a time. An alternate Galveston felt right. Especially since it was the site of the devastating 1900 hurricane. There are more than a few allusions to the storm and even the founders of the city. Lafitte, for example. The history of Resilient takes its cues from the real history of Galveston … To a certain extent, at least.

3) You have a lot of elements here, horror, steam punk, and alternate universe travel. When you were writing the story was there a particular aspect or element you were more concerned with coming across than the others?

My primary concern with writing is: Does it feel possible? Or at least real within the world you're presenting to the reader? I always want my writing to sound like it's some crazy insanity we're telling each other at a bar. Dialogue, action and characterization are always at the forefront of any story. Elmore Leonard's novels are the best teacher for this. Hell, you can go from writing shit dialogue (which is a goddamn plague in Horror and SciFi) to great if you read enough of Leonard's work.

But as for the particular elements in Six-Gun, no. I wasn't concerned that one would overshadow the other. The only reason I wasn't, I think, is because I tried to make sure all of the characters treated it nonchalantly. Time travel? Sure. Alternate Earths? Okey dokey. Cross-species Squidmen? All in a day's work. Jack, Catarina and The Collective are cogs in a bigger universe. They're in their own stories as well. I've written an entire novel about their past and their rise as heroes. My biggest concern with Six-Gun was that the universe itself stayed intact.

4) Part of the mystique of cryptids, one could argue, has to do with their typically mysterious nature. In your story, you've approached the mystery from a different angle, with the "creatures" far less inscrutable than they might have been in a different type of story. Please tell us a bit about your thought process in that regard. 

'Supernatural' explanations are bullshit. In fact, they're not explanations at all. If you've got a monster, a really great monster, and you end your story with something along the lines of: The monster was a ghost the whole time because at one point 300 years ago a girl was sad and she killed herself but now we're gonna have cake because we found the lost jewels that make her happy again … Then I'm going to be pissed off as a reader. You aren't telling me anything. And you've been lying to me the whole time I've been studying your words. My characters and my monsters always, always have some kind of traceable biology and physiology. If I, as the author, can't actually explain what's going on in my story, then I shouldn't be writing it. Thus: "Six-Gun Diplomacy" adheres to its own internal logic.

5) Jack and Catarina are engaging characters who happen to be visitors to the particular setting of this story. Are they characters you've developed for other works and/or do you intend to use them in other works? 

They're two kids from Brooklyn who had to grow up very fast. I mentioned above that they're the stars of a separate novel. Along with Jack's brother, Caleb Svoboda. All three have appeared in their own short stories. And I found them all engaging. So I said to myself: You've got three humans who are Super Heroes, in a way. You better explain that. Their origin story is called EMERGENCE. The cover is being worked on as we speak!

6) Please give us a brief overview of some of your other works.

My first novel, INFECTED (http://www.amazon.com/Infected-ebook/dp/B00A2WKI7G/), is about what a journalist would do during the apocalypse. So, far, it's gotten 5-stars across the board. Cherie Priest and Jonathan Maberry endorsed it. It's been a thrill, and everyone should just go buy it! THE SPACE WHISKEY DEATH CHRONICLES (http://www.amazon.com/Space-Whiskey-Death-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00AXTOBUS) is a collection of my stories. Several of which feature Jack and Catarina. They're all part of my weird universe building. 

Of course, I have to mention Kindle All-Stars #1 (http://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Front-1-Bernard-Schaffer/dp/1469927098), because that's what started my wild relationship with all the awesome authors involved.
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Thanks, William.

If you want to find more from William Vitka, please visit http://vitka.tumblr.com/.

Carnival of  Cryptids is available at Amazon.

How people relate to each other: An interview with anthology writer Justin Bog

Today I'm talking with Justin Bog about his collection of literary psychological short stories, Sandcastle and Other Stories.

1) Tell us about your collection.

First of all, thank you very much for letting me sit down for this cool Q&A. Nice digs. To answer your first question, Sandcastle and Other Stories, began as noodlings, tiny little flash fiction tales, and lengthened with character, the inner workings of each person on the page, scene settings, and motivation, and the actions the characters decided to take. When they were ready I published them on my A Writer's Life blog (www.justinbog.com) over the past year and a half. There are other stories and unused novel sections there today, but these ten tales formed a tight collection of literary, psychological, and suspense stories. The collection has since found the interest of a Washington State publisher, Green Darner Press, and the print version, as well as the other eBook formats beyond Amazon's, will be available in November. I am thrilled to know the writing life dream continues. One review came in recently, and what was so fantastic was that the reviewer related to me how she gave the book to the head of the English Department, a colleague of hers at the nearby University in Fairbanks, Alaska, and he is going to use the book as part of a lecture series on books that are helping to dispel the stigma surrounding self-publishing. 

2) What inspired this collection?

People inspired Sandcastle and Other Stories. How people relate to one another. What happens when someone doesn't tell anyone he or she has a secret that drives any reaction? I tried to capture those moments in short form. Each tale begins with an impulse, a setting, a scene, almost in the middle of the action, and then the characters reveal something, and lead the reader down a path. My mind tends to run to dark places, and my characters sometimes visit these places as well.

3) Are there particular themes that unify the collection?

That's a good question, since I didn't write them as a whole, as linked tales. Afterwards it's a bit easier to say that there are themes of inner strife and dark psychology running throughout the tales. How people overcome hardship, or fall backwards into an unknown future. These are family dramas with no easy answers given, as in real life. People always want closure, but often, even in fiction, that is not a reachable or natural state since time keeps marching on, and after closure, there is what can be a beginning.

4) Do you experiment with style between the stories?

I tried to get into the minds of a varied group of characters. In the first tale, The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business, I chose the first person point of view, that of an elderly gardener dealing with a huge part of his past, as if a chunk has been stolen from him, and he can never find it again. For the second story, Sandcastle, the action and characters called out for a more journalistic third person point of view. This reporting adds to what has been called the most shocking of the ten tales, a story some have even said crosses an ethical line. Mothers of Twins, the third story, pops right back into the point of view of a new mother of twin boys. It was a challenge, since I'm a guy, to make her story as natural and believable as possible. I have no problem with men writing as women, or women writing as men, children, teens, as long as it's honest and the story places me in that world. The 4th story, When the Ship Sinks, goes 90 degrees in a different direction right into the mind of a divorced man who cannot have children told to get out of the office, the stress of being newly single is ruining the work atmosphere, and he decides to go on a singles' cruise, where he witnesses a bizarre set of circumstances. I then went back to the third person point of view for the only fantastical tale, really more in the realm of magical realism, Poseidon Eyes. Here the reader is looking over the shoulder of a young girl who catches the fancy of an ancient god, and he begins to toy with her. Cats In Trees continues the third person point of view, and this is the shortest of the stories, but a lot of secrets are told, how each member of this family relates to one another. The 7th tale, Typecast, is told in the first person point of view and in the head of a typecast television and B-movie film actor. He is fairly balanced, but what is revealed is how unhinged most of the others are who surround him, how they make assumptions about him based on his appearance. Under the Third Story Window and On the Back Staircase are written in the third person point of view and are also two of the more harrowing of tales. These two stories have a nice raw quality to the settings, and the action stems naturally from the scene. The last story, Train Crash, I ended once again with the first person point of view, and back in the head of a down-on-his-luck gentleman, maybe not as old as the gardener from the first tale, but just as wounded. He sees everyone around him as someone who is about to witness a train crash or worse.

5) Do you have a favorite among the collection?

I am fond of every single story in this book, but I do have my own favorites. I loveSandcastle because it really works. The ending is earned naturally, and every word from the beginning to the end is important. Poseidon Eyes began as a fanciful tale about a young woman who was trying to cash a check at a bank, and how she wasn't seeing the people around her as anything near human, and the idea came into being when she accepted this as the status quo. I loved her inner strength, and how she changed during the story's timeline. 

6) What advantages do you feel the short form provides over longer form works?

I don't really think of one form having an advantage over the other because of length. There are classic short stories and classic novels. I love reading them all. The kindle has been a great invention and is bringing back short fiction or "singles" to a much wider audience. Very few people bought short fiction collections in traditional bookstores. The novel is king there. But for eFiction, a group of stories can find more people. Stories are easier to read for those with shorter attention spans. I love reading both novels and short stories.

7) Are there any authors who have influenced you?

Yes, Alexandre Dumas wrote one of my favorite books of all time, The Count of Monte Cristo, which I could read again and still marvel at how great it is. I love Shirley Jackson's short stories and novels. Rachel Ingalls is an undiscovered writer in our country who writes dark tales of wonder. I also loved the writing of John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Raymond Carver, and Stephen King. I like economic prose that gets to the point, or uncovers something dreadful and makes me think.

8) Can you tell us about any of your other work?

I finished a longer novella titled The Conversationalist for an upcoming anthology of suspense stories called Encounters, which will be an original eBook. Each of the stories accepted had to deal with a stalker. Fun to write. It would've fit well as a final story in Sandcastle and Other Stories. At the end of Sandcastle I included the first chapter of my novel, a psychological family drama, Wake Me Up, and this book is ready to go. I also will finish editing the first draft of a new psychological horror/contagion novel, The Shut-Ins, for next year. I'm halfway done with that process. I'm in the middle of a longer suspense story about a tennis coach down on his luck who invites something bad to oversee his team, called The Volunteer. After that I have ideas for two more stories. They're getting darker as I hit the keyboard more each day.

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If you'd like to see more from Justin, please check out his blog, www.justinbog.com.

Sandcastle and Other Stories is available for purchase at Amazon.

The Hedgehog's (or maybe the ant's) Dilemma: An interview with KJ Hannah Greenberg

Today I'm talking with author, academic, and National Endowment for the Humanities awardee KJ Hannah Greenberg about her anthropomorphic animal-centered short story and flash fiction collection, Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things.

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1) Please tell us about your collection. What sort of genres and tones does it include?

Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things is an assemblage of brief and briefer fictions about sentient hedgehogs, biker lizards, intergalactic entrepreneurs, and the like. This book allows folk to cautiously stretch their considerations of how they treat themselves and others. Since it’s less daunting to cheer on warring sugar ants than to confront bosses, to hope for the success of a Tuna Olympics contender than to give advice to adolescent children, or to think up salutations for a space cowboy than to properly word a greeting to new neighbors, this work concentrates on critters.

As such, this collection covers an array of narrative styles including: absurdist, dark, literary, mainstream, pulp, quirky, realistic, and surrealistic. What’s more, whereas most of the elements of Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things could be rubriced as “speculative fiction,” a significant minority belong in the “fabulist,” “magic realism” or “women’s fiction” categories.

2) Why did you choose to focus on tales of anthropomorphic animals?

The world of pretend is neither calorie laden nor bound by chemical side effects. Additionally, it’s fun to dance, even vicariously, with imaginary beasts. “Playful” beats “rueful” when navigating.

3) Do you have a favorite story in the collection?

I have several favorites; “Illusionary is the Hedgehog’s Strength: An Allegory,” “Kelev Liked to Suck the Marrow Best,” “Squamata’s Rumble: Certain Results of Biker Attitude,” “The Martian and the Potter,” “Nest Eggs and Cryptids,” “Guess my Vocation,” “Sugar Ants,” “The Inheritance of the Meek,” and “Not an Imaginary Figment.” Mothers don’t have to pick only one child.

4) What's your favorite animal? Is it featured in the collection?

My “brand” has been associated with a hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs. However, I adore the sweet spots of most beasts, real or mythical, webbed, scaly or bipedal.

5) Shorter fiction forms present their own challenges compared to longer works. This collection contains both short stories, a more conventional short form, and flash fiction. Can you speak to some of the differences between short stories and flash fiction, along with their advantages and disadvantages?

Flash is a lot like poetry in that a writer has to do his or her business in a brief span and be done with it. As well, readers can make time for quickie fiction even when they lack the resources to commit to a novel. As per conventional short stories, they are the cogs that spin literature. Many merits of narrative are adjudicated according to the traditions of short story writing.

6) You were a National Endowment for the Humanities awardee and a professor of rhetoric, communication theory, and many related topics. How does this background inform your fiction writing?

Save for a few bits of fiction in which characters are academics, or in which academic settings matter to plots, I’m not sure that my scholarship imprints on my creative writing. At most, my professional history evidences my long standing love of word play.

7) Can you briefly speak about some of your other work?

I’m eclectic. I am equally fascinated with rail guns and with whales. I’m as likely to write a dark fantasy as I am to shape a treatise on the impact of convergent media on women’s social status. I publish poetry, essays, and short fiction, and magazine columns and newspaper blogs. I’ve written novels and have seen one of my musicals produced, too. My rhetoric diverge among parenting, religion, other writers’ publications, and social movements. My poetics cover nature, relationships, heritage, and alien communities. I strive to keep my writing fresh and spent a lot of time researching almost everything I compose.

Past books include: Oblivious to the Obvious, Wishfully Mindful Parenting (humorous essays), A Bank Robber’s Bad Luck with His Ex-Girlfriend (poetry), and Conversations on Communication Ethics (academic works). Supernal Factors (poetry) is forthcoming, this summer. Soon, too, I hope to bring out The Lion and the Serpen t(a novel), The Ill-Advised Adventures of Jim-Jam O'Neily (short stories), Word Citizen (essays), and Not a Popinjay (poetry). Given the size of my hibernaculum and given the degree of hunger of the hedgehogs therein, I need to continue to produce and to publish.

Thank-you for letting me share a glimpse into my world. I hope your readers enjoy Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things.

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Thanks for stopping by.

If you'd like to learn more about her, please check out her website: http://www.kjhannahgreenberg.net/

Information about the collection can be found here: http://www.bardsandsages.com/greenberg 

Don't Fear The Snowman? An interview with Tiffany Craig

Today I'm talking with Tiffany Craig, about her horror take on winter.

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1) Tell us about your short story.

"Snowmaggedon" is the tale of a small town that, during a bad snowstorm, is suddenly overrun by gigantic snow monsters that eat anything, including humans. The characters in the story are forced to use their wit and ingenuity to battle the creatures as they fight for their town and their lives.

2) Where did you get the idea for this story? Snow can be dangerous, but generally isn't something that people find sinister.

Back in February 2011 we had a tremendous snowstorm here in Missouri, and my brother and sister were let out of school for almost an entire week. We entertained ourselves by roasting marshmallows over a candle and making up scary stories. One of our favorites was about snowmen that came to life and ate people. The story blossomed from there.

3) Is the sinister mundane more unsettling than the obvious horrific monster in your opinion? If so, why?


I think the mundane has always been much scarier than obvious horror. I mean, you can watch a zombie movie and be scared, but there's always comfort in the knowledge that it's not real. On the other hand, when you see a movie about weather in any form, it's a lot scarier because you know it could happen at any time.

4) Stepping away from deadly snow creatures, what frightens you the most?


Spiders, velociraptors and garden gnomes. In that order.

5) What's the most frightening short story you've ever read? Is this related to your greatest fear or something else entirely?


It seems kind of silly, but the most frightening short story I've ever read came from a Scary Stories To Tell Your Friends book. It's about a girl, who's driving home from a dance when a mysterious car starts following her. She freaks out and tries to lose the car, but it's always there, flashing its lights and honking. It turns out the man in the mysterious car was just trying to warn her that there was somebody in her backseat with a knife. I can't remember if the girl dies at the end of the story, but I do know that I always check my backseat before I get into my car.

6) Can you tell us about any of your other work?

In November I published "The Dragons Of Avordshire" on smashwords.com. It's a ballad poem about a young man named Harold Sprack who has to slay forty dragons or he'll lose something very dear to him. The response to this story has been tremendous! Almost the day after it was published I got an email from the artist Richard Svensson. He wanted to illustrate the story for free! I was in absolute shock and literally dancing around the house. I have the first few illustrations now and they are incredible, as soon as the project is done I'm going to republish it on Smashwords.com, but don't worry, it'll still be free!

7) Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas: Is this a Halloween movie or is this a Christmas movie?


Technically, I think it's a Christmas story being told/acted out by Halloween charachters, but I think it's actually a story of finding love and coming to terms with oneself. At the beginning of the film Jack Skellington was tired of being the Pumpkin King and was looking for something new, something different. What he found was a renewed love for his title, world and responsibilities.

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Thanks, Tiffany.

You can see more from Tiffany at www.craiganmorebooks.yolasite.com.

You can download "Snowmaggedon" and "The Dragons of Avordshire" for free (or read them online) at Smashwords.

The connection between one horror author, Martin Landau, and Haruki Murakami: An interview with horror author Peter Balaskas

Today I'm talking with horror Peter Balaskas about his new horror anthology, In Our House.

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1) Tell us about your collection.

In Our House is a literary mosaic composed of eight plot and dialogue driven stories which reflect my influences, including Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, Richard Matheson, and Edgar Allen Poe. Each story portrays common people placed in extraordinary circumstances: a lawyer must use his wits to escape a booby-trapped library suite, a dying gangster blackmails a Native American guide in order to locate a special fountain of health, a funeral director encounters the angry spirit of his predecessor, and a survivor of an apocalypse struggles to escape his prison: a boarding house that is not only surrounded by a sand tempest, but is also infested with mutated abominations that might hold the key to his lost memories. All these stories are connected to each other, both in a literal and metaphorical sense. What is that connection?  Only the reader can decide.

In Our House was featured on the New Short Fiction Series in October 2010: http://www.newshortfictionseries.com/ . It was accepted for publication by Bards and Sages soon after.

2) What are the advantages of the short story form for horror versus the novel?

I feel that the short story form for all genres helps the writer grow in terms of establishing and solidifying the character by tightening the prose as much as possible, which strengthens your narrative voice as well. In the past, I have always felt comfortable writing longer works, mainly novellas. Most of them have been published, like “The Chameleon’s Addiction” (which is in Bardic Tales and Sage Advice Volume 2--- http://www.bardsandsages.com/bardic2) and The Grandmaster (http://www.bardsandsages.com/grandmaster), which is slightly longer than a novella and fits the short novel format like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Mann’s Death in Venice. And for my second book project, I was contemplating writing my first full length supernatural thriller that serves as a prequel for The Grandmaster. But after much thought, I realized I wasn’t ready in terms of the scope of the book, the complexity, as well as my writing style. I was within my comfort zone when it came to the first person narrative voice, and I could have written the novel in first person and get away with it. But I knew for a fact if this was going to be part of a series, it would have to be third person/omniscient narrator. And I have always been weak in third person. So, I decided to work out my narrative voice and diversify my themes by writing short stories and maybe build a collection out of it.

This is what happened with In Our House. I made it a mission to write the shortest pieces possible and focus on not only the brevity of the narrative voice, but also harnessing that focus on character. I took a few pieces that I wrote many years ago---both from my graduate and undergraduate years---and revised them where my 3^rd person narrative voice was strengthened with each passing draft. I created newer works that utilized what I learned from those revisions, resulting in In Our House. By learning the power of brevity for some of those stories, I can utilize that for longer works where it won’t drag or go off tangent. I feel more confident when I start my full length novel now because writing short stories helps strengthen your sense of character and utilization of poetics with your narrative voice.

3) There are many different types of horror from the visceral terror of facing the great unknown Things That Should Not Be to the more subtle psychological tension that unnerves a person pursued by someone all-too-mortal. What type of horror do these stories tend to focus on or do you have a mix?

With regard to In Our House, it’s a combination of both sides of the horror spectrum, with a slight variance here and there. Although “Duet” is more of a fantasy/love story, the horror aspect is the manifestation of Mike’s writer’s block, especially through some of the metaphorical “beasts” that he expresses through his poetry (an example of this would be Qeb, the ugly survivor of the apocalypse who creates something beautiful at the end of the poem). But in “Let Auld Acquaintances,” we go into psychological tension regarding an arrogant lawyer being trapped in a game of wits against a psychopath. With “Wash Cycle,” it’s a little bit of both where the reader faces the mortal demon of Don Iovino, and then witnesses the supernatural terror of the Fountain of the Snake. “Id”? The question is whether Greg Gordon is an actual spiritual apparition or is Tom losing his mind?

 “Blessed are Those” is interesting because the terror comes in the form of the Nazis, who make their presence known through the destruction of Sedan. Although it’s a poignant story between two new friends, the terror of the Nazis is always present from the bombed out village to the appearance of the soldiers at the end of the story. In “Crossing the Styx,” it’s pure terror of the supernatural, whether it’s benign or malevolent; simple as that. And then we come to the title piece of the collection, “In His House.” The abominations are hellish to the Nth degree. But when the reader discovers who they are, along with the unnamed narrator, we go into a different level of terror. And as far as “Touched” goes, in the lead character’s eyes---God’s eyes---we, the human race, are the source of the horrors that goes on in the world, and it’s up to Him whether we deserve another chance.

The differentiation of horror---the visceral of the supernatural or paranormal to the more psychological of the natural---is something that I explore many times in my stories. And what happened with In Our House can happen with future works as well.

4) Which of your tales do you find the most frightening?

The title piece, “In His House.” That was the hardest piece I have ever written and its source came from one of the most frightening dreams I have ever had. In the dream, I saw ALL of the monstrosities, as well as the house itself. Translating the monsters onto the text was easy and hard at the same time. It was easy because, visually, I could picture them. But it was also difficult; they were so damned repulsive and evil, especially Mr. Lyons, the landlord. From a creative standpoint, it was the most challenging because I wanted to do what Haruki Murakami did in his novel A Wild Sheep Chase: an unmade protagonist. By keeping that consistent without appearing awkward was incredibly difficult, but it helped me grow as a writer. And the fact I wrote the first draft 23 hours straight through proved the story was just begging to come out.

5) There is a common stereotype that horror authors must be tortured souls because of their subject matter. That's rather insulting to their creative potential. So, where do you get your ideas? Or am I wrong, and you are a tortured soul?

Actually, it’s not so much an insult as it’s a humorous stereotype or cliché that writers like to laugh at. Two of those people include the Coen Brothers, where they broached this topic in BARTON FINK. In that scene, Barton (John Turturro, whose character is similar to Clifford Odetts) is talking to fellow writer William Mayhew (John Mahoney, who is patterned after William Faulkner) about writing. Mayhew, in an alcoholic daze, asks quite languidly, “Ain’t writing peace?” Well, Fink responds quite seriously, “I've always found that writing comes from a great inner pain. Maybe it’s a pain that comes from a realization that one must do something for one’s fellow man, to help somehow ease the suffering. Maybe it’s personal pain. At any rate, I don’t believe good work is possible without it.”  Well, Mayhew patiently listens in silence, grins and then responds, “Well, me? I just enjoy making things up.”

Everybody has emotional scars, including authors of ALL genres. As far as horror is concerned, I have heard from a number of best-selling horror writers how they channel certain painful moments in their lives into their work, most notably Dean Koontz (because of his alcoholic father) and James Herbert (because of the poverty his experienced growing up in the poor areas of London). Edgar Allen Poe is another fine example of this, too. And then you have fantasy authors like Ray Bradbury who write horror stories because of the joy of it. Richard Matheson does this as well, especially when writing episodes of The Twilight Zone. Stephen King, from what I have read so far, writes for both the simple of joy scaring the hell out of his readers, as well as channeling his fears and painful moments of his life into his work. William Peter Blatty wrote The Exorcist to explore the concepts of faith through a real life exorcism that occurred many years before, but utilized a bit of his own creativity by adding additional creepy moments to build the tension of the plot until it explodes when Regan is completely possessed and Father Karras has to rediscover his own faith if he has any hope in saving the poor girl.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a little bit of both Barton Fink and William Mayhew. Some stories I write in order to confront certain personal demons that I have, and there are some stories that I just simply enjoy writing. With relation to In Our House, it’s up to the reader to decide which is which. Or maybe not. Maybe just sitting back and enjoying the ride while reading the collection might be the best thing. J

6) What is the most mundane and innocent-seeming thing you've ever made seem frightening in a story?

Music plays an important role in many of my stories. I think the most mundane concept that was transformed into pure horror was what I did in a story that is not part of In Our House but occurs in the same “story universe.” With the gothic horror story, “Chamber Music”, I took the beautiful music of a flute and turned it into a weapon of evil for a serial killer, as well as a key to the salvation of the protagonist (who is a good friend of Mike Cicero, the lead character from “Duet,” which is the first story in In Our House). If people want to know more about this story and how a flute can create such terror, they should go to this link: (http://www.uncialpress.com/Chamber-Music.html. This story was just named as a finalist in the 2012 EPIC Awards, so it’s one of my favorite stories.

7) It seems counter-intuitive to purposefully seek out terror. Why are people so interested in, as it were, getting their fright on?

Martin Landau explained it so humorously while portraying Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood, especially when it comes to women. He explains, “The pure horror, it both repels, and attracts them (women), because in their collective unconsciousness, they have the agony of childbirth. The blood. The blood is horror. Take my word for it. If you want to make out with a young lady, take her to see Dracula.” I can imagine that could be the case; I had some interesting dates where I took a woman to see a classic horror film and….well, I digress. J

But I think people are attracted to GOOD horror (and I’m not talking about torture porn like the Saw series, or other slasher films) for two reasons. The first is on a basic level, people love the adrenaline rush of a good tense-filled scene that creeps long until it climaxes. This goes for thrillers as well, and Hitchcock was the master when it came to building the fright slowly within the audience’s souls. Talented horror writers like Poe, Lovecraft, Matheson, King and many others knows that the best terror is the patient, dynamic force that keeps the reader glued to the page until they discover what happens.

The second reason lies in the journey of self-discovery.  When people watch a good horror movie or read an incredible horror story, and they witness evil in either very obvious ways or with delicate subtlety, they begin to discover what it is that frightens them the most. Would they feel more connected to the protagonist? Or, more disturbingly, connect with the antagonist? Would the reader/viewer have the same courage to overcome the extraordinary circumstances that the protagonist faces? Or, would their darker natures result in them relating more to the antagonist. And if the writing is good, the writers have accomplished their mission in not only entertaining the audience and readership, but also make them think about themselves. And that is what I try to do with my own writing, especially In Our House: Tales of Terror.  

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Thanks, Peter.

In Our House is available at Amazon and Smashwords.

Super Short Story Challenge Matters

I've decided that due to Six Sentence Sunday, Monday will be my official Super Short Story Challenge day. I've yet to receive any genre suggestions for next week! Come on, give me an idea, otherwise I guess I'll just make a big genre chart or something, I suppose. :)

I already wrote the cyberpunk entry in my head for Monday. It will be interesting to see how long it takes.

Short Story Super Challenge

Partially inspired by Dean Wesley Smith and partially inspired by my own desire to challenge myself and do some weekly writing that isn't connected to any of my novel WIPs, I've decided to start my own weekly writing challenge. Basically, I'm going to solicit suggestions on a genre/type of story to write and produce one short story per week based on that general prompt (or just pick my own if no one wants to suggest one).

I don't plan to post them to any place yet other than my blog, but maybe after I've written a collection and edited them, I can slap together an anthology and upload it to Smashwords or something.

So, I'll take votes or suggestions for my first story (target date: August 28th). I'm willing to write anything except erotica. If there's no clear winner, I'll just pick one at random. Once we get going, I'll figure out some more formal rule about having to wait a certain number of weeks before repeating a certain genre/type of story. I suppose I should start requesting genre/story suggestions in the middle of the week in general. Maybe Wednesdays.

So, what do people want to see?

The African-American Experience: Interview with Katrina Parker Williams on The Trouble Down South and Other Stories

Today, I'm talking with Katrina Parker Williams about her African-American history-themed anthology, The Trouble Down South.

1) Tell us about your anthology. 

Trouble Down South and Other Stories is a short story collection of historical fiction that chronicles events spanning more than 150 years and addresses a wide range of experiences from African-American perspectives. The stories are set in the South amid a changing landscape in which the characters are forced to wrestle with the social issues surrounding Native Americans, slavery, racism, Prohibition, World War I, the Korean War, Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, health, religion, mental illness, and education.

2) What advantages do you feel exploring your themes in short story form has provided versus full-length novels?  

 I think one advantage of the short story form is I can explore various topics of interest to me, whether it be a character analysis, a setting, a plot, or what have you.  It is fun to try to capture a snippet of life in a short story and leave the reader wanting more.

3) Are all your stories completely fictional or have they been inspired by particular historical events? 

Many of the stories in the collection are fictional, but several of them were loosely based on events from my past and from my mother's past.  For example, the short story "Rock" is loosely based on my mother's recollections of World War II stories about colored men returning home from war.  I wanted to capture the essence of her remembrances in "Rock".

4) Other than the African-American experience, is there a particular thematic emphasis that unifies the stories in your anthology?

One theme that tends to run through all of the stories is the sense of some type of "trouble" befalling the characters in the stories.  Since the stories are set in the South, I wanted to create a title representative of the theme in each story, hence the title Trouble Down South and Other Stories. 

5) Your collection has a focus on the South. Although African-American history and the South are inextricably linked, the African-American experience isn't limited to that region. Did you consider including stories that took place in other locations?  

I did consider using other settings for the stories and even other characters from different regions of the country, but those stories didn't make it into the collection.

6) Your stories are told mainly from the African-American perspective. What advantages and disadvantages does this focus bring to your stories? 

Being that many of the stories are based on my personal experiences and my mother's recollections of her past, it was advantageous for me to draw upon those experiences to try to capture the realism of events and to ensure the believability of the characters.  Many of the characteristics of the characters in the short stories were taken from people I knew:  family members, friends, people in the community, etc.  Once I had a character developed, it was fairly easy to draft a story based on that character. 

7) Are there any authors who have influenced your work?

I do like the works of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ernest Gaines, Sue Monk Kidd, Terry McMillan, Maya Angelou, and Mark Twain.  I am sure all of these authors and many more have had some influence on my writing.

Katrina Parker Williams is the author of a short story collection Trouble Down South and Other Stories, the novel Liquor House Music, and three short stories Missus Buck, Rock, and Slave Auction.

You can check out Trouble Down South and Other Stories in both electronic and physical forms at:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble