A Writer’s Secret Life – The Things I do

Summer Snow

This Blog is Seasonal

In other words I really only attend to it in the summer when I have two months free of obligations to work, hurray, love summer. But I had to crank up the blog today because it’s a serious snow day, and I can’t get out and to delete what seemed like hundreds of spam comments (mostly Russian, I’m guessing here.) I can’t read Cyrillic, so it’s fun to scroll past pages and pages of what to me appear to be a kind of wing ding font. I marked them all as spam and installed the new Akismet plugin, hopefully that will filter them for a while.

screen shot by me

However, now that I’m here, I thought I’d post this picture of the results from my Valentine’s Day Love Reading promotion…many of you know that I try to publish my short work traditionally, and once my contract terms have met their obligations to the publisher, I have fun posting my short reads at Smashwords (by the way I’m also starting to market at Draft to Digital, and I post my long reads to Amazon). I do make my own covers for these works, like ’em or not (I’d love to hear from anyone with “comments about covers.”)

Let me connect the dots here. One thing that I love about Smashwords is that they assign every work I post a colour, and then they chart the colour on a graph. The give-away that I ran from Valentine’s Day to the following Sunday produced this amazing unicorn horn of swirls and colours that reminds me of an inverse ice-cream cone and it’s snowy outside. Dots connected. Snow day–ice-cream cone.

Okay, well,screen shot by me

that’s how a writer’s imagination works.

Enjoy short reads for only .99 pennies www.smashwords.com/books/view/20

Post Parents

The parents have passed on. Many of my friends have gone through this or are going through the difficult process of saying good-bye to the people that introduced them to the world. For the most part my parents gave me good advice but I didn’t always follow it, until one day I realized that the only people that really cared what happened to me were my parents. They probably spoke the truth to me more often then anyone else. “Don’t do as I do, but do as I say.” Easy to say but more difficult to follow. Now I only have myself to give me advice. But at this stage of the game what advice is left to give or follow? Invest your money wisely? Too late. Everything in moderation? Didn’t always follow that rule and so I’ve lost some teeth due to too much sugar, wore high heels and shortened the old Achilles tendons, watched TV and sat too close. Now I wear glasses, and a bunch of other small miseries assail me because I didn’t heed their advice. It’s been only seven months since mom decided to step through the veil and leave things to the rest of us, and 23 years since dad passed as a result of complications from smoking. While sorting through my mom’s belongings I discovered an old fortune cookie saying that she’d saved, “Quality isn’t expensive. It’s priceless.” My mom’s last piece of parting advice. They were quality parents, not without foibles and problems, but they were priceless.

Song of Summer–Hugos–Where did the Hu–go?

Publishing News!

RainWood Press, Keyboard Books and Keyhole Stories

I’ve started a publishing house (it’s more like a publishing keyhole and not a whole house).

RainWood Press

I intend to publish novels under the name of RainWood Press, along with larger collections of short stories. Single short stories and works for children will be published under (Keyhole Stories) and smaller collections are published under the name of Keyboard Books. At the moment I’m only publishing works by Rhea Rose, or R.E.Rose, or Rhea E. Rose.

My first three novels are now all out and available at Amazon.

The 3rd one- See Jane Hex in The Final Catch (A Tarot Sorceress Series) launched for the Hugo weekend (I know, Hugos are given for SF and my series is fantasy but I can’t go to World Fantasy because they’re sold out!)

These first 3 books will be joined by 3 more.. I’m running those manuscripts through a writers’ workshop as I blog. As a creative, I’ve decided to see how far I can go working up a series and doing most of it myself.

View them and buy them here, in all of their glory. If any of you glance at my website on Weebly–rheaerose.weebly.com (great place to create a website, you new writers), you’ll find some discussion on getting into indie publishing, which I’ve been working on for most of 2015. You’ll also find “other stuff” I’m attempting to “create”.

Newest Short Stories

Clockwork Canada edited by Dominik Parisien will publish a new short story by me in his steampunk themed anthology put out by Exile Editions available April 2016. Find the Toc here at Black Gate.

Second Contacts edited by Michael Rimar and Hayden Trenholm will feature a short story collaboration by Rhea Rose and Colleen Anderson. Published by Bundoran Press and available in the fall of 2015.

Joining my other stories at Smashwords: The Adventures of Dorea Tress originally published in Dead North and my short story The Wall originally published Tesseracts 17 can now be found at Smashwords available as singles.

Poetry and Aurora Awards

This year I had the mind expanding opportunity to participate in Art Song Lab, where poets, Composers, and performers engage. Many of you will not have heard of this, but it is a time honoured tradition of launching songs, hence, this years collaboration was called SongLaunch. The writers, composers and singers come from around the globe.

I’ve never done anything like this before and found the experience incredibly satisfying and beautiful. It was such an honour to work with all of these artists. They were all amazing creatives and I hope to continue my experience into the future. Nick Kelly and I are collaborating on more poetry/songs. My composer,Nicholas Kelly is from Saskatchewan and my Tenor singer was William George from Vancouver, accompanied by Vancouver’s Corey Hamm on piano. The venue– VSO, The Pyatt Hall–gorgeous.

I wanted to mention my participation in the ArtSongLab event because my poem is eligible for an Aurora Award 2016 in the category of Best Poem/Song English.

I was, of course, a writer/poet and wrote: From Alpha Centauri the Earth is a Blue Bowl of Fish Soup. Listen to it here.

The short story, Scar Tissue will also be eligible for an Aurora Award 2016 in the category of Best Short Fiction English. If you vote for it you will be granting two Canadian SF writers with an award: Rhea Rose and Colleen Anderson.

Up-cycling and Keyboard Books

I also have short stories and short story collections at Smashwords where I like to up-cycle my short stories. Here I sell stories as singles or as a collection of 4 in a themed eBook. It is less money to buy 4 at a time than it is to buy one, but we’re talking .99 cents here, so let’s not get into any financial snits.

Nearly all my short stories are traditionally published. When rights revert back to me, I give them a cover and post them at Smashwords as singles or as the themed collection of 4 stories. Many are free.

I hope to run a panel at VCon 2015 on how to create book covers for your eBooks. I create covers for low cost in PowerPoint. You don’t really need Photoshop and I can’t afford to buy Photoshop, nor can I spend the time required to learn how to use it. But we all grew up with PowerPoint! So, look for that panel at VCon.

Future Features

At this time I’m working out a future project with a publisher. More news on that later as things firm up.

Summer Reads

Fiction

This Summer I read: Blood Rites by Jim Butcher. It’s the 6th book in his Dresden Files series about a wizard detective. It was recommended that I read it because it has some similarities to my Tarot Sorceress series about a beautiful sorceress discovering her powers as she is forced to become a detective who looks for her missing Cheshire cat and seeks a way out of a tarot curse that befalls her. Why did I read the 6th book in Butcher’s series? It was the only one in my library( Oh, well, read it and got a good sense of it.) One of the differences between the two series is vampires. My series has none of those pointy toothed antagonists. And my hero is a heroine.

I also read Owl and the Japanese Circus (I love that title)by Kristi Charish whose career has rocketed! (I had the opportunity to read a Kristi Charish short story when she attended VCon’s writers’ workshop a few years back). Since then she’s published shorts and now two novel series.

I didn’t know what to expect in this tale and was surprised when the action packed plot and fast paced style reminded me of Jim Butcher’s novel (only with a female protagonist, hurray). It’s another series with vampires, a cat sidekick (Butcher’s novel had a puppy sidekick) and an interesting dragon. Everything we urban fantasy lovers Charish! Pun intended.

The third book in my summer lineup of reading is The Girl with all the Gifts by M.R. Carey. *Spoiler alert* (but not really because I’m coming late to this zombie party) A science fiction zombie novel for teachers. I say that because I am one. No, not a zombie, although that’s arguable, I’m a teacher, and a non-genre reading teacher friend recommended the book to me. I really liked the idea of having to kill off humanity in order for the hungries to reach their true potential.

The next book in my lineup (still reading) is the Ultra Thin Man by Patrick Swenson. So far am quite liking it. It’s very original and creative, if a little cryptic (I don’t tend to be crime reader), but I may become more of one due to this novel.

Non-fiction

During my down times at the Hugos (mostly waiting for planes to land and take off) I read Douglas Smith’s Playing the Short Game. I’d intended to read it long ago, but a few screw ups with Kobo prevented that from happening. Great book for the short story writer! Every new writer should own it and read it and there are some nice tips and reminders for those of us that have played the short game for a long time.

Don’t write your notes on a non- sticky sticky note– just a word to the wise. Had lots more to say but lost the sticky notes.

Losses

Carol Severance, Science Fiction and Fantasy writer

An old science fiction and fantasy friend, Carol Severance, passed this year. We both attended Clarion ’84 and had some great times together after that. We lost touch over the years but Carol was remembered at Sasquan.

I lost my beautiful ragdoll cat-Kiki– (name for the girl in Kiki’s Delivery Service) this summer. I think a coyote got her but can’t be sure. But a friend found a new kitten (Himalayan) Tiki- she’s gorgeous. I would love to have the two of them together and haven’t yet completely given up on Kiki’s return. I did design the Cheshire cat in my novel series around Kiki.

There go the Hugo

Finally, here we are, the Rhea Rose run down on Sasquan, The World Science Fiction Convention–host to the Hugos–only 3 days late. They happened last Saturday night (I blame long waits for short flights). I must say the crowd in the theatre was stunning, dressed sparkly or in costume and in steampunk formal,. I could hardly make myself look at the stage. But the lights went out and I did watch as David Gerrold won the evening with his MCing. Hard to believe he’s in his 70’s. There’s magic in being a long time science fiction writer–they seem to keep that boyish animation to the very end.

I flew there. And flew back. A long flight for a short trip. Vancouver to Portland, Portland to Spokane. Then, Spokane to Seattle, Seattle to Vancouver. On the way back the 31 minute flight from Seattle to Vancouver took a couple of hours. A case of time travel. Sitting in airports and on runways. Yes, we could have driven home in that time. And, little did we know that coming from burning BC to Washington, we were jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The Spokane area was lit up like a roman candle gone wild. Sad to say that 3 firefighters died while we were there enjoying the con.

There was much controversy surrounding the no-go Hugos( 5 categories with no award). Personally, I don’t like to get involved in the politics of anything, but more and more that’s proving to be an impossible position. Everything, it seems, is becoming political. Many things have lost or are losing the spirit in which they were created.

Being a non-political being I had no idea until I got there that great turmoil roiled and boiled beneath the glitterati of science fiction. I was soon straightened out on the situation and was extremely relieved to realize that on my own diligence by having done my homework, I’d actually voted in line with the evening’s proceedings. While I sat at home making my votes, I remembered thinking–I don’t think I’ve ever in the past voted for so many no awards. I seemed to be instinctively picking up on what was going on. (click here or on the title of this article if you want the politics)

Here are some of the highlights of Sasquan:

Best joke of the Hugo award evening by David Gerrold- Donald Trump I want my tribble back (still laughing)

Me trying to tell people what I did there: I Went smoooshing which is a softer version of “smooze” less aggressive. Some folks came up to me and said, “Hello” took one look at my badge, decided I was “nobody” and walked away. Jeeze.

Silverberg/Martin discussion- A wonderful timeline of science fiction by Robert Silverberg and some great kidding with the “kid” George R.R. Martin.

Martin reading from his next book: Winds of Winter

Priceless— Robert Silverberg had the audience chanting hare hare Krishna Krishna while he shook the tambourine. It worked! While hysterically funny, it brought much of the audience to a place of quiet respect. And anyone there who’d been alive and over 12 years old in the 70’s knew all the words to the chant. I’m sure there were many more levels to the event, but I’m too tired to dive for them. But it was great.

Costumes–stunning; my fave was Groot.

Fires– I mentioned to a friend that it felt a little like being in Rome and fiddling while everything burned down around us. Notes on hotel doors–Dangerous Smoke-Do not go outside without a mask.

Venue – Wow to the Historical Davenport (warm with lots of character) vs The Grand Davenport, newer but cold.

Best Party– Baen Books, at the Historical Davenport — I didn’t want to leave–first class.

Panels- Plenty, I generally go for the writers panels and the updates on what’s happening in the publishing world. The panels I found most interesting happened to be the ones that featured semi-pro editors. It was great to put faces to the places I send stories.

That’s all for now. I think I will have more news come Christmas time/Saturnalia time.

From Alpha Centauri the Earth is a Blue Bowl of Fish Soup ** Time to Crank Up the Summer Blog –well, it feels like summer…

From Alpha Centauri the Earth is a Blue Bowl of Fish Soup

(name of my poem set to musical score)

Rhea's Readings and Rantings — Rhea’s Readings and Rantings

Here it is! My poetry and musical score collaboration with Nicholas Ryan Kelly(from Saskatchewan). We’ve worked on this since January 2015 as part of the Art Song, 2015, Vancouver, and here is the information for the Vancouver, World Premiere launch at Pyatt Hall, VSO school of Music.

Tickets $20 are available, please follow the link I’ve posted here in the Georgia Straight, (must go from the Georgia Straight event listing, to the link that take you tickets)

In case you’re wondering, I wrote the words, not the music. Performance June 6, 2015

…

https://www.straight.com/listings/events/457711 this is the Georgia Straight listing…

http://www.artsonglab.com/ this will tell you more about the program

Photo Source: http://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/q-as/celebrate-earth-day-from-outer-space

Lured to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party for a Time Share Talk

Buy our vacation time share–no?? In the pot you go!

You don’t know how to vacation dormouse but if I poke you in the eye, perhaps you’ll try or even buy our time share…

Sometimes a writer needs a holiday.

I tried posting this summary at Trip Advisor but they only gave me room for 200 words (laugh out loud!) I did send a copy to my travel agent–not her fault but she needs to know…

Cancun, Mexico (for those of you who followed my sad story on Facebook about being ripped off by a company called Southeast travel, I tried to turn that lemon into lemonade.) Good news there, Visa returned our money and they have gone after the scammers — I think the credit card companies are the new homeland security-they get the job done!–Omg, I’m cheering for a credit card company–what has the world come to? 🙁

We arrived at the airport a 6 in the evening and the West Jet flights were great! It then goes downhill from there:
• Waited 3 hours at airport for luggage along with 1000 other customers who were are all funneled through a single customs officer—with not one single airport to explain what was going on or what the problem was…
• At midnight we were swarmed by taxi drivers and shuttle service—it was so bad I felt I had to move back into the airport for my safety –(eventually did connect with a tour bus driver with our name on his list) but I ordered a shuttle so we wouldn’t have to go from hotel to hotel
• We were the last to be dropped off after stopping at 3 other all inclusives

• Arriving after midnight and couldn’t be accommodated–front desk was rude!

• After having requested 2 beds previous to the trip we were given one king size bed and none of the ‘goodies’ on the list were in the room: no slippers, no robes, no swim towels, the room was over the building entrance so we heard every single conversation by the concierge.
• Fought the next day for room items and presented out list (thank goodness I had it)
• We were told that we weren’t entitled to those things on the list because we hadn’t booked directly with them, (we were told this at least 3 times—not entitled because we booked through a third party??) but they would accommodate us if we did their time share tour

You’re not entitled Alice. Doesn’t matter if you’ve paid for extras. You’re here aren’t you?

But this isn’t the room I booked!
• 2 days into the trip we got the items- two pairs of slippers, two bath robes, bottle of tequila, two swim towels (but they would not exchange our wet bath towels or explain to us how to get fresh ones)
• They did explain that the reason they couldn’t help us was because we hadn’t booked directly with them, but had gone through an agency (sunquest) and would have to deal with them (sunquest doesn’t have an agent at the xacaret you have to call him, his name is Eduardo).
• Every day of our trip we were badgered and harassed to do their time share tour—it became obvious that the Xcaret isn’t for vacationing it’s designed to lure in people who will possibly buy into an elaborate time share scheme

But where are my massages?
• We decided to go to the time share tour to get them off of our backs and get some peace—they also promised us we would receive a bottle of Kahlua, and two free massages – we received the bottle but they reneged on the massages and charge us twice for the massages—the night before leaving we spoke with manager and he returned our second massage payments.

Everyone has disappeared!
• We arranged for our shuttle pick up the night before our departure, spoke with Eduardo the sunquest agent and we were assured he’d be there at 9:45, he wasn’t.
• On departure day in the lobby an hour early, our name was never called for a shuttle, no one knew anything, we contacted sunquest, Eduardo could not be found—they told us to call a cab and they would meet us at the airport and pay for the cab (yeah, right sure).
• We climbed into the cab just as Eduardo’s shuttle arrived—they explained that they hadn’t done a head count and had forgotten us and were half way to the airport when they had to turn around and come back to get us!!!

Of course we forgot you but we got you didn’t we?
• I’ve never experienced anything like this! (they tag everyone with a wrist band and found out that’s kind of how they rate the customer, apparently we weren’t ‘high class’– paid 5000 for 2 airline tickets and hotel trip for 5 days of this place) If this is what all inclusive in Mexico is, I won’t do it again (I wouldn’t go again because of that airport) I was quite happy to get home, in fact, If I could have found an exit back to Vancouver(up the rabbit hole) the first night in the airport, I would have walked directly on to it.

Trip booked through Marlin Travel.

Please don’t send people to this place—at least warn them about the airport, the time share harassing, and the poor treatment—that being said when we were in the restaurants we had a good time.

Game of Thrones @ The Pacific National Exhibition– The un-Fair

GAME OF LINEUPS

What the PNE looked like most of the time– lineups. See that banana tree? (When did Vancouver start getting banana trees?)

Me under the banana tree (still in the lineup an hour later)

Me asleep under the banana tree.

FINALLY!

This is a stock photo because my phone died by the time I got inside! That’s how long it took. No place on the PNE grounds was ever this empty.

Was it Worth it?

Yes, but, the lineups were too stupid. The crowds ridiculous. The parking impossible. BUT I am a die hard Game of Thrones fan, and I have to say, the powers that be, made it hard.

The PNE administrators have to wake up. And smell the banana trees! DO SOMETHING! MAKE THE FAIR ACCESSABLE!

I’m not going to talk much about the GOT exhibit, or the sorry state of the archaic fair.

See the elevator?

This is the oculus (above). Well, the contraption on the heads of the people inside is the oculus. It may not look like it but they are rushing up the icy wall inside the wooden elevator and are about to meet their fates.

The oculus was awesome and I guess it’s the way of the future for video games–total immersion in the virtual world. The only sense missing was smell. SPOILER ALERT! Although, I don’t think I’m spoiling much here. If you went, you saw. If you didn’t went, well it’s too late.

The oculus is a virtural ride. Located in the GOT wall’s elevator, such as it is. You clunk and clank your way to the top, with the wind in your hair and ice below and behind until you get to the top. You’re hustled to the edge of the wall where fire arrows take you down, yes, down you go, off the wall, shot by a fiery arrow. Awesome!

Head of a Dire wolf. Dragon &…

…Daerney ‘s dresses.

I only went to the PNE to see the GOT exhibit. I got there at 11:30 am and got into the exhibit at 9:00 pm. Thank the gods I got in free to the PNE grounds because I was ready to become the mother of dragons. At 11:00 am there was no parking to be had on the fair grounds (which are actually pretty ugly, oxymoron intended). I dropped the teens off in the middle of Hastings street (literally),which had become a parking lot anyway. Off they ran, and had the IQ to go straight to the GOT booth and get the last few remaining time tickets to the exhibit.

Get out here

Park here!

Meanwhile, I’d spied a little, old Asian man flagging cars down to come park in his yard which was down a lane and inside a gated yard. If my car had been any larger it wouldn’t have fit (Kia, rondo). Between his non English instructions on how to park and my relief to find a parking spot, I was only too happy to hand over 20 bucks for the day. No charge to get into the fair grounds and with lots of time to kill, I went to a few more exhibits while I waited for 8:00 pm.

Missed this cat one, darn it!

Went to the Get Animated Exhibit…

Disney Castle

…where I visited my good friends Sponge Bob and Patrick (don’t know where the two random kids came from?)…

…made some friends.

…had an ice-cream cone.

Doesn’t seem like much, but most of my time was taken up with standing in line. I did a few more sitting things like watch the pig races, watch the Clydesdales trot around the arena, watched the super dogs, and ate mini doughnuts.

That’s all folks, for now. Stay tuned for my photo on the actual throne (GOT) not morning routine. On someone else’s phone!

And my final reviews for summer movies. SF and F take over!

The Take Over: SF & F Film Invasion

Resistance is futile, but resisted I have. Okay, I’ve written little blurbs on the summer genre movies (more last year then this year) This year seems to be chock full of block buster SF that I couldn’t keep up with either financially or even temporally (think of all that writing time as I sit through all that film. ) So, here’s a list of what I’ve watched (or not) with a one liner– including a thumbs up, thumbs down 1-5 score (5 is highest) on what’s out there. I know you’ll all go see what you want ( I do). I should add that I consider summer to stretch from May to end of September, if didn’t think of it as that long I don’t thing I could stand my existence on this intelligent ape ridden, comic hero protected, 100% intelligence (NOT) planet.

The latest one. A great gallop through the galaxy with a gaggle of goony guys and girls. Space Op glop (I’m not much of a comic hero fan but I liked it). I give it 4.5 rocket raccoons out of 5.

“Apes do not want war!” Thank goodness because humans sure do. Who knew monkey men could be hot? Caesar rules. The sooner we can make him president the better. When a movie makes my son and I have a philosophical discussion on the state of mankind and intelligence, it’s got to have something going for it. This is my MOVIE of the SUMMER, so far. I give it 5 hail Caesars out of 5 (oops my arm saluted across my chest)

Haven’t seen it yet, but would go see Captain Canada if it were made…

Haven’t seen, but I ‘ve seen all the others, big machines turning into big monsters. I want a transformer lawn mower…

Did anyone look at anything other than the blue Jennifer Lawerence? I don’t bat for the other team, but even I couldn’t keep my eyes off those scales. I have no idea what happened here, but I think the earth averted disaster, hurray. It was fun I give it 3.5 blue boobs out of 5.

Kay, it wouldn’t be fair to call it the sf version of Ground Hog day, but you know what I mean. If you’re a Cruise fan see it. It was interesting, if somewhat repetitive. I give it 3 karmic turns of the wheel out of 5.

Haven’t seen this one, but have seen ALL the others before it. I miss the man in the rubber suit. Military SF is not my favorite place to go in the genre, but one day I will watch the beast crush Tokyo and then watch his foot fall off from radiation.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Officially Announced, Gets A Release Date image

All Right! Charlie’s angels. Am seeing this tonight. Don’t know why it wasn’t included in 2014’s sf movie list, but I guess its not REAL, that’s why. let you know how the bad turtles win the race. See ya!

Lucy Loses Spoiler Alert

These days I have a hard time getting past the gory peripherals science fiction movies use, or not even peripherals, in some cases the in-your-face gruesomeness to get people into cinema seats.

Lucy’s viciousness and the violence of the gang world– making certain races evil (Chinese and British in this case), then there’s the less than admirable treatment of women, all this stabbing and torturing and kicking women in the guts get in the way of the story for me. When our heroine stabbed that gang leader during his massage, why didn’t he die??

Then the silly obligatory car chase , yes, it’s exciting, but pointless. And I’ve heard people describe SJ’s acting as great but come on, is there anyone alive today who can’t act like a zombie robot?? I’m sure she’s perfectly capable of acting the part if there had been anything in the part to act! Let’s do a workshop at V-con and see how many of us can do the “Lucy look.” So, while I love the science fiction idea and the even cooler idea of — the arc of Lucy,” the missing Link” to Lucy the 100% all-brainer, I find that the neat stuff is just an excuse to portray all that yucky bloody-gory stuff and yanking bullets out of flesh.

I did like what I think was a moment of homage to 2001’s:A Space Odyssey (apes touch the monolith) at the end of this movie when the two Lucys touch fingers. I prefer to see more of the idea of attaining 100% brain capacity and the story of humankind’s adventures in advancement and human potential, not the loud noise and nonsense of Hollywood.

For me the modern day Lucy is a loser.

I give it 2 apes out of 5.

Cottage Bistro Host ChiZine Reading Series

Colleen Anderson is the host(ess) for the ChiZine reading series for west coast speculative fiction writers. Tonight belonged to Oregon readers, Cameron Pierce, Kirsten Alene and Alan M.Clark.

The three readers regaled us with their weird and wonderful fishy tales of fun and horror. Think sushi shaped like naughty bits, dead man dancing underwater and troutenomics and you begin to get an idea of the speculative fic scope. The setting was quiet but intimate. The bistro is one of the betters venues in town for readings but it’s food prices are too high!

Cameron Pierce reads from 3 trouty short stories

Ranging from surreal horror to fables about fishing and the outdoors, Cameron Pierce’s books include the Wonderland Book Award-winning collection Lost in Cat Brain Land, the controversial cult hit Ass Goblins of Auschwitz, and forthcoming from Broken River Books, The Incoming Tide and Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon.

His books have been praised by New York Times bestselling authors like Piers Anthony and Thomas F. Monteleone, legendary cult filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman, The Guardian, Cracked.com, Flavorwire, Fangoria, Rue Morgue, Dazed & Confused, and more.

He has also edited four popular anthologies and serves as the head editor of the Lazy Fascist Press, publishing the work of authors such as Sam Pink, Scott McClanahan, Stephen Graham Jones, Blake Butler, Molly Tanzer, Noah Cicero, Alan M. Clark, and Patrick Wensink.

Cameron lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, author Kirsten Alene.

Kirsten describes naughty shaped sushi

Kirsten Alene lives in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of Japan Conquers the Galaxy (2013), Unicorn Battle Squad (2012) and the novella, Love in the Time of Dinosaurs (2010). Her work has been published in The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, In Heaven Everything is Fine: Fiction inspired by David Lynch, Housefire’s Nouns of Assemblage, Innsmouth Magazine, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, New Dead Families, Small Doggies Magazine, The Battered Suitcase, Ellipsis, and Rivets.

Alan M. Clark reads from his novel, a scene where a dead man dances underwater.

Alan M. Clark

How to Train Your Dragon 2

I know I’m probably a bit of a late comer to this movie, but hey, LOVED it! I know what costume I’m making for Halloween 2014. The medieval version of the statue of liberty was very effective. And one of my favorite movie scenes of all time is now the image in the sky where the mysterious dragon rider cuts up through the clouds to get a good look at our reflective, dragon riding hero, Hiccup. Dragon rides in the sky are great scenes and I can’t wait until the rides arrive at Disney, so I can book my next trip down. Great movie. It gets a little heavy toward the end with the dark side getting some good licks in on a few of our favorite characters, but if you’re going to play with dragons, then you’re going to get burned. I give it 5 dragon scales out of 5.