A Reflection on 2015

Now that 2015 is coming to a close, I can say that it has been a great year in writing!  I've had 27 poems and 1 awesome essay published this year.  That beats the combined total of work I've published in the last 4 years.  From 2011, the year I was first published, to 2014, I've had 21 poems and 3 short stories published.  Insane!  Hopefully in 2016 I can beat this year's total.

Other achievements of note include getting onto Ellen Datlow's recommended reading list for my poem Carathis and attending my first HWA L. A. Chapter meeting with Kyle and becoming a member at Supporting level soon after, in September.  As of this renewal, I have made the Affiliate level.

(HPLFF 2014)

(WesterCon 2015)

(L. A. Times Festival of Books with Leslie Klinger 2015)

(Vintage Paperback Show after-party with Jason and Sunni Brock and Peter Atkins)

(Authors!)

(Friends and Fans!)

(Poetry Reading)

Kyle and I also started attending cons and other events, including the 5th annual H. P. Lovecraft Film Fest in San Pedro, WesterCon in San Diego, the L. A. Times Festival of Books, and the Vintage Paperback Show in Glendale.  We had a lot of fun meeting authors, making friends and fans, and getting books signed!  Kyle and I were also invited to read poetry (me for the first time!) in Placerville, CA.

Other cool things include interviews!  Kyle and I have been interviewed twice this year!  One was for a forthcoming Clark Ashton Smith documentary and the other was an online interview on the Weird genre.  That's insane, I still can't even believe that.  I even signed my first autograph this year which is way cool.

Next year already promises more awesome events.  Kyle and I will be signing at Dark Delicacies on Sunday, January 10th from 2pm-4pm for the Winter Horror Days anthology, we plan on having our own signing at Rad Coffee in Upland sometime in February, we will be vendors at the HPLFF in San Pedro in April, I believe, and we will be attending the StokerCon in May in Las Vegas.  

P.S. I forgot to add that since joining the HWA, I've had a poetry article in the Blood & Spades section for December and have been in all the Fiendish Endeavors since I joined!  How awesome is that?

Winter Horror Days Anthology edited by David Blake Lucarelli and Sanitarium #39

I just received my copy of the Winter Horror Days anthology edited by David Blake Lucarelli, which has my Yule poem, Winter Witch in it.

"Winter Horror Days is a winter holiday themed horror anthology from members of the Los Angeles Chapter of The Horror Writers Association featuring twenty stories and four poems including tales by David Gerold and Lisa Morton.  Profits benefit the Horror Writers Association Hardship Fund."

"As you sit warm and cozy in your chair by the fire, comforted by the pretty lights and decorations of your holy nights, a chill runs up your spine. Part of you knows that the things that creep in the night and stalk your souls take no holiday. Indeed, as members of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Horror Writer's Association are here to remind you with twenty dark tales and four eerie poems, at this time of the year, many terrors lie just beneath the tinsel. They bring a special kind of fear that can only be found in The Winter Horror Days."

The Christmas Spirit ~ Lisa Morton
In the Dead of Winter ~ K. A. Opperman
Mother Night ~ Elise Forier Edie
The Eve Sirens ~ Lauren Candia
about Christmas '78 ~ David Ghilardi
Crying Wolf ~ Kate Maruyama
Choking Hazard ~ Michael Paul Gonzalez
Cursed by Saint Basil ~ Kate Jonez
Witch Sisters ~ Sean Patrick Traver
A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Christmas Yet to Come ~ Kevin Wetmore
Black Coal ~ David Blake Lucarelli
Pâtisserie du Diable ~ Eric J. Guignard
Dread of Winter Dreams of Summer ~ Janet Joyce Holden
The Sun ~ Robin Morris
Krampus Comes to Town ~ Robert Payne Cabeen
Showdown in Beverly Hills ~ Hal Bodner
The Quiet Christmas Tree ~ Tracy L. Carbone
Shamash ~ Xach Fromson
An Ugly Resurrection ~ The Behrg
The Scary Neighbor ~ Ian Welke
Santa Christ and the Xmas Miracle ~ Terry M. West & Regina West
Winter Witch ~ Ashley Dioses
The Fifty-Eighth Item ~ Kathryn McGee
…And Eight Rabid Pigs ~ David Gerrold

There's also a few prizes to win for the first 5 people who give an honest review of it.

The first 10 readers to post a review to Amazon and/or Goodreads will receive a randomly chosen prize from this exciting prize pool.

1. 1 - Signed limited edition print Krampus by Robert Payne Cabeen

2. 5 - signed copies of The Children's Vampire Hunting Brigade by David Blake Lucarelli

3. 1 - signed copy of Harrowgate by Kate Maruyama

4. 1 - trade paperback of your choice from the Omnium Gatherum catalog

5. 1 - signed copy of Monster by Janet Joyce Holden

6. 1 - signed copy of a mysterious novel to be named at a later date by Sean Patrick Traver

I also received my copy of Sanitarium #39 in the mail as well.  The formatting is a bit strange in this one for poetry.  It has the title of my poem on one page but then has the poem on another which makes it look like it was cut off.  And it's formatted that way.  Strange.

(The title is on one page, which looks cool here, but it makes the next page weird.)

(See, it kind of looks like the poem started on the previous page, but it doesn't.  It starts like that.  I'm thinking they should've centered it to make it look like that's the whole poem, which it's supposed to look like.)

I ordered 4 copies of Gothic Blue Book V: The Cursed Edition by Burial Day Books for a signing Kyle and I plan on holding in February.  We plan on contributing our second cc to the pile to make 6.  More details on the signing to come.

  

The Literary Hatchet by PearTree Press Issue #13

My poem, Morning's Moon, appears in this issue of the Literary Hatchet by PearTree Press.  The issue is free to download and you can also purchase a physical copy for $14.00 plus S/H.

Gothic Blue Book V: The Cursed Edition

I have finally received my contributor copies of the Gothic Blue Book V: the Cursed Edition.  I have two poems in this; Mircalla, based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and Prelude- My Dark Diary, which is the intro poem to my forthcoming debut poetry book.  I also ordered a few more of these to sell at an upcoming book signing.

Weird Fiction Review #7 and Spectral Realms No. 5 Poem Acceptances

I missed the deadline for this upcoming issue of Weird Fiction Review by Centipede Press, which says it's shipping out this month, so I decided to get on top of the next one by sending something in early.  The WFR only gets published once a year and usually comes out in December/January but it fills up fast, as I've come to realize.  I queried about sending poetry for this current issue in July and it was already full.  Even though the wait is long, it's worth it.  I loved reading the one I'm in, No. 5, and I look forward to stealing Kyle's when he gets his contributor's copy of this issue.

My poem accepted for WFR #7 is called, Nitokris, and is based on the ghoul queen from H. P. Lovecraft's Under the Pyramids.  It is another poem in my femme fatale series and follows the 36 line structure that you can see in my poems Carathis (Spectral Realms No. 1 by Hippocampus Press), Ligeia (Spectral Realms No. 2 by Hippocampus Press), Mircalla (Gothic Blue Book V: The Cursed Edition by Burial Day Books), and Ilvaa (Spectral Realms No. 4 by Hippocampus Press).

While I decided to get into WFR early, I thought that I might as well submit something for Spectral Realms No. 5.  I sent S. T. my poem, Ever Fair, which is a small poem of 8 lines, that describes the joy of turning a body into....  ;)  

Poem Acceptances!

My poem, Morning's Moon, has been accepted by the Literary Hatchet by Pear Tree Press and is to be published in the next issue.  My poem, Ligeia, first published in Spectral Realms No. 2 by Hippocampus Press, will appear in the May issue of Bloodbond by Alban Lake.  My poems, Lover’s Witch (Weird Fiction Review #5 by Centipede Press), Witch’s Love (Spectral Realms No. 2 by Hippocampus Press), and Ligeia (Spectral Realms No. 2 by Hippocampus Press) have been accepted for Season of the Witch by J. Ellington Ashton Press which is due to be published in August.

I am a sucker for witch themed anthologies.  I submitted a story to Wax & Wane: A Coven of Witch Tales by Nosetouch Press but was rejected.  They weren't taking any poetry for it, unfortunately.

Sanitarium Magazine Issue 39

My Bathory poem, Painted in Blood, first published in Inanna Rising: Women Forged in Fire by J. Ellington Ashton Press, has come out in issue 39 of Sanitarium Magazine.  Check it out if you missed reading my poem the first time.  :P

Sanitarium Issue 39 contains 8 Stories, 2 Dark Verse & Interviews

Within Sanitarium (Horror Fiction and Dark Verse) Magazine Issue 39 you will find the horror fiction you’re deepest fears crave:

• Vandals In The Repository by Peter Hynes
• The Needle’s Eye by Thomas Staples
• The Hunger by Kristina R. Mosley
• An Egg of Stone and Steel by Stephen Williams
• Deer Kingdom by Valerie Alexander
• Too Much of a Good Thing by Katie Krantz
• Jonathan Apples by Dan Fields
• Mirrors by Jonathan Rae Rivera
• Painted in Blood by Ashley Dioses

On the record with:

• Killer Party

Halloween Howlings by Rainfall Records and Books

It's a bit late but my two poems, the Abandoned Garden and Graveyard Blossom, appear in Halloween Howlings by Rainfall Records and Books.

Winning Streak!

Lady Luck has been kind to me lately.  On Saturday I won two free registrations for StokerCon 2016!  So it looks like Kyle and I will see you there!  Now he just has to get on the final ballot....

And I was a runner up for a Horror Selfie contest for HWA's Nothing's Scarier than Being Alone campaign for Adopt-a-Shelter Dog (pet) month!  And this is the book and model, Ki, in the picture:

I won a book, which book though, I do not know.  The 2 first place winners must choose first.  I'll post the book here when I know.  :)

And here is the book I won!  Midnight Walk edited by Lisa Morton.

I actually won another contest.  A little poetry contest where you had to construct a poem out of three book titles.  The book titles were A Coin for Charon, The Dark Age, and October's Children.  This was my little poem.

In silence, October’s pale children creep

Into the darkest of ages, where sleep

Brings them through eldritch doors, yet without coin

For Charon, into Hell, his Hell, they join.

I won the A Coin for Charon ebook.

D. L. Myers Reads My Poem "Carathis"!

Carathis

This poem is the one alluded to in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year Volume 7.

Clark Ashton Smith Tour!

On Sunday, the third day of our adventure, Scott Connors, Darin, Kyle, and I took off to visit Don and see if he wanted to join us on our tour.  Unfortunately he wasn't feeling too well, so he didn't accompany us.  He gave us a tour around his house though and signed my books.

(This is the Jack Skellington doll I gave to Don.  He has it hung up by his door.)

Scott Connors, unfortunately, had to get home and didn't accompany us on our CAS tour either.  So from Don's house we began our journey.  We first went to the Placerville County Library where we saw the CAS plaque. 

We then ventured to Old Town Auburn and visited the boulder that used to be on his property and where his ashes used to be scattered under.

We then saw a restaurant he used to eat at, now drastically different, and bar he and his friends would drink wine in.

The Post Office was next but unfortunately it was closed, it being Sunday and all, so we couldn't see his mail box.

We then went up a hill to see, the now vacant lot, of a house that inspired a story.  (I forgot which story.)

We visited an inscription on CAS on the sidewalk that portrayed him in a strange light.  I think everyone agrees that its phrasing is weird and possibly inaccurate.

(Kyle is bowing before the Emperor of Dreams.)

Then we tried to visit the house he was born in but it is officially closed off due to it being scheduled to be demolished.

Next stop was Poet Smith Drive!

Our last stop was a spot of vacant lot that was on CAS's property.  It could have been where CAS lived or if not, it's near where he lived.

I took a few rocks home with me along with a rodent skeleton, Kyle found for me.   I have named him Clark Jr.  :)