Author Interviews / Science Fiction

Author Interview – Jon Frankel

As part of my New Year’s Resolution to reach out to more of my fellow authors and stop being such a hermit, I will be presenting you with a monthly author interview. The majority are of the horror genre, but I’ll slip in at least one YA and one Sci-Fi author just to mix it up a little bit.

For the month of February, I bring you an interview with Science Fiction-Noir author and poet, Jon Frankel. I’ve known Jon for a number of years, but never made the time to get to know more about him as a writer until now. So, without any further delay, let’s get to it!

Pamela: Tell me a little bit about how you became interested in writing. Have you known since an early age or is this something new you’ve recently started to get involved in?

JonFrankelJon: I guess for as long as I can remember I’ve been a writer. I didn’t think of myself as a writer until my senior year of high school, when my poetry teacher, John Perlman, said I was a poet. But long before that I was writing stories and poems and planning novels that I never wrote. I collaborated on comic books, co-authored a play, stuff like that. I started as a poet, but was also writing short stories that I hoped to turn into novels. When I was 28 I decided to write an experimental literary novel based on a story and utterly failed. I was reading Charles Willeford’s Pick Up, a hard boiled noir novel of the early 60s, and realized I could write one of those. I turned to another short story and banged out a 140 page near future noir. That became Specimen Tank, my first novel, after years of revision.

Pamela: I know you work in a library so you must be a fan of the reading as well as writing. Do you read the same sorts of things that you write about and who are some of your favorite authors?

Jon: My reading and writing are intimately related of course, but I read much different stuff than I write. I love nothing more than novels of the late 19th and early 20th century, especially from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I really read pretty indiscriminately though, lots of non-fiction, history and philosophy, and novels of all types and all periods, as well as poetry of course. A list of my favorite authors would be so long! Djuna Barnes, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Ralph Ellison, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, Bohumil Hrabal, Jaroslav Hasek, Robert Musil, Charles Willeford, Elizabeth Hand, Raymond Chandler, Edmund Spenser, William Blake, William Shakespeare, China Mieville, Philip K. Dick, Marianne Hauser, DH Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Joseph Roth, Anna Kavan…..

Pamela: Like you, for a while I wrote under a pen-name. Why did you choose to use a pen-name in your earlier works and what made you decide to start using your real name instead?

Jon: My first book was a really violent, nihilistic near future noir. I guess I was embarrassed my family would see that all my talk about being a poet and writer had resulted in that. Sort of like if you were studying to compose symphonies and joined a thrash metal band. It was so long between the publication of my first book and my next (20 years!) that I had in the interim established a tiny, but searchable, online presence as Jon Frankel. It was a tough decision to retire Buzz Callaway, especially since GAHA: Babes of the Abyss, is a really violent, nihilistic far future noir. With literary stuff.

Pamela: Tell me a little bit more about your poetry. What inspires you and do your poems share a common theme or are they pretty much all over the place genre-wise depending your mood and the inspiration?

Jon: I think I’ve written the same poem over and over in some ways, but my methods have evolved a lot over the years. I used to write highly improvisational, stream of consciousness poems with strong rhythms and a lot of assonance, but no regular meter or rhyme. I read deeply and wide in the poetic tradition, and always have, but my work was very much New York School if not Beat. Language poetry and the various experimental, avant-garde schools of the 60s-the present really left me cold. I’m a romantic, if not a Romantic, at heart. A number of years ago, as I ran out of gas as a poet, I started to wonder why I didn’t write in meter and rhyme. Slowly I began to experiment with that (and I’m really not great at regular meter, rhyme I can manage) and found I was getting inspired to write, using methods opposite to those I was accustomed to. This essentially meant I could re-explore everything. Which is really exciting. I’m 56, and feel like I have a new sports car, the formal poem. I love to write short, cryptic, intricate rhymed pieces. I think my most basic concern is alchemical, sublimation and metamorphosis, and my methods are playful. The biggest pitfall for me is pompous, pretentious, glaring big statements. But I really hate timidity in poetry. No one reads it, so why not go for the big kahuna?

Pamela: I know you just had a new release back in September 2016. Tell us a little bit about “The Man Who Can’t Die”.  Can you give me the quick, elevator pitch for it?

MANcover Jon: The elevator pitch has always defeated me! Maybe if we were riding to the top of Sears Tower or something, with a stop for a second elevator of the 50th floor. MAN is a really complicated story, about a scientist who invents a drug that cures unhappiness, but kills 10% of everyone who takes it, and a man who wants more than anything to die, but can’t. It takes place 180 years in the future, and the world has been utterly transformed by global warming, and America is a corporate dictatorship. The characters are searching for freedom, but lack the vocabulary and concepts to articulate it. It has beautiful cars, fast women, ray guns, hovercraft and a sexual paradise. It’s a bulging valise of noir and sci fi romance. Sex, drugs and rock and roll as they say.

Pamela: Where can people find out more about you and keep up-to-date your writing?

Jon: I have a website, lastbender.com. My publisher, Whiskey Tit Press, also has a website. I’m on Facebook, too. My poetry is on lastbender.com, as well as essays, reviews and articles about cooking and food. One thing everyone notices in my fiction is the abundance of food, cooking and restaurants. On my website, the most searched thing I’ve written is on how to roast a wild boar ham!

Thank you, Jon. It was great getting to know more about you and your work as a novelist and poet.

Folks, if you want to learn even more about Jon, check out these websites.

Jon Frankel’s WEBSITE
Jon’s Publisher Whiskey Tit Press

All images provided by author Jon Frankel and used with his permission. (c) 2017

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Barnesville Chronicles / Book Promo / Secrets of the Scarecrow Moon

eBook SALE!! Secrets of the Scarecrow Moon

For the next two days, my paranormal murder-mystery “Secrets of the Scarecrow Moon” is only $1.99 on Kindle!

A mysterious death sends one investigator deep into her hometown’s dark and bloody past.

 It’s a past the local coven of witches would rather keep buried. Can justice be served or will the witches succeed in keeping their centuries-old secrets intact?

 Review: “Her descriptions of people, places, emotions and events ride that elusive line between too sparse and too verbose. Furthermore, Pam has an extraordinary ability to tell a story…” Dr. S.C. Meyers

GET YOURS HERE!

 

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Book reviews / Horror

Book Review – Maledicus by Charles F. French

Roosevelt, Sam, and Jeremy are retired men living in a small town in eastern Pennsylvania. Each has suffered the tragic and overwhelming loss of a loved one. Together they have formed The Investigative Paranormal Society. The group is called to investigate the home of a local school teacher whose young niece is being frightened by a something in the house. Little do they know this no ordinary haunting, but one powered by a pure, unapologetic evil straight from the depth of Hell known as Maledicus.

I really like the author’s idea of using men of retirement age as his investigative team. I envisioned old wise men, the voices of reason and wisdom, and it seemed they would be a welcome change from the ghost taunting, over-dramatic, everything-bad-is-demonic, youngsters we see on all those ghost hunting shows.

What I got was a rather dry and somewhat academic-tainted story being told to me without a whole lot of emotion. The chapters devoted to the creation and back story of the title character were pretty interesting, but I found it next to impossible to envision or invest anything into what was going on with any of the other characters.

The dialogue doesn’t feel natural. Unnecessary exposition told me things I didn’t need to know nor did I care about it or I was told the same thing numerous times. On meeting the school teacher and her niece, I wanted to see and feel their bond, not just be told about it. Show them doing things together, don’t simply tell me about it and expect me to care. When the aunt is approached by her niece and told that a ‘bad man’ is frightening her, we aren’t shown how. Show me the child’s terror. The ghost hunters don’t even interview the little girl before investigating. Considering the stories we are told about Maledicus and his methods of torturing people while living, he wasn’t very creative in his semi-demon form. He gives the child a mysterious illness. That’s it? C’mon, Mal! You can do better than that!

Point Of View would change and jump around at very odd times. Quite often a section would begin with Character A’s POV, then jump for a paragraph to Character B’s POV, then back to Character A again.

I like a horror story that plunges me into the darkness, despair, terror and HORROR that the character’s experience. Take me down with them and scare me. Make me want to read the next chapter and stay up late doing so to see how they get out of it … if they do! This book did none of that.

Additionally, the font size used was too small and along with numerous typos, did not make for as an enjoyable read as I’d hoped.

TWO out of FIVE Ravens

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20 Questions with B.W. Morris

Author Interviews

I was blindfolded and led to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t a pretty place, but it gave Bob the privacy he needed. I sat on an old wooden grate under a glaring bright light. He yanked off the blindfold, but all I could see of my interrogator was a shadowy outline. I had the feeling others were watching, listening, judging, but I wasn’t about to back down. “Give me your best,” I sneered.

But seriously… here’s a fun 20 Questions Interview I had with B. W. Morris, a fellow writer who will be finding himself on the other side of things in March just before the release of his first novel.

20 Questions with B. W. Morris

And no, we aren’t related … at least not that we know of!

 

 

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Cryptids / Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Boggy Creek Monster (Documentary) 2016

Based on Lyle Blackburn’s 2012 book, The Beast of Boggy Creek, and produced by Small Town Monster Films, this hour-long documentary begins where The Legend of Boggy Creek ended back in 1972.

Like so many of my generation, I saw the The Legend of Boggy Creek when I was an impressionable youngster. It struck terror into the hearts of many. I’ve watched other documentaries on Bigfoot, as per my reviews HERE, and most were more than a little hokey. Not so with Boggy Creek Monster. Lyle has a serious curiosity about this legend and listens with genuine interest to the current residents of Fouke, Arkansas where it started.

You’ll learn back story that wasn’t touched on in the original movie and you’ll be brought up to date with sightings that still go on to this day. Previously unreleased audio recordings of Smokey Crabtree make their debut as well as interviews with current relatives of the Crabtrees and other families that were present during the initial filming in the early 1970s.

This documentary really makes me want return to Fouke with a little more time and a little more exploration. It’s a must-see for anyone who grew up both loving and fearing the ‘monster’ of Boggy Creek.

My only complaint … it wasn’t long enough.

4.5 out of 5.0 Ravens

Watch the trailer HERE.

 

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Author Interviews / Horror

Author Interview – Thomas S. Gunther

As part of my New Year’s Resolution to reach out to more of my fellow authors and stop being such a hermit, I will be presenting you with a monthly author interview. The majority are of the horror genre, but I’ll slip in at least one YA and one Sci-Fi author just to mix it up a little bit.

ThomasGunther

Let’s get the ball rolling with horror author, Thomas S. Gunther who specializes in short stories.

Pamela – Every writer has a story on how it began for them. When did you first begin to realize you had a knack for storytelling? Was there someone who influenced/encouraged you down the path of being a writer?
Thomas – Storytelling usually got me in trouble as a kid! But, seriously, I think it was an admiration for other storytellers that inspired me. My parents are both avid readers, and were diligent in reading to me as a kid. They introduced me to various classics. The adventurous pictures writers like Kipling and London painted engendered new stories in my own imagination. I started out as more of an artist than a writer, though, and my parents originally tried to discourage my writing–they wanted me to be a commercial artist. I wanted to draw dragons and talking animals, and hash out ideas stewing in my brain. If I had gotten serious earlier I’d have been more likely writing fantasy stuff now, which I might someday, anyway.

Pamela – It’s been said that in order to be a writer, you must be a reader.  What genre(s) do you enjoy reading and what was the last book you read that you really enjoyed?
Thomas – Because of my folks I learned to read at an early age, and read quite a bit, myself. I’ve read all kinds of stuff: the classics, science-fiction and fantasy,  horror, etc. If it hooks me from the start, I’ll usually read it all the way through, though sometimes I’ll lose interest and move on to something else. I am currently reading James Clavell’s, King Rat, and it’s fairly intriguing. But the last book I read that truly had an impact on me was Nabokov’s Lolita which was the driving inspiration behind my short story, Deviant. It’s such a taboo subject, and while it’s not one of my better stories, it was a lot of fun writing it. I’ll admit I rushed the ending, a fault I’m eternally working on, but it was an experiment of sorts, as I want to know just how far I can push the most disturbing subjects.

Pamela – Inspiration can come from anywhere at any time. In general, what aspect of a story comes to you first? Do you have a powerful image of a setting, or maybe just a title?
Thomas – Titles are tricky for me. Sometimes I like the ones I come up with, and sometimes I struggle. But, I doubt I’ve ever written a story around a title, though I tried that when I was younger. My story ideas typically come to me as abstract thoughts. They might come to me at any time, regardless of what I’m reading, watching, or doing, and they will be incredibly vivid, but without form or shape. It’s like something I just know in my gut, but can’t quite put my finger on it. I think trying to do so is what I love most about writing, especially writing horror and anything macabre. Maybe it’s a way of pinning down specific fears. I don’t know. That’s a tough question.

Pamela – I’m often asked which of my novels is my best or favorite. Which of your own stories are you most proud of, and why?
Thomas – I dream of being able to say that. I can’t imagine what it’s like to actually complete a novel. But, to answer your question, I would have to say To Catch the Tears of Darkness. It still feels very different to me then my other work, and it wasn’t an easy story to write. I hate predators that prey on children. I tried to imagine what it was like for Chloe, and I had to put myself in a dark place. How awful. People seemed to really like that story, though, and I got a 5 star review from another writer. I liked that because it was non-biased, from someone I don’t really know. That encouraged me to keep going. That story began years ago as something completely different, and it’s undergone several phases. But, I think what I am proud of, and what I think other people like, is that I think I touched on that awesome element that makes a story great.

IcarusRising_Gunther

Pamela – I know one of your short stories was recently accepted by Jason Nugent’s blog page, (Almost) Average. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Where and when will we be able to find it?
Thomas – Yeah, that was pretty cool. He just asked me out of the blue. He said he was going to start featuring unknowns like myself on his page, and asked me if I wanted to contribute something. I thought my story, Icarus Ascending was the best fit, the best way of introducing my work. If I recall what Jason told me, it should be featured late this month, within the last week I believe.

Pamela – Where can readers find out more about you and where can your work be found?
Thomas – I have a Facebook and Twitter account. The curious are often afforded some insight into what drives me there. As far as my actual work goes, you won’t find me on Amazon at the moment, though I hem and haw about publishing there, simply because Amazon is so dominant. But I’m far more comfortable publishing on #Smashwords–I feel I have more control of my work. But, I am relegated to the adult section, and that sort of makes my stuff difficult to find. However my stuff is available on several different eReader platforms like NOOK, Kobo, and I’ve even found myself listed on iTunes. Once I found one of my stories translated into German. I never did find out if it was anyone authorized to sell my work. I figured, right now, it’s more important for me to get my name out there then worry about making any money. But, on second thought, I need money. Give me money.

Thanks a lot, Thomas. I really enjoyed learning more about you and your work and I hope 2017 proves to be a super successful year of writing for you.

Folks, if you’d like to know more about Thomas and his work, I’m sure he’d love for you to visit and like him on Facebook, give him a Follow on Twitter, and check out his books over at Smashwords. Be sure and read his short story that will be appearing over at Jason Nugent’s website later this month. If you like what you read, look into his other short stories and post a review!

Thomas Gunther on FACEBOOK
Thomas Gunther on TWITTER
Thomas Gunther on SMASHWORDS

All images provided by author Thomas Gunther and used with his permission. (c) 2017

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Resolving Into The New Year

Writer's Life / Writing

The sun is slowly starting to brighten the sky on this cold, January morning. It’s a character-building 10F here in the my part of the Finger Lakes. I’ve downed half of my first cup of coffee, checked and replied to some emails, and tossed a load of laundry into the dryer.

It’s been a pretty busy week for writing. Not everything I did had to do with making progress on The Witch’s Backbone, but there’s some of that, too. My one and only New Year’s Resolution was to make more of an effort to reach out and get to know more authors. I don’t know many in-person so I decided to start with the long list of them I am connected to on Twitter. It started out by simply paying more attention to their Tweets instead of trying to be clever with my own. I started to ‘love’ more, to ‘comment’ more, and to ‘retweet’ more. I follow a good number of writers who blog, too. Again, time for me read more of their posts and learn about who they are and what they are about. And, of course, to comment if I enjoyed their posts. Both efforts have proven to be quite a nice experience and something worth continuing to do.

It wasn’t enough to just read and like and love and retweet and comment though. It was decided to do some interviews. Again, I turned to Twitter for ideas and names. I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with this endeavor and figured one interview per month would be good. That, combined with any book and movie reviews I will get out, along with my random ramblings about events and working on my own writing should keep this blog pretty active for the year. I selected the authors (most of them of the Horror variety)  who most often interact with me on Twitter and sent them private messages. The response was swift and entirely positive. The calendar filled up in less than 24 hours! Not only that, I’ve already got back filled out interview questions for those who will be featured this and next month. If you’re a published or soon-to-be published author and I didn’t approach you, don’t feel bad. The list I had was long and I just couldn’t get everyone in. I didn’t expect everyone I asked to give me such a quick and positive response, but then, we’re writers and we do love to talk about our work, don’t we?

On top of this, I’m going to be a featured blogger next month for another writer and I’m waiting on a list of ’20 Questions’ to appear in my inbox for me to answer from a second author.

As if all this weren’t enough, the website is getting a complete makeover. As much as I liked the old version, I felt it was time to make a change. I sent my ideas to my web guy (aka The Husband) and off we went. He’s been working diligently all week on it and it’s shaping up very, very nicely. It still needs a bit more, but it shouldn’t be long until it’s all said and done and he can get back to being a Computer Gamer instead of a Graphics & Web Designer. I’ve no doubt he’ll be a happy man when I can stop saying, “Honey… can you change something else on there for me?”

This first week of the New Year has been pretty darn busy now that I look back, but it hasn’t for a moment felt like work. I like that.

And now, with a second cup of coffee fresh and hot by my side and the crows fed, I think it’s time to look at what I wrote yesterday on TWB, do some quick fixes as needed, and see what today holds for my five youngsters stuck in the woods at night with something not quite human.

Write on!

 

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Book reviews / Cryptids / Horror

Book Review – The Montauk Monster by Hunter Shea

So, you think you know the Montauk Monster, do you? You may want to think again. Horror author and Monster Man, Hunter Shea has a theory. Let’s hope he’s wrong.

In July 2008 a mysterious creature was found dead on a beach in Montauk, NY. Guesses of what the creature was ranged from a raccoon, a shell-less turtle, a small sheep, and a dog. But the most interesting guess was it was an experiment from the Plum Island Animal Disease Center nearby. Had this been a singular, isolated case perhaps less would have been thought of it. However, another odd-looking unidentified creature was found in March of 2011 in Northville, NY. In July 2012, a similar one appeared beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in the East River in New York City. Finally in December 2014, a forth body washed up on a beach in Santa Barbara, California.

MontaukMonster_Beach2   MontaukMonster_Beach

Enter Hunter Shea, creator of “Swamp Monster Massacre”, “The Jersey Devil”, and “Loch Ness Revenge”, horror novels where the author takes what we think we know about these legendary cryptids and twists them into blood-thirsty terrors, hell bent on destruction. “The Montauk Monster” is no exception. Where did these things come from, because believe you me, there’s more than one. Are they lab experiments or freaks of nature? Most importantly, how can they be stopped? Once you take Shea’s hand there’s no letting go. He takes off on a dead run from start to finish as one attack after another and the efforts to stop them are presented to us in all their gory Technicolor glory.

This is my fifth Hunter Shea novel and it’s become my favorite. With the others he uses a cryptid with known attributes. We know what Bigfoot looks like and, in general, their preferred habitat. The legend of the Jersey Devil has been around for hundreds of years, as have stories of Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster. We know them and in many cases, have grown to love them. Not so with the Montauk Monster. He’s new. He’s different. He’s anybody’s guess. I really enjoyed what Shea did with this one because it was so much his own creation, based less on what we know and more on our wildest, weirdest, and most terrifying speculations.

To learn more about Hunter, his monstrous menagerie, and other tales of terror check out his website: https://huntershea.com/

Five out of Five Ravens.

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Adventures / Writer's Life

Adios, 2016!

Or “Good riddance!”, as so many of my friends have shrieked at the top of their lungs, or typed IN ALL CAPS on social media, whichever the case may be. Okay, yeah, I get it, sort of. Your favorite celebrity died, your preferred politician didn’t win, or your team lost their Big Game!  It’s HORRIBLE! It’s the end of the world as we know it! Gloom, despair, and agony on me.

I could go off on everything that was bad about 2016 easily enough. I could sob over still not finding a ‘traditional’ publisher for my novels. I could bemoan the fact that online sales suck and that I’ve typed my fingers to bloody stumps asking for folks to at least post reviews. I could go off on a tangent about how unfair it is that people who have held a very good paying job for 5+ years can’t afford to buy a house while other people who haven’t worked a lick in that same period of time get all these special treatments when it comes to housing. There’s a rant out there about a-hole bosses who take advantage of their employees to the point that they are driven to physical illness and end up having to quit a job they otherwise loved. I could cry over the deaths of a myriad of celebrities that I liked. I could cuss and stomp my feet over the unfairness of our elections. I could begrudge how the Carolina Panthers lost the Super Bowl and that the Cleveland Indians didn’t win the World Series. But, I’m not going to do that, because I’m an optimist and I’m pretty sick and tired of hearing the “Apocalypse Is Nigh” from every other person on Facebook. I refuse to be one of ‘those people’.

Instead, I’m going to look at 2016 as the year I made more progress on my writing career, with or without the advantages a publishing house could give me. I’d love to have help with advertising and promotions and setting up signings, readings, and sales. I could be a lot further ahead of the game if I had all that, sure, but I don’t. I did the best I could with what I DO have. I did a Book Club talk and I had three signing events where turnout was good and sales were more than I’d actually imagined they’d be. That’s more than I’ve ever had before and I’m truly grateful. I made some new friends and got some great advice and some much appreciated help from far more successful writers than I.

I got remarried! That’s pretty darned awesome. I met a man against a whole lot of odds who was willing to pretty much give up his whole life 1400+ miles away and move up to this Arctic Backwoods Wasteland so we could be together. After living together for almost three years, we tied the knot on a beautiful day in August down by my parent’s pond with an amazing view of the valley below. It was small, only forty people, simple, and very casual and laid back. I’m not even going to mention those few things that didn’t happened perfectly as planned because they don’t matter. The end result is the same.

Life has been very good to me and mine in 2016. Most of the time things went how we hoped. Sometimes, not so much, but at the end of it all, we are happy. We have a place to live, food to eat, and warm clothes for winter. We have family and friends that love us, support us, and encourage us with our dreams. We have love. We have happiness. We have hope.

That’s how I’m ending 2016 and that’s how I’m going to enter 2017.

Thank you to everyone who helped make 2016 so amazing! May you all have a wonderful and prosperous new year!

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It’s That Time Of The Month!

Book Promo

No, no, no. Not *THAT* time of the month, the other one. The one where I encourage you all to visit me over on Facebook and give me a like. Or, at least that’s what I’ve been doing over on Facebook the past year. Time to expand my horizons, me thinks.

It’s really my go-to place for quick writing updates and announcements. My blogging efforts aren’t always up to snuff. Twitter forces me to keep it short. Facebook is my happy Social Media middle.

So, yeah… c’mon over and join the fun.

Pamela Morris Books On Facebook!

 

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