I don't think I have missed but a few messages
here; this club is a goldmine of information. I feel
like I should be paying for it or something. <br>This
will sound pretty gay but I saw the new movie Finding
Forester, which is all about writing and writers and I
enjoyed it a great deal; I recommend it for everyone, who
loves to write of course.

Thanks, Kat. It probably won't amount to anything, but it's fun while there's a
chance.

Congrat's!  I can imagine your excitement, I know I would feel the same.  I'll
keep my fingers crossed for you.<br><br>Kat

This is neither here nor there but I have it on
good authority that Artisan Entertainment has
expressed an interest in my novella "The Uninvited," due to
be published sometime in 2001 by Rolling Thunder
Graphics.<br><br>I've had these expressions of interest before and
nothing came of them, but it's always exciting, and I
just thought I'd share the good news!

I borrowed a copy of the DVD "The Lathe of God,"
produced years ago by PBS. It's based on the Ursula K.
LeGuin novel of the same name.<br><br>This is definitely
a 1970s vision of the future and in that respect
it's very interesting. We think of ourselves as being
modern, but "modern" changes with the times. Compare it
to the "Blade Runner" vision of the future and
decide which one better withstands the test of time.

Hi Kat,<br><br>I checked out the market listings you provided and they both are
very good. I added the links to my list. Thanks for posting them.<br><br>Del

Some places to check if you are a poor and starving writer:<br><br><a
href=http://www.marketlist.com
target=new>http://www.marketlist.com</a><br><br><a
href=http://www.goblinmuse.com
target=new>http://www.goblinmuse.com</a><br><br>Both of these have market
listings and are free to use.<br><br>Kat

Just a bit of shameless self-promotion here.
Under the LINKS link to the left you'll find a URL for
the Wasted Lands. I'm writing an online Web serial
for Star Wars artist Dave Dorman. For some time now
the serial has languished for the lack of art and
installments.<br><br>Dave has arranged for an art class to produce stills
for each installment, and I am back to writing new
episodes. So check it out for updated material!

Dear Letdown,<br><br>What I'll do is answer your
questions in a series of posts, because I think my replies
will be of benefit to a lot of people in your
position. But you'll have to give me a few days to hit them
all. With this reply I'll answer what I think is the
easiest, OK?<br><br>You asked where writers can find out
about places to sell their work, and you specifically
mentioned the Writer's Market.<br><br>For those of you who
aren't already familiar with it, The Writer's Market is
an annual market listing published by Writers Digest
Books. It retails for about $30, and lists all the
commercial and trade magazine publishers, plus hardcover,
trade, and mass market paperback publishers. It also
lists contests, greeting card publishers, and so
on.<br><br>The Writer's Market is a good, general purpose source
of information about markets, but for those of us
who write genre material, like dark fiction, a
specialized market listing is more helpful. I have three
favorites, and I'll describe them for you now.<br><br>The
first is called Scavenger's Newsletter
(<a href=http://www.jlgiftsshop.com/scav/
target=new>http://www.jlgiftsshop.com/scav/</a>). It's published by Janet Fox.
Scavenger's lists
many of the small press markets, which are more
inclined to accept work from authors who don't have a
track record. A one-year subscription is a very
reasonable $22.<br><br>The second is the Gila Queen's Guide
to Markets (<a href=http://www.gilaqueen.com/
target=new>http://www.gilaqueen.com/</a>), published by
Kathryn Ptacek, who if I'm not mistaken is the wife of
horror writer Charles L. Grant. Gila Queen has lots more
information about contests and other venues. Cost is $45 for
13 issues, which I believe is more than a year's
worth.<br><br>My favorite is Speculations
(<a href=http://www.speculations.com
target=new>http://www.speculations.com</a>), published by Kent Brewster. I
subscribe to
Speculations and find it quite useful. Speculations is
restricted to paying markets, be they print or electronic
venues. It arrives each month or so as an e-zine, but
there is a Web site (see the URL above).<br><br>Any one
of these market listings would be immensely helpful
to you. My recommendation is that you try
Scavenger's first, then either Gila Queen or
Speculations.<br><br>I'll tackle another of your questions
tomorrow!<br><br>Dek

Hi Kat,<br><br>Welcome. No special invites
necessary here. Tell anyone else who cares to join to stop
by. The purpose is to get people to writing, then
submiting what they write. I may or may not be able to
help, but I'm willing to try. <br><br>Del

Ok, no problem. I do have people to ask questions
too already, which defeats the purpose of your club,
but then maybe I am being my usual stubborn self and
am not listening to advice given. I know, you have
not given me any sort of advice yet, but see- I don't
know, I want to be in your position- a published
writer, so I think I will listen to whatever you have to
say. Now, I must ask a question. I am not going to end
this post without asking one of those.<br>When you
write your dark fiction what pace do you like your
story?- fast, slow, a snails pace. Do you involve great
detail in the setting of the story and about the
characters? Is character developemt important to you? When
you write a story do you make sure you have that
story first, so that you know it has a destination?- or
do you make it up as you go? I guess what I am
saying is- to write a story, do you first plan it all
out before you write it? Just a few more questions.
<br>Where can I find good fiction markets to sell my
stories? I have picked up those magazines called The
Writer and The Writers Digest and have noticed that they
have many people I can send stuff to in there, but
most of them will not accept stories unless they are
about some obscure subject that no one knows anything
about. I have heard there is a massive yearly
publication called "The Writers Market" which lists
publishers or magazines,<br>;it has there addresses and it
has little descriptions of what kinds of stories they
will take; does this publication the writers market
exist or something like it? Ok, I have more questions,
but I will stop with them now.<br>One more- when you
write and you get a story in your head, do you write
out a first draft as fast as you can, not only to
make sure you get it all out while it still feels
fresh in your mind, but with an urgency, so that you by
no means give up on it? And, when you sit down with
that urgency to write do you psyche yourself up
first?- you know, get yourself all excited to just go for
it?

Hi, my name is Kat Yares and this club looked
like it could get real interesting, so I joined. (Hope
I didn't need a special invite.)<br><br>I have been
a reader and writer of horror fiction (along with
other genres) for many years. I look forward to getting
to know the members here.<br><br>Thanks<br>Kat

Here's the scenario: I just finished my magnus
opus, the most intensely personal and emotional work of
art I've ever produced ... in my opinion it's the
best thing I've ever written ... and I submit to The
New Yorker, NOT with the expectation that they'll buy
it. I'm hoping for a personal reject at the
least.<br><br>Well.<br><br>It comes back to me at a shade under the sound
barrier with a form letter attached. You can sense the
disgust.<br><br>So now I'm telling myself, "I hope they rejected it
because the story was 18,000 words long. Surely they
couldn't have read the entire story in that short a time."
What I'm afraid to think is that maybe it sucked and
they dismissed it after the first page.<br><br>But
that's the way it goes in writing. The next place I send
it may love it.<br><br>I do know this: If I don't
send it out, I'll never know.

If you're real bored, or if you happen to work
for a newspaper, check out an upcoming edition of the
Pacific Area Newspaper Publishersą Association Inc.'s
publication. The editors have asked permission to reprint my
latest column in the Society for News Design's magazine,
Design. The column was called "Never Say Never" ...
ironically (in light of Bookface's recent shutdown), the
column supported the idea that online publishing will
eventually replace print media.

Lou Anders, executive editor at the now-defunct
online publisher Bookface.com, says final checks are
going out to authors who contributed to the electronic
publishing venture.<br><br>Many companies in a similar
predicament would have simply cut their losses and closed
their doors, but as I said in a previous posting, Lou
Anders and Bookface are a class act. We hope the best
for Bookface.

Hi. Feel free to post whatever you want here, as
long as it's on topic -- about writing, or the
business, or a question. And don't be shy about asking
questions. When I got started writing (and trying to sell
what I wrote) I had a bazillion questions and nobody
to ask. It was incredibly frustrating. But having a
support network helps. And having some suggestions from
somebody who's been there can help even more.

I joined your other club and you told me to join
this one when it's up and running. I like to write and
I am sure when I have a question to ask you, I will
write them. Can I post stories here? It's just stuff
that I make up as I go along and what I post I don't
save, because my computer locks up when I try to print
anything out that comes from an online source.<br>Dark
fiction- that's a term I have never heard before. I am
looking for inspiration and I have aready found it just
existing here for the few moments that I have been
writing. Latta and I do hope I get to post a story or two.
I'm not looking for gratitude or anything like that
or any opinion. I am just looking to entertain with
words in the form of a story.

Hi Charles. By all means, check in, and feel free
to post information/observations/gossip or whatever
else you feel would be appropriate for a public venue.
I'm advertising this club very slowly, by posting
invitations in similar clubs. It's my hope a lot of new or
aspiring writers will join. As you know, we're always
being approached by unpublished writers wanting to know
the secrets of breaking in. I hope we'll be able to
help them do just that ... and have a lot of fun
talking about writing and the industry while we're at it!

Well hey. I wondered what happened to the club.
This is Charles Gramlich, btw. Not sure if you knew.
Am glad to be a member. Will continue to check in
and post stuff as I get interesting information. Or
as I have questions.

Information provided to The Parasitorium by Lou
Anders, executive editor of Bookface.com, the recently
failed online fiction site, is that the print anthology
"The Best of Bookface" will still be published,
sometime next year. Anders noted it's ironic the
electronic permutation of Bookface would fail, but the
old-fashioned product, a print book, would continue on. Ah
well. Lou is a class act and we hope he stays in the
business. Online fiction and electronic books aren't mature
yet, but they are as inevitable as rain.

The Parasitorium's spies have discovered that a
certain vampire novelist has accused a wildly popular SF
short story/scriptwriter with being a child molester. I
won't mention names here, but it seems that since the
Ed Kramer story broke late last year, all kinds of
wild stories are flying about.

I'm always nagging my friend Richard to get his
manuscripts in the mail. He has dozens of stories, but
they're lying around his office, awaiting various tweaks
and nudges.<br><br>My take on that is: Send the
story; if the editor buys it, the excitement of selling
the story will encourage you to produce even greater
works of fiction. And if he likes it enough to buy it,
but wants you to make revisions, THEN you can tweak
and nudge it.<br><br>The temptation is to "fix" the
story so that it's "perfect" before you submit it.
That's fine, but you can take that too far. If you don't
submit the story, you can't sell it, so my tip for the
day is: SUBMIT WHAT YOU WRITE!

The photo of me in the Rogues Gallery was taken
by Dave Dorman. If you're not familiar with the
name, Dave is a popular and proflic artist who's done
hundreds, if not thousands, of book covers, comic book
covers, magazine illustrations, video game illustrations,
movie posters -- huff puff -- you name it! He's done
Star Wars, DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Wizards of the
Coast, Malibu ... Dave works from photos. He gets one of
his friends to strike a pose, shoots several
exposures, then paints from one of the prints as reference.
All of us who know Dave end up posing for him at one
time or another. The photo above was for a cover to a
CD book called "Death before Breakfast." The
character's name is Iguana, or Iggy, from Dave's Wasted Lands
mythos. Dave had me put on a pair of khaki pants with
suspenders, and hold the guns. Afterwards, we were goofing
around with Photoshop and did this blurry version of the
pic. I think it looks kinda cool, huh? If you want to
see more behind-the-scenes stuff of Dave's check out
his Art of Star Wars trade paperback, with an intro
by Kevin J. Anderson.

Just got an e-mail from Lou Anders, executive
editor of Bookface.com. The site is shutting down.
Anders says the company was experiencing financial
difficulties.<br><br>That's a blow for authors. Bookface was a classy act.
They offered a very fair contract and paid their
promised royalties.<br><br>Bookface was just featured in
the latest issue of Wicked magazine. In fact, if you
look at the screenshot from the Web site, inset into
the article, you'll see that it's my novel, "Dead
Heat," featured on the front page.<br><br>Damn. I hate
to see Bookface fold. They did a great job.

If you've ever attended DragonCon in Atlanta,
you're probably familiar with Ed Kramer, the man who
founded that biggest of all multimedia cons and who has
edited numerous professional horror and fantasy
anthologies. Last year, Kramer was arrested and charged with
sexual battery on a child, in this case a boy of 13.
Later, he was charged with a second count, allegedly
involving the first boy's brother. Kramer was released on
bond and confined to house arrest, until recently when
he was jailed for allegedly attempting to contact
the boys' family.<br><br>One person who seemed
particularly determined to have Kramer incarcerated was horror
novelist Nancy Collins. Now, it seems, her motivation for
pursuing that conviction has emerged: She hoped to sell a
book about Kramer and his activities.<br><br>The
following posts from an HWA message board bear out the
veracity of the situation. The first is from Nancy
Collins; the second, from long-time Omni editor Ellen
Datlow.<br><br>---<br><br>Dear fellow members of the HWA,<br> Due to the fact
that the HWA has allowed itself to serve as the
mouthpiece for alleged child molester Edward E Kramer, I
hereby resign my membership in the organization.<br>
Also, I would like to state that the reason alleged
child molester Edward E Kramer <br>is being held
without bond is NOT because of the cameras & reporters my
husband & I alerted to his arrest. The reason Kramer was
denied bond is because:<br>1) He attempted to contact
the victim and the victim's family, after being asked
to <br>come in for questioning by the police.<br>2)
He had a prior arrest (in 1997) for child
molestation, with similarities to the current <br>charges.<br>
Anyone who would care to verify this information, which
is in the public record, can call Det Curtis Clemons
at (770) 513-5355, or you can email us if you'd like
a copy of the bail hearing
transcript.<br>Sincerely,<br>Nancy A Collins <br><br>---<br><br>From Ellen
Datlow:<br><br>I beg your pardon Lisa, but nobody in HWA is
harboring a sexual predator (at least not that _I_ know
of). We are defending an accused citizen's
constitutional right to be considered innocent until proven
guilty. <br>Nancy Collins has used the accusations
against Kramer for her own profit, not-- as far as I can
tell--to benefit any supposed victims. She tried to hawk a
book proposal about the "Atlanta pedophilia
conspiracy" before Kramer was arrested. Does this sound like
a disinterested, concerned party to you? <br>I
think you have completely missed the point of what the
discussions on this board regarding the topic have been
about. Taking part in a witch hunt is not my idea of
good citizenship.

Just a short note to explain how I came up with
the name for this club. It's based on the title of a
short story, "The Parasitorium," I published in the
Donald I. Fine anthology "Blood Muse," which was edited
by Esther Friesner. "Blood Muse" was a themed
anthology about vampires in the arts. I was trying very
hard to develop an original vampire premise for my
story and came up with the idea that an artist could
create a "living" sculpture, one that fed on blood. He
called it The Parasitorium, a testament to all
blood-lusting parasites, not just vampires. But The
Parasitorium was also a metaphor for parasitic people who feed
on relationships, and how their victims must
struggle to escape. THAT was based on a relationship I had
escaped just prior to writing the story!

You'll notice a gallery called THE WASTED LANDS
(under the PHOTOS link to your left). These are ads that
either are appearing or will appear in upcoming books
from Image (as of 1.8.01) to promote a book that
artist Dave Dorman and I are doing right now. In fact,
I'm supposed to get together with Dave sometime this
week to go over the plot. Then Dave will sketch rough
storyboards and I'll script from that. This will be only the
second book for which Dave has produced continuous-panel
artwork. I'm not sure of the title yet, but as soon as I
know I'll pass it along.

Another photo in the Rogues Gallery (under the
PHOTOS link to your left) is of my good friend, horror
author Charles Gramlich. In looking at his picture you'd
never guess he's a college professor at Xavier College
in New Orleans, would you? I told him he looks like
the protagonist of my novel, "Dead Heat." That would
be Hitch, the meathook-swinging zombie. Charles was
actually flattered. I hope he rides with a helmet. Unlike
Hitch, Charles is not "mortally impaired."

If you're wondering about the significance of the
photo I've chosen as the Club Photo (which you can also
find in the Rogues Gallery under the PHOTOS link to
the left, titled "The Umbrella War"), I'll offer this
explanation. In September of 2000 I took part in a
book-signing in St. Augustine to raise funds for a local
literacy foundation. A lot of dark fiction authors were
there, including critic and author Garrett Peck, Rob
Walker, Roxanne Terrell of Wyrd Systers audio books, Lisa
Dumond, and my good friend Owl Goingback. After the
signing, a mob of us convened at a restaurant in downtown
St. Augustine. We then took a tour of old St.
Augustine, the ancient cemeteries, the historical sites, and
so on. During all this, of course, we were boozing
it up, and this photo was taken during one of the
boozier moments, as Owl and I dueled with umbrellas. I'd
say Owl hits, er, below the belt. Wouldn't you?

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