Wayne Allen Sallee

Tribeca Flashpoint Academy

2012-01-15T23:39:00.000-08:00

No real story here, other than to add that over the last month I've had two other readings at Flashpoint. One involved being a killer on the run. The other involved me being a homeless man with balloons. I'm enjoying writing my monologues and will take an acting class in the spring. All these photos are from the main floor of the building at Clark & Randolph.

The Film Where I Played An Ed Asner-Type

2011-12-18T23:35:00.000-08:00

I'll be posting about Flashpoint again in the next few days, as I auditioned for another film, but last month I was involved in a film with Emily Feller (in dark hair and overcoat) where I pretty much stood around in rain an three different t-shirts as I was foiling Jason from dating my daughter Tamera. Both were close to or over six feet in height, so I likely did look very much like a tiny Ed Asner as I shook my fist into the rain.

Promotional Covers

2011-12-15T23:04:00.000-08:00

I don't know if this was common practice with mass market pbs in the early 90s, or if it still is, for that matter. Karl Edward Wagner signed the cover of Year's Best Horror: XXII, my name appearing for the first time on a mass market cover, but he died before the book came out. Sid Williams's Blood Hunter was a great book about a Mormo, a Louisiana swamp monster. And we would all kid Brian Hodge about his book cover to Dark Advent. The plague in the book was of human origin, not supernatural, but no one thought to tell the cover artist. The cover opened to show children in a cave cowering from flames. Still a great book from early in his career.

On the Cutting Room Floor

2011-12-13T22:58:00.000-08:00

Recently, I had the hard drive of my old Dell computer put onto an external hard drive, and have gone back to photos I had lost, after having one of my spasms and having my Photos album blip off the screen, never to be seen again. Not much was overwritten, as I bought my HP Slimline soon after. When Greg Loudon was doing the cover for Fiends by Torchlight, it was a simple set. White sheet draped over closet door, dozens of photos taken so various versions of my hands can be seen grabbing for the sheaf of blank pages--as if I've written anything that huge since 1992--and I thought I'd put a few of the shots up.

My Notebook: Gone, Baby, Gone 01 Mar 10-04 Dec 11

2011-12-10T23:50:00.000-08:00

Never mind the stupidity in how I lost my commonplace book (a term I use because Karl Edward Wagner used it to describe his notebooks), it is gone. Left on the floor of the Jackson Street subway, 7:26 PM last Monday. I know this from a phone call I made, the number having been in the book. I had that thing filled up with sections of Proactive Contrition, several stories, everything has already been typed up, be it fragments or entire stories. And so it goes. The story of my owning the commonplace book now becomes the story of the next person reading the crazy thing. And likely looking over his shoulder as he waits for the Red Line at Jackson.

My Father & United 553

2011-12-08T22:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQATaW4G8Yk

It was a Friday in 1972, I had one class to go, seventh grade at Charles Gates Dawes. Exactly ten blocks south of the crash, unable to see anything but smoke due to the train switching yards at 73rd Street. I always remember the time as 2:37 PM, and never look to see if I was right or wrong. Or close. At 2:45 I would have been on 81st & Hamlin, instead we were kept inside the school, until our parents picked us up. I lived on a straght line down Springfield, a block west, to 85th Street. My father never came to pick me up. He was trying to save lives. The first squad car on the scene, he and Lenny Rizzi watched from Pulaski Road as the United flight passed over the Indian on the roof of the cigar store on 63rd, close enough to make it sway. The sky was gunmetal grey and there was snow on the ground, an early, bitter winter. The Boeing 737 landed over ten houses, destroying six, and snapped in half with the cockpit pointed skyward as bodies from first class lay on garage roofs. This we all heard later, there were no Blackberrys, back then, we were lucky to have three traffic helicopters and static-free radios back then. Social networking meant how much the neighbors, the cops, the teachers, and the fireman were willing to tell. The plane passed over Queen of The Universe grade school, again, if it had been seven minutes later, children would have been on the sidewalks. My dad and Lenny, each 41 at the time, saved at least eight lives, the snow melting to slush from the impact helped put the flames out on bodies dragged to the street. The two of them saw the pilot or co-pilot fall backwards into the flames, though time dims details, and neither speak of that day anymore. Bodies were melted into the coils of seats--everything had coils back then, what house didn't have a chair with duct tape over an exposed piece of curled metal?--another cop picked up a suitcase that had fallen from a luggage bin and my dad saw an arm in the aisle. A female arm, which somehow made it worse. He did not come up until noon the next day, but for odd reasons. There was reason to believe the plane exploded upon approach to the runway at 55th and Central, and that the pilot tried to control the aircraft however briefly. How was it on 9/11, Flight 11 covered six blocks in one second before hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center? The pilot was trying desperately for that trainyard I mentioned above, bordered by the Tootsie Roll factory and the Sweetheart Cup company. Martha Mitchell was on that plane, ready to be escorted to the Dirksen Federal Building to offer damning testimony about the Watergate scandal. She died. FBI agents were on the scene within minutes of the second squadrol's arrival down Lawndale, the first fire engine only able to maneuver 71st Street, a narrow street, to be certain, two-story bungalows on either side. My father was gone until noon Saturday because the afternoon shift and the graveyard shift were sworn to not mention the quick response time of the FBI agents to the scene, staggered, as if cars had been stationed in a grid around the southeast end of the Chicago Lawn neighborhood. Within years, nobody cared about the oath, Watergate was forgotten. Our daily Lottery started on the day Nixon resigned. My father is 80 now, he served in Korea, and was a copper for 31 years. He spent that same summer, 1972, searching for Billy DeSouza, who disappeared from a carnival in the Scottsdale shopping center. A decade later, a serial killer in a Connecticut jail told police where to find Billy. In a forest preserve past Orland Park, the case was solved with the sight of a curled up skeleton in the knot of a tree. My father entered an apartment to find a tiny girl suffocated by her overweight, drunk, high on angel dust mother. The mother had rolled on top of her in bed. Compounding that, forensics found semen in the girl's diaper. A boyfriend was arrested. This was Chicago, this has always been Chicago. But my father never talks about United 553, though I remember how our house smelled of smoke and blood and, quite honestly, cooked meat for days. It was simply too frigid to open the windows, and they might not have been able to be pulled shut again. So I dressed for school each morning and put Aqua Velva on my shirt, thinking that I wouldn't smell like bacon as I sat in my seventh grade classes that following week. And time passed, as it does.

The YouTube above was recently released by the CFD, they have quite a bit of archival media, warehouse fires and three-flat fires, pretty much everything. Because the world is all about social media now. In 1997, my oldest niece, Ashley, wrote about her favorite hero. She wrote about my father, who saved people after a burning plane fell from the sky.

Thank you for reading,

Wayne Allen Sallee
Burbank, Illinois: 08 Dec 11

Two Killers

2011-12-04T23:24:00.000-08:00

There are links available on smashwords and Amazon, but it's hard to highlight them on this page. Everything here put together by David Bain, the first day up was yesterday and there were 90 sales.

Printer's Row Book Fair: June 2010

2011-12-01T23:00:00.000-08:00

Two years back, fellow writer Mike Penkas saw a copy of my novel, The Holy Terror, for sale on a dealer's table for the lowly price of four dollars. I was going to buy it, but the bookseller recognized me and asked me to sign the book and mention that I was at Printer's Row. I did, that was that, and it started raining fifteen minutes later.

Columbia College: Part 2

2011-11-21T00:07:00.000-08:00

More from after the guest-lecture. Post-establishing shots, I guess. A nice piece of signage for Columbia as we head towards Wabash, there's Mort Castle and David Bain deciding where to dispose of my body, the spinning fan of the the restaurant--you know me and my spinning fans--and then a shot of Mort introducing us to Yiddish food while a woman feeds her child behind him. Timing is everything.

Aces Doubled!

2011-11-17T23:04:00.000-08:00

I mentioned that David Bain was in the audience at Columbia the other day. He's been tossing the idea around that we do this crazy ebook thing, whatever ebook are. But I kid. I had the idea of the way old Ace Doubles were put together, but the flip book format will, of course, not work. David interviewed me for Doorways magazine a few years back, by far the best interview I've given, and for now David has only put together a mirror image of me in my jet pack. I'll have more Columbia photos up tomorrow.

Guest Lecture at Columbia College: Part One

2011-11-16T23:52:00.000-08:00

More on this tomorrow, as I'll have framing photos, but Mort Castle allowed me to lecture to his Horror Writing class on Tuesday, a day that went from 70 down to 40 in the time it took me to get home. David Bainbridge, A Colombia alumni, drove in from Indiana to hang out, as well. A student asked me about if I work my disdain for technology into my work and I told them about Future Man (above). Photos taken using technology, David's phone, one was taken by this hot redhead who was likely born during the first Gulf War. More tomorrow, gang. PS Note that I'm the only one who looks like I have a jet pack on my shoulder.

DePaul University presents...

2011-11-08T23:48:00.000-08:00


	DePaul University Film Students Go Global Blood on the Plain is going places. An 11-minute short film, this horror-western is quickly becoming the new face of DePaul's Digital Cinema program. The film is one of the first funded by DePaul University's College of Digital Media Undergraduate Production Grant, which provides financial assistance to deserving student projects. Facilitated by CDM professors Matthew Irvine and Daniel Klein, Blood on the Plain is an ambitious collaboration between DePaul students, faculty members, and industry professionals. The project was led by a core team of DePaul Digital Cinema students: Mac Eldridge (Director), David Wagenaar (Cinematographer), Angie Gaffney (Producer), Aric Jackson (Producer) and Kevin McGrail (Producer). These five young filmmakers have been working on the film since October of 2010. Now, nearly a year later, they have something spectacular to show for it. Blood on the Plain will begin its global festival tour in December 2011, representing DePaul and the Digital Cinema program around the world. The ultimate goal? To showcase Blood on the Plain and generate awareness for the rapidly-expanding Digital Cinema program and the strong capabilities of the students in the program at DePaul University.

	Promotional Poster for Blood on the Plain
	Help Spread the Word and Forward on this Email
	Show your support and visit BloodonthePlain.com, Like their Facebook Page, Follow them onTwitter and check out their YouTube Channel for great behind-the-scenes videos.
	Having trouble reading this? View it in your browser.

Distributed by Dynamite Film Productions, LLC -- 1629 N. Sedgwick, Chicago, IL 60614.

Phone: 1.312.884.9684 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1.312.884.9684 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Chicago At Night

2011-11-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

In the way back, Shane and Amy Bugbee published this newspaper, and I wrote articles for two issues. This one was about my experiences working with an Elvis band in the late 70s. They lived in Bridgeport in the coolest building filled with the keenest stuff. Amy had the best smile ever, Shane moved around at the speed of light. As has happened with this new-fangled thing called Facebook(I think), we hooked up again. These two lovebirds are now in Washington state and have recently completed a project A Year at The Wheel, the website is www.ayearatthewheel.com I actually snagged copies of the newspaper from a porno shop under the Wells Street el train. Those reading this, check out their site. Shane and Amy were there for me at a hard time in my life.

The Winner...I Mean Weiner Is...

2011-10-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's me on the right. $50.00 cash, photo shoot the day of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. I'm a whore.

For You, The Living & The Walking Dead

2011-10-01T22:45:00.000-07:00

“Chicago has its share of treasures – deep dish, the Bean, Kingston’s blues, and Wayne Allen Sallee. Toiling in the stubborn vineyard of short fiction for most of his career, Sallee reaches a sort of a literary apogee with his brilliant and brutal horror novella “For You, The Living.” Ostensibly a plague tale, told in classic Lovecraftian diary form, Sallee’s yarn manages to deftly mingle the deeply personal with the gruesomely Grand Guignol. Riveting, ghastly, hilarious, creepy, and unforgettably Wayne-like, “For You, the Living” is at once a wholly original take on the zombie apocalypse genre while at the same time a heart-wrenching love story. This one will haunt you forever, folks. Highest recommendation!”
- Jay Bonansinga, national bestselling author of PERFECT VICTIM, PINKERTON’S WAR, and co-author of THE WALKING DEAD: RISE OF THE GOVERNOR

A killer quote from one of the best writers you will ever meet. I asked Jay to offer up a quote that might tie in my zombie novella from 1992 to those on Kindle buying The Walking Dead compendiums and trades. Jay came through, he's a wonderful guy, he'll listen to anybody at all. Novelist, award-winning filmmaker, teacher...buy his books. Not just the tie-ins for The Walking Dead, find The Black Mariah or Perfect Victim. Go to his website www.jaybonansinga.com

Richard J. Daley College, 1986. Seams Poetry Magazine

2011-09-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

and of course I'm writing about dead kids. You'd think otherwise? Robert Engler contacted writers from his poetry workshops in 1979--I had attended Daley for a year before transferring to the University of Illinois when that neighborhood was still a swell-looking slum--to contribute poems alongside then current students. Engler was surprised with my submission, but it warranted a photo on the next page. To date my wretched life even further, I'm posting a poetry book--yes, an actual perfect-bound book--with the unimaginable year of 1987 quite prominent on the cover. The lesson any writer can learn from writing poems is that you eventually stop and think, hey, these are lines that become paragraphs and so forth.

Free eBook from Crossroads Press, a 9/11 story I needed to write...

2011-09-09T22:40:00.000-07:00

I Cannot Protect Her, Ever Again

I Cannot Protect Her Ever Again

By Wayne Allen Sallee

This is not a happy, feel-good message of American solidarity. This is a deeply thought out, painful journey through an author’s mind and heart. We write stories that are meant to frighten people… when the Twin Towers fell, when 9/11 became a “thing” and not just another day on the calendar, all of those make-believe monsters lost their steam. Nothing compares to the type of mind-numbing helplessness terrorist attacks bring in their wake.

This short story is one author’s inner battle…his wish that he could protect a godchild he now knows can’t ever fully be protected…not when madness exists …not when the bad guys are willing to kill themselves right along with us. Not when people and lives have ceased to really matter.

This eBook version of Wayne’s story is free. If you purchase it, feel free to redistribute, share, spread it far and wide. Think about what he has to say.

David Niall Wilson

CEO

Crossroad Press

Birtrhday Present from Harry Fassl, 14 Years Ago

2011-09-09T00:26:00.000-07:00

A few days before my birthday in 1997, Harry and Diana had come to one of my readings at The Red Lion. I was a bit shaky that night, I had come straight from work and the colder weather was already screwing with me. And so it was that much a greater pleasure to take said present home with me. I can put this up here because Harry's artwork appeared next to my writings for almost a decade. His ghost is laughing at me and reminding me that I am 52 as of a few hours ago.

Second Cover Post, Same Week. Penthouse Letters. Yes, really.

2011-08-24T22:57:00.000-07:00

Thankfully, my name was not mentioned. But the story about the gas station attendant was indeed mine. "Little Baldy's Surprise". I had sold two stories prior to this one, and they were meant for Hot Talk, but after it was cancelled the inventory of stories ended up in Penthouse Letters. One piece ended up in the Canadian version of Penthouse Forum, I don't know why it didn't appear in the American issue. How I got my foot in the door with these guys was through an editor who was trying to sell his own horror stories. He met someone at a party in Manhattan who suggested he contact me. My first story, "Angel of The Morning," was a simple piece, based on my hospital stay after the 1989 car accident. I was paid $862.00, which I thought was insane. The next stories I wrote were longer, and so I was getting upwards of two thousand bucks every other month. The bubble burst when the editor moved on, and the new guy brought his own stable of writers. One great thing happened, a nightlife piece I wrote and which appeared in the last cover up there. "Faded Dreams on Division Street," a tale of times past, when there were Polish taverns on every corner. I've since updated the piece, hoping to put it into a new collection. But because of my love for Nelson Algren and my old Humboldt Park neighborhood, I still think that this was my best writing ever.

First Cover Credit, Gorezone, Summer 1990

2011-08-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

This story has never been reprinted. I keep forgetting it exists, which is odd, as it is based on a real event. I should put it in the next collection, if there ever is one. "Face Value" is vintage me in the early 90s, I can look back on the story and cringe, yet people loved the story when it first came out. The people at Gorezone gave me cover credit as I had been doing book reviews for Fangoria and the editors for the former asked for a new story. I'm very wistful when it comes to this story. The true event I mentioned? Back in the late 80s, I had been approached by a guy who wanted some coins. These days, there's six people at every intersection in the Loop, and its easy to point out the meth addicts from the blues guitarists. The guy from the 80s, he had little scraps of paper with writings on them, he offered to give them to me--well, to anyone at the bus stop--for quarters. Which I did not have. Now, I've never had much money at any given time, but it was dumb luck that I had my bus pass and maybe thirty cents on me. Emergency phone call money. I HAD cash, it was just sitting at home. I never saw that guy again, a man willing to sell his words for quarters. Words written on anything, cardboard subway transfers, torn sections of old-timey foolscap paper. I know a dozen homeless guys by name, yet I never saw or heard this fellow again. At the time, the Greyhound station was a block away. Maybe he made it to somewhere warm. In my fiction story, the Chicago that co-exists that other one, I locate the man a second time...and it doesn't go well.

My First Written Piece & What May Be My Last Author Photo Ever

2011-07-31T23:48:00.000-07:00

Illustrated Masques, 3

2011-07-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

The final cover for the book, as well as an old-fashioned cut & paste job that I keep in my portfolio.

Illustrated Masques, 2

2011-07-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Took me a few days too get these images up. As you can see, Mike Okamoto's work is fabulous. Never been to Chicago, never met me.Yet here I am with my Larry King glasses that I wore circa 1992. I've left out the final page of my story, but I'd encourage anyone to buy a copy of the book, signed or unsigned, from Gauntlet Press. Again, it aqll goes back to that final ride I got from Mark Rainey just about a quarter of a century ago.

J. N. Williamson's Illustrated Masques

2011-07-18T22:55:00.000-07:00

First, I'll have updated, and infinitely more cool news on this in a few days. Let's talk about the story "Rail Rider." Takes place on the Blue Line el platform at Cumberland, up near O'Hare. Kennedy Expressway on either side, one stairwell up, an escalator going down. Stephen Mark Rainey, the publisher of Deathrealm, had just dropped me off, a few weeks before moving to North Carolina. I told him I'd write a story for him as I waited on the train. And I did, he's actually driving away in the first few lines. I send it to J. N. Williamson and he loves it, but he changes the title. Now it's "Third Rail." Jerry, rest his soul, thought the change in title would refer to not the rail with the current running through it to electrocute you. No, he meant third rail as an erection. (This does make at least some sense as you'll see when I post a portion of the illustrated pages along with that upcoming news.) I wasn't going to complain, it was in Masques III, my first hardcover appearance, and with my name on the back cover. Karl Edward Wagner reprinted it, but with the original title, once he'd heard the tale. About the same time, the book was reprinted in Spain as Flesh Creepers. Oh, those guys. Then the reprinted version after Jerry's death, and now we are up to the illustrated version that was published by Innovation in 1992, with fantastic artwork by Mike Okamato, but ready to be reprinted again in 2009 by Checkerboard Books, a company that buys up comic inventory and publishes them under their own imprint. And...that fell through. The good news is that I was paid for each and every appearance, even the last (several people I know were stiffed by Checkerboard), so my 1600 word story has wiggled its way around for 22 years because "Rail Rider," complete with that same beautiful art of Mike Okamato, and other stories by Stephen King, Paul Dale Anderson and Robert Weinberg will be...well, that's for the next post.

Podcasts: Mitch & My Descent

2011-07-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

As part of the Twilight Tales series, David Munger read my novella "Mitch" for the online website in 2005. In 2000, my novella "My Descent" appeared in Personal Demons, published by the now-defunct Dark Tales, who published my "memoir" True Tales of The Scarlet Sponge. The latter has me narrating in detail the plane I am on crashing near Dallas, Texas. the former involves me talking to various movie incarnations of Robert Mitchum, and he helps me understand the true fate of myself and Tava Benevides in the midst of a shooting at the Borders at Clark and Randolph in the Loop.

New Cover for Necro Files

2011-07-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

And The Winner...

2011-06-24T22:58:00.000-07:00

Several people know of this strange deal where I got paid fifty bucks to dress like a Hare Krishna and past that the details were vague because I didn't really know the details. I'll get a better screenshot and hopefully post the entire book cover in the next few days.

Dream Wolves

2011-06-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

Back in 1995, I came across this comic at Comic Relief in the Loop, and I like me my werewolves. Doing things the old-fashioned way, I wrote the publisher, Daniel Presedo, a letter, asking if he'd care for me to write an issue or two. I ended up with a three-issue arc, but the magazine ended abruptly when Presedo moved and, if I recall, got married. Presedo's concept was nice, centering around a woman who is able to have an awareness of other humans who only dream of their lives as werewolves. I started a small kernel of an idea where vampires knew about the Dream Wolves and they felt threatened by them. The idea being, the vampires were responsible for many serial killer type murders across the south, and the victims were all Dream Wolves who were still in the stage of dreaming and had not yet changed into wolfen form.

Dark Dreamers

2011-06-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

This book spotlights the photography of Beth Gwinn, a fantastic and creative person who I met at the World Fantasy in Nashville, 1987. A decade later, I was in Atlanta and she told me about this project involving another great, Stanley Wiater. Aside from being known for his interviews with Stephen King back in the 1980s, he likely has the most calming voice of any single person I've ever met at a convention. Beth put together this collection, with the dates and locations of each photograph, and Stan collected quotes from each writer on what they thought true horror was. There is my photo from March 6, 1997, Atlanta, Georgia, propped on this sort of love seat. Beth took a crapload of shots, some of which she mailed me as postcards. One thing I recall her being unhappy about was that there was not enough foot traffic for her to get a time-blurry background. I still think that the reason was because no one wanted to walk down an aisle where a bald man was lying with his ass up in the air (the love seat being tiny, and all). It's a great book, it really is. Brian Hodge was photographed the same day. There are a few authors that had their photos posted posthumously, Robert Bloch and Karl Edward Wagner, who died weeks apart in 1994. Richard Laymon died two years after the book came out, and I never really want to check out the book in such a manner, the ultimate Who's Who. Or maybe Who's Where. Look the book up on Amazon. It's worth every penny, and you'll see some of the best author and artist photos by one of the best photographers you'll ever see, all in one nice book.

Dead Man Walking

2011-05-31T00:09:00.000-07:00

Last shots, I promise.I put about 25 photos on a CD and gave them to Ashley today, as she's been telling all her friends about this her uncle being in this crazy film. I like the fact that I was called on set during another scene because they wanted a framing shot of my dangling leg in the background. Boy, I look fat there. The middle shot is me throughout most of the first day of filming, guarding the punch bowl and talking with Matt and McKenna. I really need to check on the BOTP Facebook page for newer photos, as I was supposed to be incinerated on the last day, my clothing on a mannequin.

A Few More School Massacre Photos

2011-05-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

The Principal's Disembowelment

2011-05-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

Photos from last Saturday. Memorial Park in Calumet City, I didn't do a very good job of guarding the punch bowl from being spiked. I *did* have a speaking part, although it was more of a gurgle. Like a girly-scream along with a spit-bubble of blood. The clothes were all purchased at the Salvation Army (minus my RIP tie) as the film is set in mid-80s Kansas and my character is trying to be hip. As you can see in the photo where I am sitting outside, I actually look younger and less hideous when I've had my guts pulled out of me. As mentioned before, the film is called Blood on The Plain, and it will be in theaters this fall. Watch for it, those involved put a shitload of effort into this thing over the three days I was there.

Newspaper & Magazine Interviews

2011-05-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

The most interesting anecdote is that I was naked when I talked with Jack Ritter at the Sun-Times. He called at 8 AM on Memorial Day and I was in the shower in our basement. What could I do, tell him I was naked? He'd put it in the article! The SW News-Herald shot is on the back cover of The Holy Terror, I keep saying I'll ride through St. Mary's Cemetery and find that tombstone again. Chris Loudon, brother of Greg, took the photo and wrote the article. I incorporated our entire meeting into a story called "With The Wound Still Wet," the implication being that Chris might be the first on the scene and take the photos, whereas I might write a fictionalized version of Chris taking said photos. My first short story collection was then titled in the plural, With Wounds Still Wet. The Daily Herald ran an article on how writers coped after the events of 9/11.

The Last Days of John Wayne Gacy

2011-05-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

Out of curiosity, I wrote a letter to convicted serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Something about his artwork, something vague. I'd heard he wrote back to everyone. And so it was I received three letters from him over the year, the last one postmarked (above) on a Thursday and he was executed Monday the following week. Mark Rainey had started Deathrealm magazine while he lived in Des Plaines, just west of the city. He asked me to write up an essay and he would promote and then publish the piece. Considering the subject, its hard to admit that the this was one of the best things I had written at that point in my career.

The Suburbs of Fear

2011-05-11T00:23:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine from back in the days has offered to type up several chapbooks of mine so I can have them on disc, regardless of how many times my hard drive crashed without my having made a backup, I really do have a ton of stuff that was written on a manual typewriter or on floppy. Just for the hell of it, I sent her photocopies of this poetry giveaway that Peggy Nadramia did over at Grue in the way back. Douglas C. Klauba was the artist, as he was for most of my small press work in the 1980s. In the 90s, it was HE Fassl (1953-2009), and in the double-aughts, Greg Loudon started doing first author photos and then covers for me. For as much as I'm pleased that I have so much written down to leave behind, I get a smile every time I come across something that goes back to when two kids were just out of their respective colleges and didn't know what was going to happen next. Doug has his own website, the known universe knows I suck at links, so Mr. Google can help you with that.

e-books at Crossroads Press

2011-05-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

A few people on Facebook have asked about my e-books and I have directed the to Crossroads Press. The two above are my novel from 1992 and my first short story collection from 1995. The book is being edited right now, but at some point, the meta memoir I wrote last summer, Proactive Contrition, will follow. One thing I am pleased with, the cover for WWSW is a photo I took in 2005 of the alley behind the Chicago Theater. Even though I have no depth perception due to my cerebral palsy, I was able to perceive the effect. Something I can rarely do.

Blood On The Plain, my first IMDb credit

2011-05-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

Since I'm now writing full-time, I've had the chance to get a few gigs in films, mostly through Columbia Film. The top shot is from January, a silent film called The Shadow. The second shot was the day of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, and when we filmed outside my robe kept falling down and all I had on were white boxers. It got me going back to LA Fitness more often, that's for certain. But here's the news: I'll be filming May 20-22 out in Calumet City, its a film called Blood On The Plain. I have a decent part as a HS principal who gets disemboweled by zombies. My life is now complete. You can find out more about the film by going to www.bloodontheplain.com .

Lover Doll to appear in the newest anthology by Comet Press!

2011-04-29T23:14:00.000-07:00

Cheryl Mullenax has a great line-up in Necro Files, due out in September. Lover Doll first appeared in Little Deaths, edited by Ellen Datlow, and at 7200 words, it is my longest story. The third cover is from the French edition, I get a kick out of the dot dot dot. You can find the Comet Press website and find the first anthology, which is all about zombies.

October Dreams & Cemetery Dance

2011-04-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

Richard Chizmar puts out a nice product, as you can see by two of his books that I'm in, under the imprint CD Publications. I've added a few shots of tip sheets as I've recently encountered a few fans who didn't know how signature pages were set up. One of the first stories I sold, "Buy You A Mockingbird," was published in Cemetery Dance#4, in 1990. The issue is somewhere in the stack you see above.

Foreign Editions

2011-03-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

Google Images showed me how I've been screwed over the years when it comes to foreign editions. My agent told me that in most cases very little money or whatever changes hands. I don't expect royalties, or even a copy (though I sure as hell wouldn't complain), but I would like to know HOW TO BUY A COPY. Gordon Van Gelder & Ellen Datlow always gave/give me copies of foreign editions of Nightmares on Elm Street and the various editions of Little Deaths. But I never knew Splatterpunks was reprinted in Italian and Love in Vein had a French edition. But some good has come of this whole Google thing. I discovered Dutch versions of Year's Best Horror, and I contacted Kees Buis, at his website. It turned out that the books were from his private collection. So I went ahead and traded him a few signed books (The Holy Terror, for one, as well as the original Year's Best Horror here in the US that "Rapid Transit" appeared in. I was so pleased to get the copies, particularly the one with my first mass market story. You can see that they both have the same artwork. So a big shout out to the good editors and ordinary people wanting to pay it, well, sideways or something. And for those editors who don't contact me (and any other writer), well, you know who you are...

Grue

2011-03-15T22:51:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone who knows me is aware that my first story appeared in Grue#1, the only story where I don't use my middle name. Peggy Nadramia ran a small classified ad in the back of Twilight Zone magazine, insisting that she receive submissions from writers who couldn't sell their story for shit. Well, in so many words. She was intrigued by my hand-written note where I explained I did not have an outlet for my three-prong plug on my electric typewriter. Peggy and her husband Peter Gilmore put a ton of effort in the early days, I was in Hell's Kitchen and I saw the stack of mail and manuscripts set aside for a second or third read. Towards the end of its run, my dear friend Harry "HE" Fassl had several covers--see the skull and scalpels bottom center--and interior art. And, as everyone knows about Grue#1, they also know that Harry died on October 16th 2009 at the age of 56.

Ghost Writer in My Eye

2011-03-10T21:32:00.000-08:00

Its been awhile since a story of mine appeared in a nice trade, the kind CD Publications puts out. Shivers VI is a great book, there's a nice line-up of authors, including a novella by Stephen King, "The Crate." The title to my story you see up there in the subject heading, and the story itself has Chicago author Marty Mundt as my puppeteer/protagonist. The best story in the book? "In The Raw," by Brian Hodge. Trust me on this. The image attached is from the website www.talkstephenking.blogspot.com because you can see the full line-up of authors and for the hell of it I'm tossing out another piece of art by Greg Loudon. See, I'm trying to front-load this with as many images as I can, for when the huge flood of fans start poring over these entries. My story "Buy You A Mockingbird" appeared in Cemetery Dance#4, way back in 1989 and Shivers VI, of course, can be purchased from CD Publications.

The Holy Terror in Limbo

2011-03-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

A few years before Crossroad presented both an e-book as well as an audio book of The Holy Terror, there had been a chance that a now-defunct publisher was going to publish a 20th Anniversary Edition. Although the book was originally published in April of 1992, the story takes place during the winter of 1988-9. Here are two variants of the covers we might have seen on the books. These were done by Greg Loudon, who also provided the cover for my collection (by Annihilation Press) of Fiends By Torchlight in 2008.

Yvonne Navarro Created This, Not I.

2011-03-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite photos. Yvonne is one of my favorite authors, and I have known her longer than just about anyone else in my life. You won't see my updating daily or weekly about book signings or any other uber events as you might read about on her Dark Redemption website. I choose to be an enigma wrapped in Charlie Sheen and covered in old bowling shirts. ( Let's see how quickly this reference will seem dated.)

I'll be updating this in a day or so, posting covers of anthologies just out or soon to be on shelves. I'll likely post stand-alone photos from past conventions, not at all like the entries on my private blog, Frankenstein1959, or that might be tagged on Facebook. One quick glimpse to the beginning of the last quarter century, then back to an increasingly paperless world. As you wait on updates, I suggest you check out Yvonne's work. I'd start with Afterage, deadrush, and Final Impact. And keeping reading from there. I always say that I'll never stop writing, but if this were a race, Yvonne would be several billion words ahead of me in chronicling dreams meant to be realized for future generations.