KARL EDWARD WAGNER

Friendly Confrontations

CHINA BEACH 1989

I'll be watchin these episodes over Memorial Day. Set in 1989, the actors in make-up relate their lives after the war and the show's setting in 1969. Brilliant idea, really. The show debuted in the fall of 1989, and I was in the hospital for the first few episodes, my arm in a cast. When S2 aired, I was again in the hospital, the plates and screws having broken up in my ruined arm.

Somewhere along the line, Karl Edward Wagner, the guy who gave me a name by reprinting my stories in Year's Best Horror from 1986 until his death in 1992, learned of my crush on Dana Delaney in her nurse uniform. Every few weeks, I'd get mail from Chapel Hill NC, postcards in Karl's handwriting signed by "Dana". An article from TV Guide or the local paper, with a word balloon coming from Delaney's mouth as she professed her undying love for me. Old times, fun times.

But whenever I watch CHINA BEACH, I hear the moans and be actutely aware of the smells at 3AM, the ones at Holy Cross Hospital that I'd become intimate with.

YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES IN DUTCH

A few years back, I was using the Google machine to look up images of my books or anthologies I have been in, mostly to get ahold of an editor here and ask him where my Italian copy of SPLATTERPUNKS or the Spanish PESADILLAS EN ELM STREET (you might figure that translation out on your own). Well, I happened to see a few images of Year's Best Horror in Dutch. DAW had published 22 volumes until the last editor, Karl Edward Wagner, died. I had stories in the final ten volumes.

I wrote to the individual on his blog, his name was Kees Buis. I thought he owned a bookstore, but the books were from his private collection. So we traded, and I sent him signed copies of my novel and one of my short story collection. He still stays in touch with me, our friendship goes back about seven years, and he keeps looking for the other editions.

If you are a fellow writer and are reading this, then you know how easily we get screwed when it comes to foreign editions. I never expect money, I just want copies.

GONE, BABY, GONE: COMMONPLACE BOOK #7, 23 JULY 2010-04 DECEMBER 2014

The late Karl Edward Wagner used that term to describe his journals and so I do the same to keep his memory going. The way I lost my latest journal was pointless, and it hardly mattered because I had most pages either photocopied and/or as typed up stories, as was the case for the novella "Days of Fiction Past" and several other shorter pieces. The only thing truly lost were several pages for a story I had planned to call "Contemplated Freedom". If I end up starting that again, odds are it would be in a different stream-of-consciousness stage. Here are various photos of said commonplace book over the years, the photo of me in the Willis Tower was taken by my cousin Cindy Schwartz. When I graduated from UIC in 1982, we went down to Kentucky for Father's Day to see Granddad, and Cindy gave me a silver Cross pen. She knew I was going to be a writer.She did.

I have also used several small spiral notebooks or Moleskins, but everything gets transcribed into the commonplace book, here are examples of the other books.

HORRORSTORY: VOLUME FIVE

.An amazing thing happened a few weeks back. I found a copy of HORRORSTORY: VOLUME FIVE on Amazon for $40.00. For several years, prices have ranged from $100-$350.00.  I owned a (contributor) copy once, but sold it so I could by groceries when I was unemployed in 2006 and was down to applying for a job with Clowns2Go. Underwood-Miller was publishing the volumes in reverse order, each book holding three volumes of Year's Best Horror. The fifth volume has two of my appearances, "Rapid Transit" and ts sequel "Take The 'A' Train." RT was my first published work, accepted by Peggy Nadramia for GRUE#1, and it is the only place you'll see my byline without my middle name.

If Karl Edward Wagner hadn't chosen my story for YBH:XIV, I might very well be working at a traveling carnival as the guy who can make his veins pop out of his head. One of my parlor tricks. I call RT my albatross, as I certainly got better with my approach to writing both fiction and non-fiction. I'v posted photos of the various books where you can find the story, in Dutch, Danish, and German. I'm happy that I was able to get the book proudly posed next to my Walter White action figure. Seven years is a long time to be gone, but I truly needed money to eat.