THE BEST OF THE SCREAM FACTORY

This is a beautiful book.  THE SCREAM FACTORY was a wonderful magazine. I was lucky enough to have a story in the 25th Anniversary of the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD issue. My story was illustrated by the late HEF (Harry Fassl). The story will be reprinted in Crossroad Press's upcoming RAPID TRANSIT VOLUME TWO. The magazine was known for columns, essays, and book reviews. The best of the best is in this huge volume of six hundred pages.

My typing skills have worsened of late, but I plan to do a follow-up on this book, including photos of some of the art and mentioning specific columns and writers dear to me. CD Publications and Richard Chizmar published this giant thing, and it was edited, as was the magazine, by the lustful Peter Enfantino, the huggable John Scoleri, and the bedazzled Robert Morrish. Here's my story and what this book looks like. It is uncanny how much I look like Peter as we peer over the top of the cover, states and weeks apart.

THE BEST OF THE SCREAM FACTORY

I was lucky enough to have a story in the issue of THE SCREAM FACTORY that was dedicated to the 25th anniversary of George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. My story was called "The Zombie Who Walked Down Division Street" and is set in the universe of my novella FOR YOU, THE LIVING. Harry Fassl (HEF), dead a decade now, did the beautiful artwork.

25 YEARS AGO, MAIL TO WILLIAM J. RALEY, PUBLISHER OF AFTER HOURS

I really have been meaning to post these for awhile. I appeared in one of the best of the not-quite-large press magazines of the last two decades of the last century, AFTER HOURS, which ran for a very impressive 25 issues. Photos, interviews, great stories. After there being a Best of CEMETERY DANCE and Best of DEATHREALM, and with a Best of THE SCREAM FACTORY coming soon, I think a Best of AFTER HOURS is needed (perhaps the only other magazine that should also consider this would be Paul Dale Anderson, who published 2AM with his late wife Gretta.)

Anyhow, I thank William for allowing me to repost what had been a private letter. Think of a time with no emails. I typed my stories on a word processor and, as seen in the second image, I'd love to click the wheel and have everything be one or two keys on the keyboard off. You see, if you had a Smith-Corona word processor, you typed the entire page and then click print and everything would clack out. Very 90s. This wasn't too long after I was free of the bonds from the March 1989 car accident and was always showing off the one scar (out of two) on my left arm I could photocopy, and all the broken pieces of hardware inside that arm.

Enjoy the letter in the sense of perhaps overhearing two guys jabbering in a hallway at  a convention, and maybe decipher the second page. I'd guess everything is one letter off, so good luck with that. I guess the one good thing about a personal website that hardly anybody sees is that I can put up images that are even better than just scanning them into my computer. My thanks again to William.