I’ll be at the LA Times Festival of Books. Very much looking forward to catching up with friends and taking in the fest.

If you’re in the area, come on by. To the panel, appropriately enough, in the Mudd building.

I met John Harvey and Geoffrey Goodwin at Boston Beer Works pre-show. We had good drinks and food. John, the beer expert, ordered expertly, while I flailed around resulting in drinks that were fine but I didn’t really want. Geoffrey let us in on a deep, dark secret about a famous/important band that he doesn’t like. I had to restrain John from flipping the table. Don’t worry, Geoffrey, I’ll take that secret to my grave.

The only dinner glitch is one that people who know me well could probably imagine. I was in the middle of a fun rant when my chicken sandwich arrived with pickles (yes, my version of first world problems). My fun rant bloomed into what we have now officially termed PICKLE ANGRY which is many levels above regular angry. To wit: Was he angry, or pickle angry? Initially I thought I was okay because the pickles were on top of the red onions, which I didn’t mind ditching, but the nasty-terrible-puke-enducing pickle juice had soaked into the bun. I flung pickles onto the table as I was pickle angry.

But we managed to compose ourselves and moseyed over to the House of Blues for the show. Our tix were for standing room on the second floor, but by the time we got in, there was no open spaces on the railings for us. I was momentarily again pickle angry. Instead of starting a second floor brawl while shouting Billy Idol Dead Kennedys tunes, we turned our weary eyes to the third floor. Best move ever. The third floor was balcony seating with some actual seats. Those seats were supposed to cost more than the general admission, but no self-respecting punk (even old ones) would pay more for cushy seats made by and provided for the man! So we got the cushy seats for free! Sweet! Thus no complaints about John’s bursitis and Geoffrey’s corns or bunions.*

The Bronx was up first and tore it up. A highlight for me was the tune Ribcage.

The lead singer M’f'ed us concerts goers all set long, like we deserved. Near the end of the set he went into the pit with his mic. Very cool view for us from above to see the swirling bodies in the pit and somehow the staff and concert goers managing to keep the mic plugged in while knocking the crap out of the singer. It was awesome!

Bronx in the pit, from John’s camera:

The Bronx singer in the pit with his mic.

Bad Religion hit the stage a little after 9:30 and played for almost two hours. 30 songs by my count, including four encores. They sounded great. Greg Gaffin was like an affable, goofy, smart ass uncle up on stage, amused by it all. I loved that for a band who wears their politics and ethos on their sleeve, they don’t take themselves seriously at all live. They poke fun of themselves (Gaffin introduced one tune with “This song is from our good old stuff”) and just let the music do their proselytizing. They impromptu performed half of “Refugee” by Tom Petty, complete with Graffin’s faux-nasal Petty impersonation.

For me, so many highlights, but they included “Generator,” “I Want to Conquer the World,” “21st Century Digital Boy,” “Suffer,” and “American Jesus.” The encore set opened with their earliest song, “Fuck Armageddon…This is Hell” and followed it up with their newest, the equally blistering “Vanity.” More pics below.

Great concert, great company, great night!

Bad Religion

*To be fair, John and Geoffrey have never told me that they suffer from those ailments, and  they likely do not. I just thought the blog post would be more interesting with that in there.

Feb. 15th Friday

7pm, King of Horror, Burroughs ( Westin)

Let’s pretend the interesting part of “world’s best-selling horror writer” is that last word. What’s Stephen King’s connection to Poe, Lovecraft, or the New England Gothic tradition? How can you always tell a King story? Does the new writing match his older stuff? Why so many movies and TV shows from his work? How does he compare to Dean Koontz, Neil Gaiman, or Joe Hill?

Faye Ringel  (M), Vincent O’Neil, Paul Tremblay, Shira Lipkin

9pm, The Monster in the Maze, Harbor III 

There is a monster. It is lurking in the shadows, waiting. There is always a monster. It might be the Minotaur in the Labyrinth of Crete or a beast living under London, but it is always there. Why? What is the monster, if it’s more than the dark shadow of the self? Explore the monsters that have haunted our sleeping (and waking) hours, and how we may (with luck and wisdom) find and defeat them. Discuss some works that did this (and examine if they did this successfully).

James Cambias  (M), Darrell Schweitzer, Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden

10pm, Zombies are Dead

Zombies are dead, but they just won’t die. What keeps them walking the world of popular culture? How have shows like _The Walking Dead_ not only survived but grown? The zomromcom (zombie romantic comedy) _Warm Bodies_ is in the movie theaters now, and _World War Z_ will hit them soon. How long can zombies last?

Erin Underwood (M), F. Brett Cox, Paul Tremblay, Brianna Spacekat Wu

Feb 16th, Saturday

2pm, Humor in the Stuff We Read, Carlton ( Westin)

What makes it funny? Is really hilarious fiction a sacred mystery? Or merely the judicious application of tools such as misdirection, buffoonery, wit, repartee, and the element of surprise? We’ll examine the nature of humor in the fiction of such seriously talented laugh masters as Terry Pratchett, Esther Friesner, Douglas Adams, Connie Willis, and perhaps our own panelists.

Justine Graykin  (M), Craig Shaw Gardner, Paul Tremblay, Darlene Marshall, Daniel M. Kimmel

4pm, Gothic Literature Meets the Modern Imagination, Lewis ( Westin)

The fad began in 1764, but Gothic structures still cast long (and of course dark) shadows over artistic landscapes high and low. What needs do they feed? Which motifs still linger? How are they being transformed these days? Is Jonathan Strange a Gothic hero? The _Prometheus_ a Gothic castle? Bella Swan a Gothic princess?
Faye Ringel  (M), Theodora Goss, Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden

Langan:  In general, do you draw inspiration/ideas from the music you listen to?

WFR also has published my toothy short story “Headstone in Your Pocket.”

Enjoy!

Movies I’ve seen after I made the list:

–Lake Mungo goes in my top ten. No movie in the past two years has moved me the way that sad, creepy movie did. Link to my review. Clicky.

–May. Top 30. Finally got around to watching it this past weekend. Funny, sad, and disturbing. Like Mungo, the sadness comes from the characters’ authentic emotional lives and how those lives are broken or are being broken. The horror, of course, comes from the same place.

–House of the Devil. I’d put it somewhere in the late 60s of my list. The retro-horror movie dares to take its sweet ass time, and it looks real pretty. Effective enough to make the list.

–S&Man. Places in the early 60s of my list. A faux-documentary about extreme indie horror movies. Metafictional fun with a horrifying ending. Made doubly horrifying because REDACTED.

Oversights:

Ginger Snaps (Heathers with werewolves?) should’ve been on my list, and I should’ve given Clive Barker flicks some love toward the end of the list. Maybe Lord of Illusions (Scott Backula!) and/or Nightbreed.

TOP TEN SCARY SCENES

Two years ago Stephen Graham Jones copied my list of top 74 movies. So this year, I’m copying his top ten scary scenes.

My criteria for top ten scary scenes is purely subjective. I’m going by number of nightmares given to me along with a quotient involving factors of I-think-about-this-when-I’m-in-the-basement-alone and how fast do I then run up the stairs, plus the cover-my-eyes constant multiple, which can’t be forgotten. Anyway, enough math. The list.

1) Quint buys it in Jaws. I’m posting this scene but I’m not watching it. I saw it in fifth grade. I had twenty plus years of shark nightmares after. I’ve seen Jaws maybe 40 times since, but I won’t watch the Quint scene again. I never do. I cover my eyes or change the channel.

2) Donald Sutherland now playing for the other team in Invasion of the Body Snatchers:

3) Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy visited my nightmares almost as much as Jaws did. So much so, I really only watched the first and third of the Nightmare movies. His first kill messed me up good.

4) The end of Blair Witch project. So, yeah, anyone standing alone in the corner freaks me out. No one puts baby in the corner.

5) Event Horizon. The scene is when they find the film of what happened to the previous crew. This clip isn’t quite it, but you get the gist. When I saw it at the time, I resolved to never watch it again.

6) ‘Salem’s Lot. The kid at the window. I still sleep with my windows locked.

7) Lake Mungo. Finding the of footage on the cell phone. I watched this movie by myself and when this happened I moaned out loud to no one. An existential moan.

8) Rec’s final scene. I’d seen Quarantine first. So I figured I knew the ending to REC. Yeah, um, I was wrong.

9) Fright Night. The original. Sure it’s campy now, but the big-teeth reveal (much like Karen Black at the end of Trilogy of Terror) scared the kid that was me witless.

10) The Ring. Still too scared to watch the original version (which I own on DVD, but haven’t watched yet).

“Have you ever been alone in a room full of people? I ask because my most recent Sartre^[1]-esque bout of existential loneliness happened after my brother cruelly abandoned me at a recent Helmet/Toadies concert. He left me in Boston’s Paradise Rock Club to haunt the all access box. All by myself. Not an Eric Carmen^[2] fan to be seen.“

Many thanks to Bob Geake and Barry Lee Dejasu for having me back at the Brown Bookstore!

–My Donkey playlist here. It’s a punk-tinged double album at Largehearted Boy

–The Booked podcast crew reviews SaDE. And they do a damn good job of it!

–The Booked podcast crew then interviewed me about the book, poop themes, and other subjects of great importance.

–Clarkesworld published a dual interview with myself and Nick Mamatas. It’s a satire about satire.

–Richard Thomas over at The Nervous Breakdown reviewed SaDE.

–Me and my book on the cover of my local weekly newspaper.

TORONTO, Ontario (September 5, 2012) — Co-publishers Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi announced today a new imprint for ChiZine Publications (CZP) to focus on Young Adult fiction. Called “ChiTeen,” the first title will be The Unlikely But Totally True Adventures of Floating Boy and Anxiety Girl by Paul Tremblay and Stephen Graham Jones, scheduled for release in spring 2014.

“As a business, you can’t ignore the young adult market,” says Savory. “Over the last decade, writers like Rowling, Gaiman and Collins were consistently on bestseller lists. We’ve been wanting to get into the YA market for a couple of years, and now the timing is right.”

“Our editorial style lends itself to young adult fiction,” adds Kasturi. “CZP embraces the dark, the bizarre, the unusual. So many teens feel isolated or different and are looking for that outlet. ChiTeen will offer the same dark and weird stories with strong writing that CZP is known for, just with subject matter more suited for a younger audience.”

Kasturi and Savory will serve as ChiTeen’s co-publishers along with most of the CZP team. They are currently approaching authors to fill out their 2014 roster. They are not currently open to un-agented submissions for the new imprint.

As with CZP, distribution will be handled by HarperCollinsCanada in Canada and Diamond Book Distributors throughout the rest of the world. Foreign rights are handled by Cooke International.

Contact

Brett Alexander Savory, Co-Publisher
ChiZine Publications
http://www.chizinepub.com
brett@chizinepub.com

About ChiZine Publications

ChiZine Publications (CZP) is a two-time World Fantasy Award-nominated independent publisher of surreal, subtle, and disturbing dark literary fiction hand-picked by Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi, Bram Stoker Award-winning editors of ChiZine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words.