SO, AT SOME POINT, this year’s World Horror went from a standard annual convention to… a Road Trip (capital R). Initially I thought… what the hell. It’s an 8-9 hour drive from Chicago, right? I can listen to a lot of good albums at full volume during that time, and…
UNLIKE LAST YEAR, this Halloween season I didn’t focus as much on doing readings and appearances, though I did drive up to Milwaukee on Oct. 20 for a Barnes & Noble author panel (more on that below), appeared on Oct. 25 for the third year in a row as the…
THE LAST TIME I posted, it was May…and it doesn’t seem that long ago. So where have I been? Well…after I got back from the World Horror Convention a few weeks ago, my wife and I put our house up for sale and decided we were off to bigger and…
BAD BOOKENDS So, on my way to the airport on Wednesday morning, there’s such a ridiculous traffic jam, that I almost miss the plane (even though I left early) and at 6 a.m. on Thursday, the first morning of the con, I’m woken up by my wife who tells me…
WELL IT WAS STARTING to get a bit ulcer-inducing there, but today at 3 p.m., I finally picked up the first project of my new publishing imprint, Dark Arts Books. You can read more about the formation of the imprint at www.darkartsbooks.com. But the key point is, Candy in the…
I WROTE THE original story “There Were No Bullets in the Gun,” eventually retitled Failure, three summers ago now. In the fall of 2004, after Delirium Books agreed to publish it as the debut volume in a new “hardcover chapbook” series, I also created cover art for the book, using…
IT’S ACTUALLY New Year’s Eve as I write this on my laptop on the couch, watching the “return of Dick Clark” New Year’s Eve countdown show (there’s a zombie movie inherent in Clark’s return, isn’t there?) As I watched all the “top moments of the past year and the past…
IT’S BEEN NINE YEARS since my last World Fantasy Con — which was held in Schaumburg, right down the street from where I work, and was also my first World Con. At that convention, I was still very much a newbie writer, knew no one and had no idea what…
TONIGHT I PULLED UP outside the Acorn Public Library in Oak Forest, IL and the white-lit sign outside proclaimed: Horror Author, October 27, 7 p.m. Wow…there it was, my name up in lights…oh wait a minute – my name wasn’t there. Oh well, I knew it meant me! I walked…
WITH THE BIRTH of my son, Shaun Austin on July 15, I’ve been a little too…busy…to update this journal…but there’s been lots going on. I’ve had a bunch of press hit on my winning the HWA Bram Stoker award (see Chicago Tribune article at right!), and have a lined up…
