THIS WAS THE SUMMER OF BOND. I think my son Shaun and I will always think of it that way somehow. But last weekend, the Summer of Bond came to an end — kind of fittingly really, since it was the weekend after Labor Day, a holiday which always kind…
THIS WEEK I RECEIVED the Advance Reading Copy of my 12th novel, Voodoo Heart, my next book from Flame Tree Press (it will be released on October 20). I also set a new personal high score on Mata Hari, a pinball machine that I’ve played since I was 17 years…
LAST NIGHT, I POSTED this video on my Instagram story – because it was really a perfect Friday night at home! I played a little music on the keyboard & guitar and then spent a couple hours on my pinball machines. Had Material Issue’s best CD Destination Universe on the…
It’s CAPRICON 40 Weekend! This year, the venerable SF/F convention returns to the Wheeling, IL Westin with a “Tropics of Capricon” theme. Consequently, the first panel I’ll be on will be about IPAs – Beers From the Tropics (well, the IPA was really a beer brewed to GO to the…
2019 WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR. From an amazing Muse concert to Horror and Pinball conventions and High School Marching Band competitions, it was action-packed. And, for the first time in my writing career, something I wrote appeared on TV (how cool is that?) At the start of December, V…
I LOVE ALL THE LIGHTS and carols and ceremony of Christmas. I’m not a religious person, but I do believe in traditions, and the celebration of love and the year’s events gone by. While I’ve made my reputation as a horror author, I’ve written a short book of Christmas stories…
EIGHT YEARS AGO, Jonathan Maberry approached me and a handful of others with an invitation to contribute to a new shared world book he was creating that dealt with vampires. I still have the original e-mail – from May of 2011 – and of course I accepted the invite, but…
I HAVE TO ADMIT that before I played it, I was a little skeptical about the latest Elvira-themed pinball machine that debuted this weekend at Pinball Expo 2019. I’m a big fan of the previous Elvira tables, Elvira and the Party Monsters (1989) and Scared Stiff (1996), both designed by…
LAST NIGHT, as I was taking a short break from playing the silver balls at Pinball Expo to squeeze in a little writing on my next novel Voodoo Heart, my son Shaun texted me to tell me there was a new CD just released by punk-pop band The Muffs called…
YOU COULDN’T ASK for a better way to kick off “Halloween Season” than a concert by the guy who created the haunting scores for some of the best Italian horror films of the ’70s – 90s. When I heard that keyboardist Claudio Simonetti was coming to Chicago on Sunday, Oct….
