Category Interview

Jul 11 2012

Horror Director Talks about His First Movie

Horror Director Talks about His First Movie

by Jason Harris


Writer and director Eric England talks about Madison County, his first horror movie; his first movie ever.

England said that this is his version of “a backwoods slasher movie.”

“I wanted to do something that was faithful to all the films that had come before it, but also tries to stand on its own two feet.”

He drew inspiration from several different places, including things that had happened to him and from the local legends he was aware of in Arkansas, where he filmed Madison County.

The idea for England’s movie came to him when he was 14, he said. He wrote the script back in 2009 and the movie was released last year.

“The idea for Madison County had been sitting in my brain for years before I ever sat down to put it on paper.”

He is planning a follow-up to his $75,000 first movie, and this time he will give audiences more of prolific serial killer Damien Ewell’s history.

“I always planned for Madison County to be part of a much bigger picture. I don’t want to beat people over the head with exposition, but I’ll definitely hint at information about his origins,” England said about his movie.

His serial killer is not a supernatural being under that mask, he said.

“He’s 100 percent a human being. If you cut him, he bleeds. If you hit him with a shovel, he goes down. Under the pig head, he’s just a man.”

It took him under two years from the written word to filming. He had gone through almost 10 different producers and teams of producers before the finished product came to be.

“A lot of promises were made and never made good on, so I eventually went off and made a little experimental movie called Hostile Encounter in November of 2009.”

His experimental short inspired producer Daniel Dunn to find financing for film to make “a bigger film which was ultimately Madison County.”

There are many movies that have inspired England.

“My favorite movie of all time is Scream. I like a lot of really weird movies. Everything from The Sound of Music to Last House on the Left to American Pie. It’s hard to pinpoint where my brain gets inspiration from.”

Along with favorite movies, he has some favorite directors that include Alfred Hitchcock, Wes Craven, Quentin Tarantino, and David Fincher. He also likes Tim Burton’s older stuff.

He is currently working on a few projects, the Hitchcockian thriller Roadside and a psychological-horror-sex-thriller called Contracted. He also attached to direct a studio film, which he couldn’t talk about.

“I’m kind of a workaholic.”

Editor’s Note:
This article also appears on the DVD Snapshot website. Click here to check out other interviews, dvd reviews, and contests.

Jun 10 2012

‘Safe House’ Screenwriter Talks about His Heroes and His Movie

‘Safe House’ Screenwriter Talks about His Heroes and His Movie

by Jason Harris

What do actors Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, and Nicolas Cage and directors Simon West and Antoine Fuqua all have in common? They all have worked on projects written by David Guggenheim.

Safe HouseGuggenheim’s first screenplay, Safe House, was just released on DVD this past Tuesday. This was his first spec script sold.

“I got spoiled with this one.”

According to Guggenheim, a spec script is a screenplay written by someone who is not getting paid for it.

“You can spend a year of your own time and still not get paid. But the good news is that you have a fully completed script as opposed to a pitch where you go in with a sort of broad idea. This is a good way of packaging your whole story.”

The screenplay was sold in February of 2010, which was two years and a day before it was released in theaters, Guggenheim said. It took him about three months to write it.

“I was running out of time. I had a kid literally coming around the corner. If I didn’t sell something I wasn’t sure if I would be able to sustain a full-time job and full-time family and a writing career.”

If a screenwriter is living in New York, a spec script is the way to break into Hollywood and get people excited, he said. He had been writing them for 10 to 12 years before selling his first one.

“I couldn’t even process what was happening,” Guggenheim said about the sale of his first screenplay.

According to Wikipedia, Safe House was Washington’s second highest grossing movie to date. Guggenheim is “really proud of [his movie].”

“I didn’t think it would make $40 million opening weekend. I’m happy people liked it.”

He believes Washington was the first one cast in the movie and Reynolds was cast second.

“I can’t imagine anyone else doing it,” Guggenheim said about Reynolds portraying Matt Weston. “I think you see a totally different side of Ryan that you don’t usually get to see.”

Guggenheim has been inspired by a number of Hollywood writers such as Robert Goldman, Robert Towne, Lawrence Kasdan, Shane Black, and Joss Whedon. He considers all these writers, “character driven writers who have written huge action movies.”

“All these guys are amazing teachers.”

He considers Shane to be living the writer’s life, whom he considers a person who went off to write his own movies, which started with Lethal Weapon.

“I like that his scripts are his voice,” he said about Black, who is “generating new original material.”

Whedon’s name came up because Guggenheim had recently seen The Avengers, which he considers “incredible writing.”

“This is writing you try to achieve.”

The advice to would-be writers is always “write what you know,” he said. He claims he “doesn’t really know that much.” He does have five movies from the 1970s that have inspired him. Those movies are Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, Marathon Man, All the Presidents’ Men, and The Conversation, which Guggenheim considers “incredible.”

His advice to writers is to “keep writing.”

“If one script doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t mean you are not a good writer. That script had issues. Learn from that and keep writing. Just don’t give up.”

Guggenheim has worked with Tony Scott and Ron Howard and is working with McG right now, but would love to work with Stephen Spielberg, he said. He loves working with other writers too.

“Those are my idols,” he said, referring to other writers. “I get much more nervous about meeting writers that I have been following then, like, the biggest director in Hollywood.”

This screenwriter doesn’t have any other aspirations other than to write.

“I would prefer just sitting in a room writing …”

Along with his next movie Stolen, which is in post-production, directed by West and starring Cage, he is co-writing a novel, Exile, with his friend, Nick Mennuti, which will be published by Little Brown.

This article appears on the DVD Snapshot website.

Apr 12 2012

Two Actors Leave the Forest to Discuss ‘The Cabin in the Woods’

Two Actors Leave the Woods to Discuss The Cabin in the Woods

by Jason Harris

Actors Kristen Connolly and Fran Krantz. Photo by Jason Harris.

Kristen Connolly and Fran Krantz, two of the stars of The Cabin in the Woods, recently sat down in a Boston hotel to discuss their movie, which opens in theaters on Friday.

The movie was written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard and directed by Goddard.

Krantz thought the script was “perfect” while Connolly was “surprised” by it.

“I was blown away when I first read it,” Krantz said. “I worked with Joss so I expected it to be more than what the title suggested.”

He never could have predicted in his “wildest imagination” where this movie was going.

The Cabin in the Woods movie poster. Photo by Jason Harris.

“The poster says, you think you know the story, but it couldn’t be more accurate,” Krantz said.

As Connolly was reading the script, it was hard for her to picture some parts including the scene where her character is getting the crap beat out of her, she said. But in the finish product, the music in that scene is “really amazing.”

Krantz felt such a strong connection to the script and felt an “ownership” to it, which he considers “rare in an actor.”

“It was difficult if I didn’t get it, it was going to haunt me for the rest of my life because I loved the movie so much on paper.”

Even though the movie was shot in 2009, Krantz never lost faith that it would see the inside of a movie theater even though other people didn’t think it would.

“I knew how good the movie was,” Krantz said. “I was always confident that it would come out. It’s satisfying now that you can already feel the buzz around it.”

Connolly said, “it was cool to watch [the movie] at South by Southwest. It was so crazy, it was like a rock show. There was cheering and laughing. It was so cool that there was so much energy in that room. It was a truly extraordinary experience.”

Both Connolly and Krantz auditioned for their parts in the movie. At the time, Krantz was working on Whedon’s newest television series, but that didn’t give him a leg up on anyone else.

“I auditioned like any other movie, which was weird since I was working on Dollhouse,” Krantz said.

When Goddard visited the set to talk over possible shooting locations with Whedon before Krantz even got a call about auditioning for a part, he walked over to where they were talking.

“I’m a big horror film fan so I just kind of wandered over. I wanted to see what they were talking about. They were looking at potential lakes for potential shooting locations.”

Krantz said, one of those locations was “the original Friday the 13th Camp Crystal Lake.”

“I started geeking out,” Krantz said. “I was a big fan of those movies.”

He told them it would be so cool if they would film the movie there, but the movie ended up being filmed in Vancouver.

Krantz and Connolly had good things to say about some of their co-stars.

“I think Richard [Jenkins] and Bradley’s [Whitford] performances are so funny,” Connolly said.

Krantz thought everyone on the movie brought their “’A’ game.”

Krantz said, “the performances are so great across the board.”

During filming, he saw the dailies of co-star Chris Hemsworth and thought he was “a movie star.” Hemsworth received his role in Thor and the Red Dawn remake while filming The Cabin in the Woods. Chris’ younger brother, Liam, was considered for the role of Thor first before it went to Chris, Krantz said.

“I know Joss called Kenneth Branagh and at some point it started shifting gears in his direction,” Krantz said. “I was not surprised at all.”

Connolly thought it was a great break and a “no brainer” that Hemsworth received the role of Thor.

The Cabin in the Woods is full of scares and fears. Everything a person can be afraid of is in the movie, Connolly said.

“I think what I feel most afraid of is drowning or being buried alive.”

She mentioned a particular scene in the movie where she is in a pond. She also found it hard to watch the scene in Kill Bill:Vol. 2, where Uma Thurman’s character is buried alive.

“I have to get up and leave the room because [that scene] is so intense,” Connolly said about Kill Bill.

The fear that bothers Krantz is “claustrophobia.”

“The Descent killed me because of that. The monsters were scary, but I was far more uncomfortable with the earlier tight space moments.”

You can travel tomorrow to see what fears The Cabin in the Woods contains when it opens in theaters nationwide.

Apr 9 2012

Director Talks about ‘Detention’

Director Talks about ‘Detention’

by Jason Harris

Director Joshua Khan. Photo by Meghan Swan.

Music video and film director Joseph Kahn is making the kind of movies he would want to watch and his current movie, Detention, comes out this Friday.

He describes Detention, which he co-wrote with Mark Palermo as a multi-genre movie that contains elements of horror, science fiction, time traveling, high school comedy, and kung-fu. Horror starts it out, but there are big chunks of the movie that have nothing to do with horror, he said.

Kahn says his film is “a high school movie for the kids today.” Detention can be enjoyed not only by kids, but by older people too.

“It’s not a movie about movies. It’s a movie about pop culture.”

His agenda was “to make a high school movie that felt like high school today” and how teens literally see the world.

“I don’t think being a kid is all that negative that Hollywood portrays it to be,” Kahn said. “I feel like when you are youthful there is optimism. The world is open and the older you get that kind of fades a little bit so it was a nice sort of moment to try and get in there and try to capture that.”

He knows that some negativity has to come into the picture to bring out the drama.

When he and Palermo started writing the movie, they thought about writing a slasher film, but it morphed into something else because of how he sees things, Kahn said.

Kahn made his first movie, Torque, which came out in 2004. He considers himself picky when choosing projects to do. One reason is because movie making is “a big time consuming effort.” It took him five years to create Detention, he said.

“I don’t believe I need to make 20, 30 movies in my lifetime. I feel like if I only make a handful of movies then each one counts.”

Before directing movies, Kahn was creating music videos for musicians like Britney Spears, U2, and the Backstreet Boys.

“I have always been, from a very early age, tied into music and pop culture. I’m like an old guy that still understands what everyone else has because I sell it. I’m a music video director for the most part.”

Kahn went to New York University to study film directing and “grew up watching a ton of movies.”

He thinks it’s better for a potential movie director to have been a waiter than a music video director.

“It just seems like a lot of people discount music videos as a negative towards feature film making,” Kahn said.

He considers himself to be an experienced filmmaker since he has shot 500 music videos. It’s about the process an individual person learns from the experience, he said.

“It’s really strange to me for the last 20 years all I have been doing every day is shooting and editing and learning and processing.”

Kahn paid for Detention with a combination of his personal funds and taking out loans. The best part of doing the movie was spending his own money and being able to do whatever he wanted on the movie, he said.

He enjoyed the freedom of bankrolling his own movie since he had no one looking over his shoulder like he did on Torque.

“On Torque, every time I set up something some script supervisor would say, ‘Ok Joseph Kahn is putting the camera in a weird place and we have to report this to the studio because it won’t cut together.’ I would get those types of things every day.”

There is one recognizable actor in Detention. Dane Cook portrays Principal Verge.

The director knew Cook ever since he cast him in a cameo role in Torque, which was Cook’s first movie.

“The studio fought me on it because they didn’t know who he was at the time,” Kahn said about casting Cook in Torque.

Kahn told the studio Cook was funny, would be great for the role and had a lot of fans, he said.

Cook liked the Detention script, but was resistant to doing the movie because “it was low-budget and he was in a weird place in his life,” Kahn said. He also didn’t want to play a high school principal because it would date him and it was so out of character for him.

“He plays the cool guy who has sex with a lot of girls,” Kahn said about Cook’s usual roles, but eventually he decided to portray the principal.

Cook’s character is a guy that has been crushed by life who resents and hates all the kids, Kahn said.

“It’s so against his imaging and I think its fun to see him in that role.”

He has some ideas for future projects, but since they would be expensive he would need studio backing to get them made.

“You can’t make a $100 million dollar movie without having to answer to somebody.”

Kahn doesn’t know what the future holds for him, but he does know what he wants to do.

“I just want to make movies. I just look at it one film at a time.”

Mar 8 2012

Interview with Actor/Comedian Kevin Pollak

This article originally appeared on the DVD Snapshot website.

Interview: Actor/Comedian Kevin Pollak

by Jason Harris

Necessity is the mother of invention and the reason why Columbus Circle came to be.

“This is the most ridiculous example of the necessity being the mother of invention,” said Kevin Pollak in a phone interview.

Columbus Circle, which he co-wrote with the movie’s director, George Gallo, came about when producer Christopher Mallick’s financing for a remake of a Korean movie fell apart when the Korean government took back the movie rights in 2009, Pollak said.

This bad news came to Mallick as he was at the Cannes Film Festival celebrating the movie, Middle Men, with its cast that included Giovanni Ribisi, who is also in Columbus Circle, and Pollak.

Since Mallick already had two apartment sets built in Los Angeles for his now defunct remake, Pollack told him he would come up with an idea that night and they would go over it on the 11-hour trip home the next day to figure it out.

He was up most of the night coming up with the story for Columbus Circle, which concerns an heiress portrayed by Selma Bair, who is holed up in her apartment and no one knows who she is, and the couple who move into the apartment across the hall from her.

You can read the rest of the interview by clicking here.

Jan 26 2012

‘Scary Scribes’ Debuts Sunday Night

Scary Scribes Debuts Sunday Night

by Jason Harris

The Scary Scribes' Skeleton

Scary Scribes, a new podcast created by author Kristi Petersen Schoonover to share horror stories written by horror writers, airs this Sunday at 6 p.m. on the Paranormal Eh? Radio Network.

Author Stacey Longo will be Schoonover’s first guest on this new monthly podcast. They will be discussing Longo’s “People Person,” which was published in the anthology, Dark Things IV, published by Pill Hill Press. Besides sharing the writer’s story, Schoonover will talk with Longo about the idea behind the tale.

According to Schoonover’s website, the thing that “will make Scary Scribes a bit different is it won’t be just an interview; listeners will get to hear some of the writer’s work first — in most cases, a complete short story.”

The new podcast is a collaborative effort with Canada-based Paranormal, Eh? radio’s Terry Konig. Scary Scribes will be broadcast on the last Sunday of every month. For more information, check out the podcast’s website. There is also a Facebook page for Scary Scribes.

Both Schoonover and Longo are members of the New England Horror Writers’ organization.

Jan 10 2012

The HWA Announces 2012 Recipients for Lifetime Achievement

The HWA Announces 2012 Recipients for Lifetime Achievement

by Jason Harris

The Horror Writers Association has announced the 2012 recipients of its Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Rick Hautala (photo courtesy of his Facebook page)

The two recipients of the award are NEHW member Rick Hautala and Joe R. Lansdale.

Hautala and Lansdale join previous recipients such as Stephen King, F. Paul Wilson, John Carpenter, Thomas Harris (no relation), Anne Rice, Charles L. Grant, Harlan Ellison, and Ramsey Campbell to name a just a few of the people who have been honored with this award.

Hautala, who recently had his first novel, Moondeath, rereleased by Evil Jester Press and is in the NEHW’s first anthology, Epitaphs, released last year, said that receiving the award was “unexpected.”

Lansdale’s novel, All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky and the e-book, Bullets and Fire, were released last year. His newest book, Edge of Dark Water, comes out March 25.

“Truthfully, I am more humbled than excited by it,” Hautala said. “There are so many other writers who, I think, are much more deserving. I feel like Carrie White at the prom.”

Lansdale “was surprised” and “maybe even shocked” when he heard about the honor, he said.

Joe R. Lansdale (photo courtesy of his Facebook page)

“It’s an honor to be given this award along with Rick,” Lansdale said.

According to the HWA website, “the Lifetime Achievement Award is the most prestigious of all awards presented by the HWA. It does not merely honor the superior achievement embodied in a single work. Instead, it is an acknowledgement of superior achievement in an entire career.”

A committee chooses the recipients for the lifetime achievement award instead of it being voted on by the entire associations’ active membership, the website said. By having an committee, it “prevents unseemly competition” and the “impression that there are any losers in this category.”

Hautala said, he will “accept the award with humility and — yes, a measure of pride.”

He feels better “sharing the stage with Lansdale, who has been a great friend” for many years.

“As Harlan Ellison says: ’Becoming a writer is easy. It’s staying a writer that’s hard.’ So this award should be an inspiration to young and aspiring writers everywhere … If you stick around long enough, eventually they have to notice you.” Hautala said.

Lansdale agrees with Hautala’s sentiment about having to be noticed when “you have been around long enough.”

“… I like to think we’ve contributed to the field of horror and dark suspense, and that there’s someone out there who became a fan, or writer of horror, because of something I wrote, or something Rick wrote,” Lansdale said. “Again, it’s a great and respected honor.”

Jan 6 2012

Author Talks ‘Suicide’ with the NEHW

Interview with Author J.P. Freeman

by Doug Rinaldi

J.P. Freeman (photo courtesy of Freeman)

Q:  First off, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about who this J.P. Freeman guy is, where he’s been, and what he’s done.

A: Well, first off let me say I really appreciate this opportunity to say hello to the New England Horror Writers. I’ve never been too good at these types of things but I’ll give it my best shot. A little bit about me … I was born in Maine and I have lived here my whole life. I have always been interested in arts and entertainment. In high school I started to play around with music, joining multiple underground heavy metal bands. I continued down that path for a few years after high school until, I finally realized that it wasn’t something I wanted to do, or could do for that matter, for the rest of my life. I also knew that a regular nine to five [job] wouldn’t work for me. I needed a way to express my creative side. There were too many ideas locked in my head looking for a way to escape. So I picked up a pen and started to let them out. At that point I started to look into horror anthologies, hoping to get a few of my shorts published. I managed to get a few of them published, one of them being Suicide Man, which ended up being the seed that Things Better Left Unsaid sprouted from.

Things Better Left Unsaid cover (photo courtesy of J.P. Freeman)

Q:  What is the story and concept behind “Things Better Left Unsaid”?  Why the name change from Suicide Man to Things Better Left Unsaid?

A: Things Better Left Unsaid is the story of a man named, Dale Hicks. Dale is a man at the end of his rope. With nothing left to live for, he decides to end his miserable life. Only, things don’t go exactly as planned for Dale. He wakes finding himself in a strange place surrounded by strange people. Unable to find a way out Dale hits rock bottom. Just when things seem like they couldn’t get any worse, a chance encounter with a little girl turns Dale’s existence upside down.

Suicide Man is the name of the short story in which Things Better Left Unsaid is based, but the two stories are very different. I think when you pick up the first issue and see the first page you will see why Suicide Man was an easy first choice. In the end I just thought the comic should have a name of its own so I went with Things Better Left Unsaid.

Q:  Most obvious question, why did you choose the comic book medium for this tale?  Did Things Better Left Unsaid exist in any other more traditional formats prior to this decision?

A:  As I mentioned earlier, this was originally a short story I did called Suicide Man. I set out working on a collection of short stories and Suicide Man was the first or second story that I came up with. As I tried to move forward I kept thinking about how I could link these new stories to Suicide Man, or how I could have used these new ideas to make that story even stronger. So my collection of random short stories started to become a book of stories about the same group of characters and they all tied in at the end. There was just something about these people that kept calling to me to tell their tale. It started to seem like Dale didn’t want to die after all, like maybe he had a bigger purpose.  To me it seemed like a television show on paper more than a collection of short stories. Then I thought “man, this would be cool as a comic book.” I didn’t really think a comic book would be possible because I can’t draw all that well. So I put out an ad to see if I could find anyone that would be interested in illustrating for me. I got over a hundred applicants! I was pretty amazed by the response. I sat and looked through all the drawings people sent in and narrowed it down to a handful. After that I contacted the few that I was interested in working with and Kelsey Ranallo stood out among the applicants and I quickly signed her on as the artist for the comics.

Q:  Tell us a little something about the artist you have turning Things Better Left Unsaid into a work of visual art.

A: Her name is Kelsey Ranallo. She’s the best. I came into this project not knowing and proper terminology or specifications, nothing. She had to take the time to explain things as we went along (which I’m sure wasn’t fun for her) and keep me from losing my mind in the process. She had me script out my story into comic book pages and panels and describe in detail my character concepts. The next thing I knew the people in my head were coming to life on paper! That has been the coolest part for me, actually seeing my characters in action.

Q:  How many issues are you aiming for with this story?  What are the plans for it once it reaches its conclusion?

A: There are going to be 8 issues. Once they are all finished the series will be released as one graphic novel.

Q:  What’s the release schedule look like for this series?  What are your plans for getting your story out to the masses?  Any publishers or comic book imprints looking to scoop this up?

A: As of right now it looks to be quarterly. I hope to get them out faster but for right now that is the plan. The first issue will be out January 13th. Each issue will be twelve pages and the graphic novel will be 96 pages when completed. I plan to self release the comics via www.comixpress.com and I will be offering signed copies on my website at www.jpfreemanpresents.com. I am also looking into making it available in digital format but that will be down the road a little bit. So far I haven’t submitted it to any publishers, but if you know of anyone interested send them my way!

Q:  What’s next for J.P. Freeman?  Tell us about your plans after Things Better Left Unsaid?  If it’s successful, do you see yourself sticking with this medium or going back to a more traditional form of storytelling?

A: There are a few things in the works for me. I plan to continue writing short stories and to put out a collection of them in the near future. I would also love to sit down and write my first novel this year. If Things Better Left Unsaid catches on I would definitely like to continue writing comic books as well (as long as people want to read them). I am really enjoying working on a project with a continuing story arc.

Q:  Any advice for aspiring writers who want to challenge themselves and the status quo of genre fiction writing?

A: Even though it feels like everything has been done before, it’s important to come up with something original. Make sure to put your own little twist on anything you try to create. Don’t follow the rules of writing. Make your own rules and push the envelope. Be sure to write everything down. All your ideas, as small as they may seem at the time, may come in handy in the future. A lot of Things Better Left Unsaid came from bits and pieces of multiple stories and ideas fused together. Don’t ever completely scrap anything. That idea that seems terrible today might not seem so bad after all in the future. I can’t count the times I woke up in the night with a bit of a story stuck in my head. I sleep with a notebook next to me so I can jot down any ideas that come to me in slumber land. Also don’t show anyone what you’re working on until it’s finished. If you let someone close to you read a work in progress they may steer you in a direction you didn’t intend to go. Don’t let others corrupt your baby.

Q:  Anything else you want to tell us?  Advice?  Comments?  Shameless plugs?  Go for it!

A: I just hope everyone stops by and says hello on one of my sites or pages. I would really appreciate it if people would like my author page on Facebook, www.facebook.com/jpfreemanpresents and stop by my website at www.jpfreemanpresents.com. There will be links there for Things Better Left Unsaid as well as my other available projects. I enjoy interacting with other writers and fans so don’t be shy.

                                                                     ~

Doug Rinaldi is a member of the NEHW and a part of the publicity committee.

Dec 23 2011

The NEHW Creeps into Sci-Fi Saturday Night

The NEHW Creeps into Sci-Fi Saturday Night

by Stacey Longo

Several New England Horror Writer members have been appearing or are scheduled to appear on Sci-Fi Saturday Night.

Craig D. B. Patton’s short story “Aftershocks” was spotlighted on the site’s Fiction Friday entry for 12/10/11. Bob Bois had a flash fiction piece appear on the site on 12/16/11, taken from his blog.

Kristi Petersen Schoonover was featured on the podcast dated 12/17/11, talking about Skeletons in the Swimming Hole and her upcoming novel, Bad Apple. You can download her interview here.

NEHW members on the slate to appear on the Sci-Fi Saturday Night podcast before the end of the year are Kasey Shoemaker, who will be interviewed on the 12/24/11 show, and Rob Watts, scheduled for 12/31/11.

Editor’s note: Stacey Longo is a NEHW member and part of the Publicity Committee.

Oct 27 2011

NEHW’s First Anthology Now Available and the Planned Book Release Party

The first NEHW anthology, Epitaphs, is now available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982727593/ref=ox_ya_os_product). The price is $12.99 plus $3.99 for shipping and handling.

The cover of NEHW

Amazon states, “the New England Horror Writers Association, in partnership with Shroud Publishing, are proud to debut its inaugural anthology, Epitaphs. The anthology is a compilation of some of the best dark fiction from both best-selling authors and up-and- coming writers throughout New England. Contributors include Christopher Golden, Rick Hautala, Holly Newstein & Glenn Chadbourne, LL Soares, Trisha Wooldridge, Kurt Newton, and more. The anthology features 26 stories and poems from the delightfully scary to the deeply macabre.

Epitaphs was edited by author Tracy L. Carbone and includes an introduction by award-winning author and publisher Peter Crowther, as well as a cover by Danny Evarts.

The table of contents in this chilling anthology is as follows:

Jeffrey C. Pettengill “To Sleep, Perchance to Die”
Paul McMahon “The Christopher Chair”
Kurt Newton “A Case of the Quiets”
Scott T. Goudsward “Build-a-Zombie”
John Goodrich “Not an Ulcer”
B. Adrian White “The Possesor Worm”
John M. McIlveen “Make a Choice”
Michael Allen Todd “The Death Room”
Rick Hautala “Perfect Witness”
Holly Newstein and Glenn Chadbourne “Stoney’s Boneyard”
Trisha J. Wooldridge “Kali’s Promise”
David Bernard “The Sequel”
David North-Martino “Malfeasance”
Stacey Longo “Private Beach”
Christopher Golden “All Aboard”
L.L. Soares “Holiday House”
Steven Withrow “Lines at a Wake”
K. Allen Wood “A Deeper kind of Cold”
P. Gardner Goldsmith “Alone”
Roxanne Dent “Pandora’s Box”
Michael Arruda “Chuck the Magic Man Says I Can”
T.T. Zuma “Burial Board”
John Grover “Windblown Shutter”
Stephen Dorato “Cheryl Takes a Trip”
Philip Roberts “The Legend of Wormley Farm”
Peter N. Dudar “Church of Thunder and Lightning”

Carbone, a New England native, has published several horror and literary short stories in magazines and anthologies in the U.S. and Canada. Her YA horror novel, The Soul Collector, will be released by Shadowfall Publications in late fall 2011. She is Co-Chair of the New England Horror Writers (NEHW) and a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA).

There will be a book release party for Epitaphs and a panel with a few of the authors from the anthology at AnthoCon, Nov. 11 through 13. There will be a special table for the anthology at the convention as well. Throughout the weekend, most of the authors in Epitaphs will be available to sign copies.

Presented by Shroud Publishing, The Anthology 2011 Conference will “showcase the imaginative talent in speculative fiction and art, with an additional focus on the convergence of images and literature,” according to the AnthoCon website (http://anthocon.com/).

The NEHW will also have a table where members can sell their books and other items at the convention.

The cover of Shroud issue #11

Like other cons, well-known writers will be on hand, among them Christopher Golden (Of Saints and Shadows), who will offer a reading and signing; Jonathan Maberry, who read from one of his new novels; and Jennifer Pelland, who will read from her debut novel, Machine. There will be an extensive dealer area which will feature books, films, artwork, comics, and more. There will also be a Juried Art Exhibit to include such shelf familiars as Ogmios (The Witches’ Almanac), Morbideus Goodell (Apex Digest, Maberry’s Vampire and Cryptopaedia), and Michael Bailey (who is also the editor of Pellucid Lunacy, an anthology of psychological horror and several novels).

“[AnthoCon] has some amazing authors, publishers and film people attending,” said Tracy L. Carbone, editor of Epitaphs, New England Horror Writers Association’s first official anthology. “It should prove to be the best new Con for horror folks out there.”

Jonathan Maberry (photo courtesy of the Anthocon website)

But what makes AnthoCon unique is its focus on the nine panels’ concentration on education for both writers and horror fans. For example, Reaching through the Veil will examine the channeling of myth, religion, spirituality and the collective unconscious in imaginative fiction; Getting Your Short Story Published with the Small Press will offer insight on finding, submitting, and selling your short story; Evil Jester Press Presents “Help! Wanted: Tales of On-The-Job Terror” will dissect the process of producing an anthology. Horror names Brian Keene, Rick Hautala, Cat Valente, Maberry, Joseph

Nassise, Pelland, and Golden will present I’ve Made It This Far, Now What?, using their paths to literary success to illumine what the process could be like for those in attendance.

Brian Keene (photo courtesy of Anthocon website)

Topics also go deeper with Writing Programs: from the MFA to Private Workshops. And Eric Red (The Hitcher, Near Dark) will present a lecture and workshop The Elements of Writing Horror and Thrillers for Films.

Aside from guests, vendors, and panelists, the event promises to draw a unique crowd to include film and book reviewers and magazine editors—like Peter Schwotzer, the man at the helm of Literary Mayhem (http://literarymayhem.com/) who also reviews anthologies, lit-zines and books for Famous Monsters of Filmland and IMDB.

“I’m going mainly to meet a lot of authors I’ve met over the past couple of years in person. We correspond by e-mails, phone, Twitter, Facebook, etc., but it will be nice to meet face to face,” Schwotzer said. “All of the authors have been so kind and generous to me, it still boggles my mind that I actually correspond with my literary heroes.”

With so much to offer that seems to be different from what’s offered at other cons, this promises to be a great inauguration with long-lasting recurring potential—writer or fan, artist or reviewer, don’t miss out.

AnthoCon 2011 will be held at the Best Western Wynwood Hotel & Suites at 580 US Route 1 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from Friday, Nov. 11 through Sunday, Nov. 13. For complete information on AnthoCon, including schedules, costs, and who will be there, visit www.anthocon.com.