“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it’s when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it’s when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there…” Stephen King
Thursday evening eight San Francisco Bay Area horror authors read samples of their stories (and poems, Sumiko Saulson) for the San Mateo Library Second Annual Tales of Horror, which was organized by author, artist and speaker Emerian Rich in collaboration with members of Horror Addicts.net and library staff. What a fun way to kick-off Halloween celebrations. Horror is not my genre but I find it a good occasional escape and certainly so at this time of year.
The evening was dominated by welcome and expected thrills and chills and more than a soupçon of laughter and sweet treats. I venture to say, it was enjoyed by all, fans and authors.
If you are reading this in an email subscription, you’ll probably have to link through to the site to view the slide show included here:
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We writers tend to be introverts, often resistant to the necessary survival skills of self-promotion and marketing. It’s always interesting to me to see how other writers are marketing themselves: imaginative business cards, fanciful post cards, small bound copies of an excerpt from a chapbook (Loren Rhodes), and little bags of Halloween tchotchkes along with a business card (Sumiko Saulson). Take note in the interview below: Emerian Rich leaves time in her schedule for marketing. Bravo!
EMERIAN RICH (The Official Website of Emerian Rich) is the author of the vampire book series, Night’s Knights. She also writes the Sweet Dreams Musical Romance Series under the name Emmy Z. Madrigal. Her novel, Artistic License, mixes both horror and romance. She’s been published in anthologies by publishers such as Dragon Moon Press, Hidden Thoughts Press, Hazardous Press, and White Wolf Press. Emerian is the podcast horror hostess of HorrorAddicts.net. She is the Editorial Director for the San Francisco Bay Area based magazine, SEARCH.
JAMIE: Have you always written in this genre and what is the attraction for you … and for readers?
EMERIAN: I have written in many genres. I love Horror because it just has a special calling to me. It’s like the whisper of a ghost in the hallways of my soul. I also write Romance under the name Emmy Z. Madrigal. I have a New Adult series called Sweet Dreams Musical Romance and I have a few Regency Romances out as well as a modern rewrite of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey coming soon.
JAMIE: What’s the special attraction of steampunk?
EMERIAN: I think people like the mixture of the past with new technology that could have been discovered back then had history taken an alternate course. It’s the draw of… What would our ancestors do if they knew what we knew? Also, the fashion is just cool.
JAMIE: Do you have a “day job”?
EMERIAN: I am a writer, artist, and voice actress full time.
JAMIE: What is your writing schedule/routine like?
EMERIAN: I get up and write/blog/market/network just like anyone with an office job, only I get to do it in my PJs most of the time. 🙂 However, I work harder than I ever did when I went to an office. I usually work from about 7am to 5pm every day – and on weekends. If I’m on deadline, I will work again from 8pm to 12am, or 2am, or whenever I am done or fall asleep on my keyboard. HA! I try to take one day off a week, but it rarely happens.
JAMIE: What is your best advice for aspiring horror writers?
EMERIAN: Write, write, and write more. Don’t dwell on one book for too long. Write a story and edit it, but don’t pin your hopes on one book. Once you get published you’ll have much less creative time and more demand for your work. It will be nice to have a closet full of books and stories available to pull out and tighten up.
EMERIAN: HorrorAddicts.net is a podcast, blog, and publisher for Horror Addicts, by Horror Addicts. We strive to cover the whole lifestyle of horror fans. Not just movies and media, but also books, fashion, lifestyle, and news.
JAMIE: There are a lot of activities going on at Horror Adicts. When it comes to writing competitions or other calls for submissions, what qualities separate the wheat from the chaff?
EMERIAN: Last year we held the first ever Next Great Horror Writer Contest where the best new horror writers competed for the chance to win a book contract with Crystal Lake Publishing. It was a tough competition where the authors had to fulfill thirteen challenges and their accumulative score would win them a chance to be in the final and be published. It was great fun and we met a lot of new writers that have since gone on to brilliant careers.
Our winner, Jonathan Fortin, is off to a great start and I expect to see great things from him. He’s already been published in several anthologies and his novel will be coming out in 2019 from Crystal Lake.
We are deciding whether to hold another Next Great Horror Writer Contest next year in 2019. You can keep up to date with that by subscribing to our blog. We will make announcements as soon as we know.
Also, every year we publish an anthology. This year, it is titled Kill Switch and the theme is tech horror. The submission guidelines can be found online and it closes October 31st, so pretty soon we will have tons of stories to read! How we make the decision on who gets published is with a panel of submission editors. We read all the stories, giving them a score between 0-5. Those with the highest scores are considered in a second round and then we create a well-rounded anthology that our readers will enjoy. For a story to be chosen, it must meet the theme and submission requirements as well as being scary and telling us a story we haven’t heard before, or at least in a new and different way.
Horror Addicts.net Submission Call direct link HERE.
“We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.” Stephen King
FOR HORROR LOVERS ONLY
This weekend in Sacramento, CA
For the horror genre lovers and writers among you, join HorrorAddicts.net and authors Mercy Hollow, Emerian Rich, E.M. Markoff, and J. Malcolm Stewart at Sinister Creature Con. Look for them at a vendor table in the Main Hall, 6151 H St, Sacramento, CA 95819
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and the associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The River Journal,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Poetry ” . . . was a form of incantation, a means of welding the world inside his head to the one that surrounded him, words the fiery chain that bound it all together.”Elizabeth Hand, Radiant Days
BELLVIEW LITERARY REVIEW publishes creative nonfiction and poetry with a $5 reading fee that is waved for subscribers. “The BLR remains committed to publishing superb writing on themes of health, healing, illness, body and mind.” Details HERE.
LUNCH TICKET, a publication of the Creative Writing MFA program at Antioch College, is open through October 31 for submissions of poetry. Details HERE. (Scroll down on the page.)
SALMAGUNDI, a publication of Skidmore College, will open for submissions of poetry, fiction, personal essay and cultural criticism on January 1 (mark your calendar) publishes poetry. Details HERE.
FOR HORROR LOVERS ONLY
This weekend in Sacramento, CA
For the horror genre lovers and writers among you, join HorrorAddicts.net and authors Mercy Hollow, Emerian Rich, E.M. Markoff, and J. Malcolm Stewart at Sinister Creature Con. Look for them at a vendor table in the Main Hall, 6151 H St, Sacramento, CA 95819
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and the associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The River Journal,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Close-up of Braille page courtesy of Lrcg2012 under CC BY-SA 3.0
“It is humbling to know that when the weakest amongst us is in need, you answered the call with a steely determination and a steadfast courage to make a difference,” Stevie Wonder told delegates as they signed the treaty. “Today we all are brothers and sisters in the struggle to make this life and the future better, not for one, but for all.”
On June 28, 2018, the U.S. Senate approved the Marrakesh Treaty Implementation Act (bill S. 2559) without apparent opposition; the House approved S.2559 via unanimous consent on September 25, 2018. The bill and the Treaty were signed into law by the President this past Tuesday.
This law makes changes to U.S. copyright law that would bring the United States into compliance with the terms of the Marrakesh Treaty. The treaty, which so far is ratified by forty-three countries, facilitates the reproduction and cross-border distribution of books in accessible formats.
Once the State Department notifies the World Intellectual Property Organization—the treaty’s administrator—of its ratification, the Library of Congress, National Library Service (NLS) for the Blind and Physically Handcapped will provide guidance on how it will impact NLS and its network libraries.
“An estimated 253 million people live with vision impairment: 36 million are blind and 217 million have moderate to severe vision impairment. 81% of people who are blind or have moderate or severe vision impairment are aged 50 years and above.” World Health Organization
The Marrakish Treaty Implementation Act allows for copyright exceptions to facilitate the creation of accessible versions of books and other copyrighted works for visually impaired persons. It sets a norm for countries ratifying the treaty to have a domestic copyright exception covering these activities, and allowing for the import and export of such materials.
Sixty three (recently 28 European countries also ratified) countries signed the treaty as of the close of the diplomatic conference in Marrakesh. The ratification of 20 states was required for the treaty to enter into effect; the 20th ratification was received on 30 June 2016, and the treaty entered into force on 30 September 2016.
India was the first country to ratify the treaty, on 24 July 2014.< As of June 26, 2018, 80 countries have signed the Treaty and 41 states have ratified it , most recently EU and Japan.
In March 2015, the Council of the European Union accused the European Commission of delaying the adoption of the treaty by EU and called upon the Commission “to submit without delay the necessary legislative proposal.” There is continued opposition by some EU member states.[
On September 20, 2017 the EU Commission published a directive and a regulation on the Marrakesh treaty that has to be transposed into national law, in all 28 member states, deadline for transposition: October 11, 2018.
The European Union has committed to ratification and implementation of the Treaty, and member states are required to update their national laws to implement the Treaty’s requirements later in 2018.
The European Union ratified the treaty for all 28 members on October 1, 2018. The provisions of the Treaty will go into effect across the EU (including in the United Kingdom) on January 1, 2019.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and the associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The River Journal,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“Ah forever!” I said. “I have such a love of that word, forever.” “Yes, it is a timeless word,” he said, raising his mossy eyebrows as he looked at me. “Time is ours, but forever belongs to God, don’t you think?” Anne Rice, Blood And Gold
Some look East
and some look West.
Birthing and dying
have their seasons.
Sun and moon stand
separate watch.
Ebb tides dimple
once smooth beaches.
Dark storms rise,
sunshine follows.
Lightening strikes,
sudden illumination.
Thunder pounds,
silence prevails.
Nothing distracts your
Westward gaze
nor stirs my eyes
from searching East,
but the heart,
a true compass,
says East and West,
Yin and Yang,
all come melting
into timelessness.
What’s your call? Where do you imagine – or know – it all ends (or doesn’t)?
Share your poem/s on theme or a link to it/them in the comments section below.
All poems on theme will be published next Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook. If you do it’s likely I’ll miss it or not see it in time.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These will be partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, October 15 by 8 p.m. Pacific.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and the associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The River Journal,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
EMERIAN RICH (The Official Website of Emerian Rich) is the author of the vampire book series, Night’s Knights. She also writes the Sweet Dreams Musical Romance Series under the name Emmy Z. Madrigal. Her novel, Artistic License, mixes both horror and romance. She’s been published in anthologies by publishers such as Dragon Moon Press, Hidden Thoughts Press, Hazardous Press, and White Wolf Press. Emerian is the podcast horror hostess of HorrorAddicts.net. She is the Editorial Director for the San Francisco Bay Area based magazine, SEARCH.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 