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Hi Gang!
Happy Spring (unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere)! I hope your season so far is full of abundant growing things and a minimal amount of allergies.
Spring may be only a week old as I write this, but it's already been a great season for me as Ghost Stories continues to rack up extraordinary reviews, the latest one being from The New York Times (who said you might "find yourself spooked to the core"). I can't wait to hear from some of you after you read the book!
Lisa
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Still Life
In which I rhapsodize about favorite movie photos from my collection
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So now Dune is on the remake chopping block.
Yeah, I know that sounds snarky, and I'm sure the remake will be pretty decent...but...well, okay, I love David Lynch's 1984 version.
It doesn't hurt that Dune is one of my favorite books. I read it when I was a teenager (I still have my Science Fiction Book Club edition, although somewhere along the way I managed to get it signed by Frank Herbert); oh, and it's also convenient that David Lynch is my favorite American filmmaker.
I saw Dune on opening day - when they gave out little printed glossaries to the audience - and although I had issues with it, I still think at least 80% of the movie is stunning. First, there's that cast, which is almost exactly the way I pictured the characters in the book (with the exception of Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, but I know now that he was a last-minute replacement for actor Aldo Rey, who perfectly matched the book's description of Gurney). I especially adore Francesca Annis as Lady Jessica...who may be my favorite character in any book ever.
And those sets and costumes...c'mon, look at that still above! They shot the movie at the Churubusco Studios in Mexico, and the craftsmen didn't cheat anything - the wood trim is real wood, the costumes sewn by hand. It just doesn't look like any other movie, and I think that attention to detail is one reason why.
Although Dune was much maligned during its initial release, I think it has found an audience in the decades since, or at least it seems like I see Dune mentioned a lot more these days on favorite movie lists. It's certainly on mine.
ABOUT THE STILL: I don't remember exactly where or when I acquired this - it's a lovely 8"x10" color glossy.
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The Halloween Spirit
Tips for keeping it going all year 'round
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Thanks to my friends at U.S. Postal for announcing these wonderful new Halloween stamps for 2019!
I had the pleasure of serving on the "Spooky Silhouettes" as consultant. In case you're wondering what that means, here's how it works: I look at the stamps, offer any feedback, and fact-check all of their press releases regarding the stamps.
I also had the consultant gig with the 2016 Jack-o'-Lantern stamps - which were the first official U.S. stamps to celebrate Halloween - but this time around was a little different: although I won't go into specifics, one of the "Spooky Silhouettes" stamps got a big makeover when they took my comments seriously!
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Strange Fruit
The weirdest thing I've recently uncovered in my research
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This August will mark the 50th anniversary of the Manson Family murders of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, and three others, which explains why one of the worst crimes of the 20th century seems to be back in the media lately.
While recently researching one of the "Ghost Report" bits I'm providing for the weekly podcast "Ghost Magnet", I was surprised to learn one more creepy fact surrounding the event: Jay Sebring, the hairdresser and one-time lover of Sharon Tate who happened to be visiting that night, lived a short distance away in L.A.'s Benedict Canyon...in a supposedly haunted house.
Sebring's house, which he bought in 1963, had once been owned by a 1930s Hollywood producer named Paul Bern, who married superstar Jean Harlow. Only a few months after their wedding, Bern was found dead by gunshot in the house; the death was ruled suicide, although some believed it was a homicide.
In 1966, Sharon Tate was staying at Sebring's house when she awoke in the master bedroom (where Bern had died) and saw an apparition of a "creepy little man." Fleeing the room, she encountered another vision, this one a figure with a slit throat.
Some now believe that the second specter was an omen of Sharon's own death three years later.
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"Children of the Long Night"
(originally published in the anthology The Mammoth Book of Dracula, republished in 2017's In the Footsteps of Dracula)
Back in 1997, when editor Stephen Jones approached me about contributing a story to his anthology The Mammoth Book of Dracula, I was still somewhat of a new writer (I'd only been writing and selling horror fiction for about four years at that point), and I really wanted to knock this one out of the park, so I went BIG.
I decided to take the legendary count on a tour of the entire 20th century. What I would attempt to do was suggest that Dracula was slowly driven mad by the realization that he couldn't compete with the far greater evils of modern life. I had him encounter the Nazis, poverty, pollution, and the Manson Family. It's that final atrocity, so mindless and so barbaric, that sends the Count over the edge.
I originally ended the story with Dracula giving himself over to the sunrise, finding relief from the century's horrors only in permanent death. What I somehow didn't realize was that Steve had actually envisioned The Mammoth Book of Dracula as a sort of biography of Dracula, with my story falling somewhere near the middle of his long life...meaning I couldn't kill him!
I argued that one for a bit, since I really felt that the story wouldn't have the same impact if Dracula went on living at the end, but we finally settled on something ambiguous that we could both be happy with.
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Working with editors makes good stories great.
I say this for two reasons: 1) I just finished working on a short story with one of the world's great editors, and there's no question that the story is better as a result; and 2) I've seen a lot of authors lately on Facebook knocking editors.
I just don't understand the latter at all; I can only assume that these authors have either worked with bad editors, or haven't worked with editors at all. If they've never worked with an editor, why do they have such a negative view of the experience? Let's just put aside issues of ego for now and talk about the nuts and bolts.
Here's what working with a great editor should be like:
- You write your story - and rewrite it, and rewrite it, and then rewrite it some more until you think it's done.
- You submit your story to the editor's anthology or magazine (after making sure you've followed the guidelines), and a few days/weeks/months later, ouila - you get accepted!
- The editor sends you back your story with their notes. They've caught everything from words you've overused (I happen to be a terrible perpetrator of overusing "that"), to continuity errors, to ideas that may not be as clear to readers as they are to you, to simple errors of spelling and/or grammar.
- You go over the notes, fix the problems, and maybe disagree with the editor on one or two points, so you discuss those points and come to a resolution you're both happy with.
- The story is published, you've been paid, and you've got new work out in the world that people will enjoy.
What's not to love?
If you have some idea that working with an editor is going to be like handing your baby over to a crazed dictator, you need to check that idea at the door right now. Good editors don't earn their reputations by stomping all over their authors' work; they earn 'em by working with the authors to make the stories the absolute best they can be.
Trust me on this - LOVE YOUR EDITOR.
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WIP It
My current works-in-progress
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I hope you've had a chance to check out the "Ghost Magnet" podcast with Bridget Marquardt, because I've been having soooo much fun providing the weekly "Ghost Report"! If you haven't given one of these a listen yet, what are you waiting for? I mean, heck, they're free! You can download them via iTunes, PlayerFM, or Spotify.
Speaking of free, I've also been writing more features for Shudder TV's official newsletter "The Bite", so if you haven't subscribed yet, here's a link.
As usual, there's a lot of great stuff happening that I can't quite talk about yet, so stay tuned!
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The Samhanach and Other Halloween Treats
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The Samhanach and Other Halloween Treats is now available in e-book and print from JournalStone. It collects four novellas, ten short stories, a new introduction by Nancy Holder, and new notes about the stories from me.
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The Lovecraft Squad: Dreaming
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I've written two chapters of this second volume in Stephen Jones's "mosaic novel" trilogy.
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Includes my story “Dr. Morbismo’s InsaniTERRORium Horror Show”.
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Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense
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Co-edited with acclaimed anthologist and genre expert Leslie Klinger, this anthology gathers classic ghost stories from Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, M. R. James, and more! Coming April 2.
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The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories
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Includes my story "The Ultimate Halloween Party App".
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Includes my essay "When It’s Their World: Writing for the Themed Anthology".
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This month's giveaway was pretty obvious, I think: that's right, it's a hardback copy of my new book Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense!
Just click the blue button below to enter, and good luck!
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- Tuesday, April 2nd at 3 am (EST) - Guesting on the paranormal radio show/podcast Coast to Coast
- Sunday, April 7 at 4 pm - Signing at Dark Delicacies for Ghost Stories
- Saturday, April 13 at 1 pm - Signing Ghost Stories at the Mysterious Galaxy booth (#368) at the LA Times Festival of Books
- Sunday, April 14 at 12 pm - Signing and giving away advance copies of Odd Partners at the Mystery Writers of America booth (#376) at the LA Times Festival of Books
- Thursday, May 9th through May 12th, 2019 - StokerCon in Grand Rapids, Michigan
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