Monthly Archives: June 2009

Of Donkey Ladies, Midget Mansions and the Ghost Tracks

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ghostsAmazing what you can accidentally turn up on an Amazon.com search.

Looks like there’s a newish book out on San Antonio’s haunted history, Ghosts of San Antonio by Scott A. Johnson. Johnson has apparently released books detailing the ghostly goings on in other U.S. cities — and San Antonio, with its tales of the Donkey Lady, Midget Mansion and ghostly kids who push cars off railroad tracks, is just the latest.

Add Johnson’s book to Docia Schultz Williams’ collections of Texas ghost stories and sometimes-San Antonian Whitley Strieber’s tales of alien probing, and the Alamo City’s starting to develop a really weird reputation. As a horror/fantasy writer, I can’t say I have much problem with that.

World Horror Strikes Close to Home

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Sarah Langan

Sarah Langan

Great news. Austin has been named as site for the 2011 World Horror Convention. That’s considerably less exotic (to me, anyway) than the 2010 location in Brighton, England. But it also means just an hour-long drive instead a leap across the pond.

Looks like the organizers, including the super-cool Lee Thomas, have lined up Sarah Langan as Guest of Honor. Check out my other blog, Missions Unknown, for all the gory details.

Bollywood Masti: Take 1

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What better way to start the workweek than with a little Bollywood Masti? Bollywood = South Asia’s song-and-dance-filled cinematic export. Masti = Hindi for “fun, especially of the mischievous kind.” Sounds like the perfect antidote for the Monday blues, right?

Today’s clip, “Love Mera,” is from the recent film Billu Barber, about a barber in a small village. What does the song, which appears to take place in outer space, have to do with barbers and villages? Nothing from what I can tell, but hey, that’s just the fun-filled delirium that is Bollywood. Consider it a shot of weird cinema for a blog about weird fiction.

The McNay Art Museum gets Gorey

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edward20gorey2How fricken cool is this?

A 175-piece exhibit of macabre illustrator Edward Gorey’s work opens today at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. Guess I know what I’ll be doing this weekend: donning my Victorian finery and taking in some Gorey art.

For details I refer you to my other blog, Missions Unknown. Don’t miss this one, folks. It’s almost too cool to believe.

Will “Drag Me to Hell” drag Hollywood horror back from the brink?

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dragmeRead an interesting piece in London’s The Independent over the weekend. The author theorizes that the critical and boxoffice success of Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell” could prompt Hollywood to break free of its lame cycle of horror remakes and torture porn. We can only hope.

I enjoyed “Drag Me to Hell,” and while it’s not high art, it was nice to see Raimi return to his fun brand of slapstick horror. The film works because Raimi understands that effective horror — even in a movie as gleefully lowbrow as this one — needs to have a psychological component to back up the grossouts and jump scares. It needs well-drawn characters an audience cares about. Otherwise the pain inflicted on them means nothing.

Will “Drag Me to Hell” help ignite a Hollywood horror renaissance? Hard to say, but I’m rooting for it. I have no desire to sit through another “Saw” installment.

Talking flash in San Antonio

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sanfordpicI’m giving a talk Thursday, June 4, in front of the San Antonio Writers Guild on writing and selling flash fiction.

What’s flash fiction? The short answer is that it’s about a third to half of what I write. The longer answer is that it’s fiction of extreme brevity, usually under 1,000 words.

The flash form’s been around a long time, but it’s enjoying a resurgence as more fiction magazines go online and feature shorter pieces. I’ll talk about how to write effective flash fiction, where to sell it and flash’s relevance to sf/f/h writers.

The guild meeting takes place at 7:30 p.m. at Bethany Congregational Church, 500 Pilgrim Drive in San Antonio. It’s free and open to members and non-members of the Writers Guild. Click here for more info.