Postcards from a Dying World

Why this blog?

Lets talk about this for a few moments. I am going to assume that everyone reading this blog doesn’t know anything about me. Or that you know only about me what you can read on the links over to the right there. A few of you have read my book, a little more of you have interacted with me online and several I’ve known in various ways out there in the real world.

First and foremost I enjoy writing about and reviewing horror fiction. I resisted this urge for a few reasons. One as an author myself I didn’t want to judge others work because who am I to say a book is good or is not. I didn’t want a bad review of someone else’s work to come back and bite me when my work goes out.

Second who needs another opinion. Every so often a book came around like “The Other End” by John Shirley released by Cemetery Dance. It is amazing flipside of the coin responding to the Left Behind books and I felt it needed more exposure. So I wrote to Apex digest (a fantastic Sci-fi and horror mag) to ask if I could review it. The book while selling well in limited edition is in essence what the mainstream is missing in the sci-fi and horror small independent press.

I got to thinking that I wished for away to get more attention to the small press and all the fantastic Horror, bizzaro and science fiction that was being overlooked. I don’t have any illusions that one more blog could do that. What changed my opinion happened during a visit to British Columbia to go apartment hunting.

I should mention that my wife will be going to grad school in Canada starting next month. I happened to pick up an issue of Absolute Underground; it is a national magazine in Canada that covers mostly metal, punk and a few articles on horror movies. I wrote them asking them if they would be down for a column on horror fiction.

Well since they said yes I wrote a few authors, and posted to a few boards that I wanted to write about the small press and have gotten a lot of books passed my way. At the same time Dylan a fellow Hoosier and web-master of Monster Librarian asked me if I could do more reviews for him.

I decided that I was going to need a space to make more commentary. Since the column would be bi-monthly I couldn’t cover everything I wanted to there.

At the same time I am moving to another country for the first time in my life. I am working on selling my first novel, developing a screenplay and writing a second novel. Interesting times indeed, I thought a few blog entires about this might be interesting for people to read. Well at least a few of my friends- ha-ha.

I’m going to try hard not to overdo this but I’m sure I’ll be putting up a few important news stories relating to the themes and message to be found in my first short story collection Screams from a Dying World. If you have not read it most of the stories have ecological and Animal Rights messages that I attempted weave into the stories. The book is also a fundraiser for Animal Acres farmed animal sanctuary.

So here we go…