A San Diego Soliloquy

I wrote this on Tuesday night, but couldn't post until tonight...

Last Friday, I flew out to San Diego on a business trip (where I still am, as I write this actually!) It's been a long roadtrip, but an enjoyable one -- Friday night, I hopped a bus from downtown up to visit Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, a store I've wanted to check out for years (I'd been in San Diego a couple times before and hadn't had the opportunity to get there. ) While the locals shook their heads at the idea of taking the bus that far (it'll take forever), the difference between a $5 roundtrip and a one-way $25 cab seemed worth wasting my time on a slow tour of the city.

The store was great; they not only cater to science fiction, as the name implies, but have good mystery and horror sections (including the most Leisure Books titles I've seen in one store!) I ended up buying Christa Faust's MONEY SHOT, since I've been meaning to grab a copy, Neil Gaiman's M IS FOR MAGIC, and a Nina Kiriki Hoffman preview edition of her short SF novel CATALYST. I also left the store a sampling of Dark Arts Books' titles to review, so hopefully, they'll be stocking our anthologies in the near future!

Then I used my handy $5 bus daypass to start back downtown, but ended up hopping off at Old Town, which is noted as the "birthplace of California" to have dinner. I walked around for a good hour poking my head into various Mexican restaurants before finally settling on Cafe Coyote,  where I gobbled down chips and salsa and margueritas as if I hadn't had a bite all day. And after I finished the first basket of chips, I realized... I HADN'T eaten all day. It was 10 p.m. Chicago time at that point, and the last meal I'd had, other than coffee on the plane, had been the previous night around 7p.m.!

Eventually, overstuffed with two-days worth of food, I headed back to the Grand Hyatt near the convention center (my home for the week!)

On Saturday, after a long "business" day, I had dinner with P.S. Gifford and his family, who drove down to see me from somewhere between San Diego and LA. Paul came out to my signing at Dark Delicacies last month, but as such things typically go, we didn't really get to talk much, so it was especially cool that I came back to California so soon, and this time... we could actually spend hours kibitzing! After drinks at the Hyatt, we headed over to the Gaslamp Quarter to have dinner at The Field, an Irish bar which Paul had wanted to try (he even made sure Newcastle was on tap for me!)  He confirmed that the feel and food was truly authentic (and he would know, since he still has his accent, despite having come here from the UK 25 years ago.) It certainly had the most savory sampler platter of Irish stew and boxtys I've ever had.

After dinner, we staged a "photo opp" and traded books in front of the hotel just before Paul, Sarah and Jonathan headed home.

On Sunday, I was so totally wiped out from the day at the convention center that I took a two-hour nap when I got back to my room... but by 8 p.m., I revived enough to go out hunting for dinner. I walked around the Gaslamp district for a good hour, discovering places I've been to in previous visits (this is the third time I've been here for a multi-day convention), like the Yard House  www.yardhouse.com (where I realized this morning that I've also eaten at in its sister location in Pasadena).

Finally, I settled on an Irish Pub called Dublin Square where, as soon as I sat down I realized I'd ALSO been in the last time I was in San Diego for a convention. It's a great place, and after some potatoe leak soup and an enormous boxty, I flipped up the laptop and finally - for the first time in weeks, got back to work on my current novel (which got derailed by the production of the Dark Arts Books anthology LIKE A CHINESE TATTOO and the prep for the World Horror Convention a couple months ago).

Things went so well there on Sunday night, that I decided to repeat the gig on Monday night, though instead of eating Irish, this time around, I walked the Gaslamp a bit again and chose a more upscale Chinese restaurant called Blue Ginger to eat at. It was Cinco de Mayo, and all the Mexican places in town were packed, but at Blue Ginger, it was just me, another couple across the room and the saltwater fish on the back wall!

I taunted the chef to cook me the spiciest beef dish ever... and he took the bait. When I first saw the size of the entree, I didn't believe I'd get halfway through it... but in the end, I couldn't stop eating -- I chowed down the whole fiery plate of beef and peppers and onions with relish (and chopsticks)!

This morning I found some online reviews of the restaurant that echoed my own experience -- the place is excellent. Ironically, the fortune cookie I opened at the end of dinner read "you have a charming way with words."

I kept it.

Afterwards, I went back to Dublin Square to write, and this time around, they had four bands on the bill (all acoustic), which made for an entertaining night of writing (yeah, I kept stopping to pay attention to the bands, but I always have ADD, so I still got just as much written as the night before).

I didn't catch the names of all of the bands, but the closing band was Late Nite Access, a trio from Australia who'd been originally booked for a Los Angeles show, and somehow found themselves instead doing the Irish bar gig, sans their drummer, who sold CDs off a table in front.  I think they're probably a little punkier when electrified, but they had a good sound for a late night bar crawl. On both evenings, the energetic Mailin kept me plied with Newcastle and Makers Mark.

So... that brings me to today - my last full day in town.

After a long indecisive walk through the Quarter (I considered eating at Monsoon, the sister restaurant to Blue Ginger... but then decided I didn't feel like Indian cuisine tonight), I ended up at Los Panchos de Charly for my standard Mexican hit of Chile Rellenos and a Silver Patron marguerita. Many nachos and a second barrel of salsa were consumed.

I toyed with going back to The Field, but opted to finish out my "residency" at Dublin Square, and slipped to the back of the bar, near the fireplace, where I knocked out a couple more novel scenes, ultimately attributing close to 7,000 words of my next book to the confines of this Irish bar.

The walk home that night was magical as only a post-midnight stroll can be... the city as a whole was sleeping, there was a faintly drizzling rain, and the air was ripe with the scent of life... not of the city's cement sterility... but of formative, organic energy. It filled the nose with the scent of life and made you want to lie in the street and open your mouth to accept the gift of the clouds in the midnight hour. I managed to resist the temptation, though I took a couple pictures of 1 a.m. palm trees, and dutifully followed the lines of the sidewalk back to my hotel.

Once in the parking area, I couldn't help but laugh at a lone beer bottle placed on a cement line dividing the walkway.... it signaled the divide between the way of nature and man... and suggested maybe that there is more and less to every step we take.

I thought about staying out with the not-quite-silent sways of the night, but ultimately did not... instead passing the late night staff with floor waxing machines to head to the elevator and my room. As tantalizing as the spirit behind the city is... I knew I had to wake up early in the morning to head to the airport.

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Sometimes life is surreal...

So on Tuesday, I went on a business trip to St. Louis with Shoreline Productions' Pat Mongoven to videotape some surgeon presentations -- their talks will ultimately be combined with PowerPoint presentations to form "online learning" modules for the web. (In my dayjob, I work for a medical society).

It was a whirlwind day -- in the morning, I met with some physicians who were visiting from Australia. In the afternoon, I was sitting along the First Base line in Wrigley Field with Pat watching the Cubs clobber the Mets (unfortunately, we left to catch our flight 10 minutes before Cedeno knocked in a grand slam!!!) An hour or so later we were having a beer at a Harry Caray's airport annex at Midway Airport, and a couple hours after that we were having dinner at Bar Louie, where a guy came up to us because of Pat's Cub's cap and started recapping the game for us... to which we said yeah, we know -- we were there!

The next morning we captured the presentation video we were there to do, but then had a bonus taping session -- one of the surgeons wanted us to get some footage of carpal tunnel surgery.

While we were waiting to go into the OR, one of the surgery residents asked us to be part of a research study he was doing on reflexes, so both Pat and I ended up lying on a table going through various tests of our leg muscle extension and stretch responses. While initially my ability to always sit cross-legged elicited some admiration, the pain in my lower back that occurred when they had me do a full leg extension stretch returned suggestions that I enroll in some yoga classes.

Finally, after waiting for an hour or two, in mid-afternoon, we got the call to leave the doctor's lounge and head to surgery. Decked out in scrubs, I ended up standing 3 feet away from live surgery, watching a patient's wrist being neatly sliced open, and the fat and sheathing surrounding the nerve inside the wrist shaved and cut away.

I didn't know if I'd be grossed out or not (despite being a horror author, I'm no fan of real blood), but actually there was very little blood in the surgery, and it was really pretty interesting to watch. That said, I think I'll confine my own surgical experiments to dissecting chicken in my kitchen.

From Aussies to Cubbies to Louie's to Surgeries... it was a pretty surreal 24 hours.

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Leisure Books coverage of World Horror Convention 2008

Just was poking around at my new publisher's site, Leisure Books, and saw that they've got some pix from the recent World Horror Convention with me in them that I hadn't seen before! Check them out here:

http://www.dorchesterpub.com/Dorch/SpecialFeatures.cfm?ID=2455

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Needles & Sins on Dark Delicacies’ Bestseller List

Thanks to my signing there last weekend, NEEDLES & SINS came in as the Number 2 Bestselling Paperback for the week at Dark Delicacies Bookstore in Burbank, CA! Last week, my novelette, FAILURE placed at Number 8 on their hardcover list for the week (I assume, also because of the then-upcoming signing!) Here's this week's stats, which also include my signing partners Amber Benson, Del James and Jose Prendes:

Dark Delicacies Bestseller List for Week Ending 4/19/08

Hardback Fiction
(1) Infected - Scott Sigler -- Crown
(2) The Hanging Woods - Scott Sanders -- Houghton, Mifflin
(3) Dark Delicacies 2: Fear - Howison/Gelb (eds) -- Carroll & Graf
(4) Dark Delicacies - Howison/Gelb -- Carroll & Graf
(5) Seven for Space - William F. Nolan -- Park Hill

Hardback Nonfiction
(1) The Enigimatic ABC's - Stefan Varner -- Be Goths
(2) As Timeless As Infinity Vol. 5 - Tony Albarella (ed) -- Gauntlet
(3) Crystal Lake Memories - Peter M. Bracke -- Titan Books
(4) The Hammer Story - Hearn/Barnes -- Titan Books
(5) The Richard Matheson Companion - Wiater/Bradley/Stuve

Paperback Fiction
(1) The Language of Fear - Del James -- Dell
(2) Needles & Sins - John Everson -- Necro Publications
(3) Button, Button - Richard Matheson -- Tor
(4) The Harbinger - Jose Prendes -- Vantage
(5) Witchery - Benson/golden -- Ballantine
(6) Accursed - Benson/Golden -- Ballantine
(7) I Will Rise - Michael Calvillo -- Lachesis
(8) Poltergeist - Kat richardson -- Roc
(9) Definitely Dead - Charlaine Harris -- Ace
(10) Who Framed Boris Karloff? - Dwight Kemper -- Midnight Marquee

Paperback Nonfiction
(1) John Landis - Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan -- Metro
(2) Witchcraft: Patterns for Craftspeople and Artisans - Jilian Sawyer -- Glass Books
(3) Victor Hugo's Conversations with the Spirit World - John Chambers -- Destiny
(4) The Biology of Horror - Jack Morgan -- Southern Illinois University Press
(5) Pittsburgh Ghosts - Heather Frazier -- Schiffer

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Today was Topless Day!

Yep - sun was out, temp over 70 degrees... it was inevitable that today would be my first official day in 2008 to go topless... in the Mustang, that is. I think it was actually this nice here over the last weekend, but I was in California then, so today marked my first opportunity to ride with the wind in my hair again!

It was great to creak the convertible top down for the first day after a long, long winter... I'm sure it's been six months since the last time I rode in the open air. And it tasted great :-)

Also helped that I had one of the best synth pop CDs ever recorded blasting at full volume in the car -- Anything Box's Peace. If you never heard it when it came out in the early '90s... well, just go listen to it.

8:02 PM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Dark Delicacies Signing 2008 - or, Why I Love L.A.

Click Photos for Larger Versions

Burbank, California
April 12, 2008

had a business trip planned to Los Angeles this weekend, and so a few weeks ago I called up Del and Sue at Dark Delicacies Bookstore and asked if they wanted me to come down for a signing... they ended up setting up a "mega-signing" around my schedule (which is embarrassingly cool!) which featured Amber Benson, Del James and Jose Prendes for 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 12.

I arrived in LA later than intended on Friday morning, thanks to the American Airlines grounding (my flight was cancelled and I had to rebook at twice the price on United to get there at all) and took my suitcase straight to the 2nd floor where my work's workshop was being held. After helping my workmate Krys with registration for a couple hours, I finally actually checked in to the hotel and got rid of my bags, and then audited the course.

In the meantime, I also set up dinner with Leah Cevoli, a fellow writer and actress who's probably best known these days for her character voices on "Robot Chicken." Los Angeles gridlock (caution, foreshadowing here) made for an unexpectedly late dinner, but we still managed to enjoy a couple hours of rabid conversation -- and great filets -- at Nick + Stef's Steakhouse (after a strangely difficult treasure hunt to find the place, despite its being located just a block away from the Omni and my holding a map!). Our mutual lack of definition for bordelaise vs. bearnaise sauce engendered healthy extrapolation, but later conversation turned to our mutual friends John and Yasmine Palisano and, perhaps, created a synchronistic event that I don't even dare set into writing until it is finalized one way or the other. I had just seen John at World Horror, and Leah acted in one of his short films... and hopefully our mutual exchange, which ended up on a 360 loop back to John and Yasmine, works out for the best.

When we realized we were the only ones holding the waitstaff in place, we called it a night, and I went back to the Omni for my now-predictable "no-night's-sleep". No matter how comfortable the bed, I never seem to get more than 3 or 4 hours the first night in a new city. I travel every month or two these days, and it's really become predictable that I won't get much sleep on day one. I've started to wonder if I should just make the best of it and always stay up all night on that first evening in town...

The two-hour time change didn't help, since I woke up nice and early at 4 a.m. (normal rise-and-shine time back home) and really didn't get back to sleep. When I looked at the mirror Saturday morning, I thought... great, I'm going to have red vampire eyes this afternoon for the signing. How appropriate!

A pot of coffee and a few squirts of Visine later and I was fine, and once my business sessions were done for the day, I did a quick presto-change-o act in my hotel room and hopped in a cab with only a half hour to make the 14-mile ride to Burbank.

The cabbie slipped into local traffic easily enough, and then zipped onto the freeway... and then... came to a complete stop. I found myself instantly stuck in Los Angeles gridlock (see - foreshadowing really could help change our lives if we only paid attention and planned accordingly)...I panicked a little -- how retarded would it be if they set up a signing around my timetable, and I showed up a half hour late? But my intrepid cabbie, after not-so-quietly cursing out a couple of clueless motorists, dropped me in front of the store with exactly 2 minutes to spare.

I walked in and found the place packed -- there were lines formed and waiting to head to Amber and Del, and I quickly said hi to Del and Sue, and slipped through the store to grab my spot at the signing tables and found my own entourage waiting -- they didn't need to form a line, but they were exceedingly welcome!

My friend P.S. Gifford had driven up 60 miles with his family and even brought me Newcastle! Now THAT's a pal!!! And Maria Alexander, Cody Goodfellow and Eddie "Feo Amante" McMullen were waiting as well. Later, John Skipp wandered in, and Leah Cevoli popped in to grab a book and a photo on her way to a gig, and Lisa Morton turned up as well.

My longtime MySpace pal Maria also made it over this year (she'd wanted to come when I was at Dark Delicacies last year but couldn't make it). It was really great to meet her -- I only wished she'd brought some of her handmade jewelry (she was wearing a couple samples) - I would have returned the favor and bought something from her!

Del handed me a stack of books to sign that had been pre-ordered through the Internet, and I also signed a couple copies for people who had come in to see Del and Amber, but decided to take a chance on Needles & Sins. I hope they enjoy it :-)

It's amazing how fast an hour and a half passes. I signed a few books, talked a little to Paul Gifford and Eddie and Cody and Del... and the Newcastle was drained quickly... I met my fellow signers, who were wonderful, and also met the wildly animated Rue Morgue magazine editor JovankaVuckovic, who'd come down from Canada to see Del James but was really taken with the cover art of Needles & Sins.

Before long, the lines of signers that had seemed so full when I first entered the store had collapsed to a few hangers-on, and I found myself talking to Amber Benson about her writing partner Christopher Golden, who I've met a few times. I asked if she ever frequented the Shocklines Message Board. She said she tends not to read boards much, because people seem to always be getting into flame wars, a sentiment I seconded. Message boards are addictive -- you can easily lose hours every day to their conversations, as well as get sucked into any number of battles. Nevertheless, I told her that I did post on Shocklines that I would be signing with her, and I told her of the amusing response I'd gotten from John Goodrich and Darrin "dwenglish" there -- John Everson will be signing Amber Benson????

No, minor missing preposition, I'd answered. Signing with Amber Benson.

She grinned at that, and then went back to signing some books for a few newcomers...But then a couple minutes later, she handed me a silver pen and held out her arm.

"Go ahead," she said. "Do it!"

"No way," I backed off... "You don't really want me to..."

"It's funny," she said. "Do it!"

So... thanks to Paul Gifford manning the camera, I present to you the evidence of the oddly curious happening that was John Everson, Signing Amber Benson:

I hope Darrin and John are happy!

And Amber, you were an amazing good sport... I hope that silver ink came off easily!

As I said, 90 minutes passes quickly, and all of a sudden it was time to close up shop -- and I felt like I had barely even said much more than hi to my friends who'd come out to the event. I bought a couple quick things from the store (like a stuffed Frankensteinian kid for my son) and then Eddie shanghaied me for a "five-minute" look at a "UFO that had crashed into a building a few blocks away."

No locals would refute his claim, and despite my skepticism and insistence that this was akin to going on a boyscout trip to the fields to look for snipes with flashlights and paperbags, I went.

As the pictorial evidence shows, clearly, there was an alien invasion recently thwarted in Los Angeles. Note especially the tentacles holding up the computer shelf:

After my trip through the themed Fry's store, and an unexpected detour the details of which I promised I would not relate, I arrived in Pasadena (ironically, just a couple blocks away from the hotel I stayed at for business last year when I also did a Dark Delicacies signing) to have dinner with Maria Alexander and Christophe (who she has simply dubbed, "The Frenchmen.") They took me to a marvelous feast at the Vertical Wine Bistro, a tapas place where we enjoyed a couple glasses of fine wine, some stuffed dates, pulled pork, duck, various salads and could-eat-it-all-night sorbet.

Just as with the signing, the night ended all too soon... and Maria dropped me back at the Omni. I slept a lot sounder Saturday night (the wine and a nightcap of Chimay and Makers probably didn't hurt) and Sunday was pretty much a full day of travel -- with a 4-hour flight and a 2-hour time loss (and the slowest baggage claim I've ever gone through) it was dinnertime before I got home... and here it is almost midnight as I finish this quick (ha-ha) signing report.

I had a great time in Los Angeles -- as always.

I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with my friends there -- as always.

All I can say is I hope I can get back soon!

Here are some more photos from the signing:

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5:20 AM - 6 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Book Signing in L.A. this Saturday with Amber Benson!

I’ll be in Los Angeles this weekend on business, and so Del and Sue, the nice folks at Dark Delicacies Bookstore in Burbank, CA are having me in to do a signing for my short story collection NEEDLES & SINS at 5 p.m. on Saturday. I’m sure they’ll have some of my other books on hand as well.

Amber Benson from "Buffy" will also be coming in to sign her Albion Books co-written with Christopher Golden, and Del James and Jose Prendes will also be signing. It should be a great time, and I know I’ve got a few friends coming down to the event that I’m looking forward to seeing. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, I hope you’ll stop by and say hi!!

For more information, drop me a note or see www.darkdel.com!

8:26 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

World Horror Con 2008, or, Why I Hate Wyoming

I posted the following World Horror Convention report this week on my regular website, www.johneverson.com/whc2008.htm. If you want to see the fullly designed version of this report (and avoid all the ridiculous MySpace warning pages when you try to click on the full-size pix), or if you want to see my past convention reports and pix... take a look at that site...

Salt Lake City, Utah

March 2008

A Journey into Desolation

ast year, for no good reason, Bill Breedlove and I decided to roadtrip to WHC in Toronto. It was a great time, and somehow we didn’t kill each other over the music selections for the trip. So this year, when we decided our press Dark Arts Books was going to run both a party at World Horror and a Dealers Room Table, we opted to road trip again... despite the fact that the trip was twice as long (18+ hours without stops!) This time around... the roadtrip wasn’t quite as fulfilling, as the roadside attractions disappointed at every stop!

Three hours into the drive, I had lost my voice -- and no, not because I’m a rampant chatterbox -- I’d been having allergy/asthma problems for the past couple months, and my doc wouldn’t renew my steroids to control it before the trip. Hence, I spent the entire weekend croaking like a frog -- my voice never came back. In fact, 12 days later, I STILL don’t totally have it back!

We made good time on the way out on Wednesday, March 26, and rolled into Cheyenne, Wyoming around 9:30 at night.

That’s when the first snarl in the roadtrip appeared... we drove around looking for hotels, and when we found three in a row booked up, with a little trepidation we opted for a trucker-friendly Motel 6 (a rare bargain at $40 split two ways!). The woman at the desk and a woman waiting in line behind us for a room regaled us not only with where we could go for dinner in town, but also with where the best strip clubs were, if we were so inclined. It was very thoughtful of them... if a little surreal. We headed for a brewpub just down the street, but by the time we arrived it was after 10:30, and the kitchen was closed. Turned out...the whole town pretty much rolls up the sidewalk at 10 p.m. on weeknights in Cheyenne, and we ended up at The Village Inn, a chain of Perkins-style diners in Wyoming that I won’t recommend to anyone.

THURSDAY, March 27

he next morning we stopped at the next town, Laramie, for gas and realized we should have stayed the night there -- the nightlife possibilities looked much more promising, and we found Coal Creek Coffee Company, a cool little coffee shop near the train station downtown. Aside from brief visits to a pawn shop and a Pokes memorabilia store, the coffeehouse turned out to be nearly the only good time we had in Wyoming!

Back on the road, we had our first experience with sideways-blowing snow on hilly terrain, and Bill spent some white-knuckle time at the wheel. That’s when we first noticed the signs and gates along the road warning that when the lights were flashing, the road was closed -- turn around and go back.

Luckily, the lights weren’t flashing.

This time.

Thanks to the snow, we hit Salt Lake a little later than planned -- two hours after the dealer room opened. We quickly reviewed the rooms we were assigned for the Dark Arts party, said hi to some old friends on the fly and then rolled our boxes of books into the Dealers Room and set up the table by 5 p.m. Once that was up and running, I ran up to change for a dinner meeting with Erin Galloway, the publicist for Leisure Books. It was great to finally meet her, as we’ve been emailing back and forth for the past few weeks about my upcoming Leisure novel COVENANT.

After what turned out to be my best dinner in Salt Lake City, I watched Erin moderate a panel that included Leisure Editor Don D’Auria, and during that panel finally met Michael McBride - who I’ve corresponded with since doing the cover for his Delirium novelette Blood Wish. Then I went upstairs to rest for a little while.... but rest turned out to be sleep - an hour later I decided that maybe if I skipped the Thursday night welcoming party and just turned in early on the first night, I’d kick the frog in my throat and be fresh for the rest of the con. Eleven hours later... I woke up... still croaking.

So much for the magic of a good night’s sleep!

FRIDAY, March 28

riday I spent a lot of time at the Dark Arts Books table, and somehow managed to not see a single panel in the process, though I did get to talk to lots of friends like Jeremy Lassen from Nightshade Books and Alan Beatts and Jude Feldman, from Borderlands Books, whose tables were directly across from me. The Dark Arts table team of Martel Sardina, Whitney Lakin, Loren Rhoads, Bill and I came together all at once for the first time - and I have to publicly send a huge hug of thanks to them all for helping out -- Bill and I could not have covered the table without them!

Multiple cups of coffee and tea on Friday did nothing to bring back my voice, but at least I was well-hydrated by the time I did my afternoon HWA table signing with Maria Alexander. We ended up talking more to each other than to anyone else, which was cool, because we haven’t had a chance to really catch up since she got back from a year in France, and now I have a dinner date for my business trip to Los Angeles this weekend :-). Along the way, John Palisano, Nick Grabowsky and Dave Benton all dropped by to say hi.

A couple hours later, I relinquished the Dark Arts table and had a meeting in the hotel bar with Don D’Auria to talk about plans for COVENANT and SACRIFICE, and to talk about the current novel I’m working on, which will be complete in a couple months, as well as some future projects. Oddly enough, I didn’t have anything to drink in the bar, and it was the only time I was actually IN the bar during the entire con. I think that’s a first at a convention!

Afterwards, I was able to continue -- through transference -- a Carrie Rapp WHC tradition, and gave Debbie Kuhn a dizzyingly unexpected twirl in the hotel before it was off to dinner with her and a group including Brian Knight, Jen Orosel and more. We walked down to the Red Rock Brewpub, which had a great microbrewed Nut Brown Ale. I just ate a Reuben, but I wanted to go back the rest of the weekend for more of the ale.

Didn’t happen!

When we got back, it was time to grab books for the Mass Autograph Signing. I snagged my own, and then Bill helped me get copies of Dark Arts’ LIKE A CHINESE TATTOO for Cullen Bunn, WAITING FOR OCTOBER for Jeff Strand, and SINS OF THE SIRENS for Loren Rhoads and Maria, who sat with me and Bill Gagliani.

The signing was a lot of fun, and I think I signed more copies of ON WRITING HORROR than anything else, as Mort Castle was just a couple tables away and kept sending people my way with that book! I got to catch up a little bit with Deborah LeBlanc, and shot a couple pictures with Bill and Don D’Auria. I also talked with Ed Bryant and Beth Gwinn wandered by with her ever-capturing camera.

Then it was off to the Leisure Books party -- my first as a Leisure author :-) It was pretty cool to see COVENANT flats on the party tables, and a blow-up version of the cover mounted on foamboard at one. Leisure’s Tim DeYoung played bartender and kept me well supplied with Jack-and-Cokes as I chatted with Beth Gwinn, Bill Gagliani and sat some of the night with Anne Laymon to talk about her panel on the proper handling (and setup for) a literary estate. Definitely must-hear info for any author who gets some books in print and doesn’t want his or her heirs to have problems managing those any any unpublished properties if left behind.

While I was in the Leisure Party, I unfortunately missed the annual Gross-Out Contest (which I’ve been to almost every year for the past 9 cons, and even participated in three or four times!) I picked a bad one to miss -- in her first shot at it, Dark Arts’ own Whitney Lakin ended up taking the top spot of (dubious!) honor for the grossest tale, which I understand involved some form of corpulent coprophilic vampire. Here’s a photo that Bill snapped of her prepping for the read:

SATURDAY, March 29

started the next morning by moderating a panel on making the most of your small press release as an author. Thankfully, I’d asked Dark Arts Books author and former Morbid Curiosities magazine editor Loren Rhoads to join me on the panel, because otherwise, for most of the panel, it would have just been me and Jason Gehlert... and I still had no voice! Later on, Jeremy Lassen apologetically joined us (though we agreed later he should have really been slated on the small press publishers, not authors panel!) From websites to MySpace to bookstore signings and promo cards to podcasts, we managed to run through a variety of ways that authors with small press releases can promote themselves and their works, pointing out the fallacy that "it’s the publisher’s job" to promote your work. Whether your story or novel is appearing in a print run of 250 or 25,000, it is almost always up to the author to find the ways to promote and sell those books... because those who don’t move sufficient copies of their books will ultimately find themselves without a publishing deal.

At some point during the day I finally caught up a bit with GAK and Jim Argendeli, who gave me a rundown on Dragon*Con (where I’ll be guesting this fall) as well as a rare offer of hospitality!

Bill Breedlove and I tried to get out of the hotel for lunch, and ended up walking in a long circle... we headed towards someplace called the Dead Goat Saloon, a pub and music hotspot in the basement of an old building, but after 10 minutes of hiking, it turned out the place didn’t open before dinnertime on Saturdays... so we walked back at the hotel restaurant and settled for a burger. Then I ducked down to the Con Reading Room -- unfortunately, with my voice shot, there was no way I could perform (which sucked, since I enjoy doing readings, and had planned on reading the story from NEEDLES & SINS that was on the Bram Stoker ballot for that evening’s award ceremony).

However, Cullen Bunn agreed to perform one of his amazing pieces from LIKE A CHINESE TATTOO in my reading slot, so those who came to see me probably got a better deal! I introduced Cullen, and then watched Jeff Strand read as well.

After the readings, Bill and Whitney and I went with the amazing Charlie Harmon, the convention chair, to go over the setup details for the Dark Arts Pajama Party rooms later that night. I left them to do setup while I changed for the Stokers. I sat at a Leisure table with Gord Rollo, Bill Gagliani, Wrath James White, Jim Argendeli, Erin Galloway and Tim DeYoung. I wasn’t nervous about the awards until Bill asked me if I was... and then suddenly I found myself trying to think of what I would say in my head if "Letting Go" actually won in the Short Fiction category. Then I suddenly realized there were butterflies, and I couldn’t wait til the dinner portion of the evening was over so we could just get through the awards! Jeff Strand’s over-the-top humorous emceeing soon set everyone at ease, and I was truly sad when they announced Bob Weinberg’s lifetime achievement award -- Mort Castle accepted on his behalf, but I wished Bob could have been there. I sat next to Bob at my very first Stoker ceremony some 8 or 9 years ago, and he was one of the only people I knew at the convention back then. At that time, he was up for an award in two categories, but lost in both. How things have changed! This year, it seems like I knew most of the people at the convention, was up for an award myself, and there was Bob was getting a career award. I wished I could have been sitting next to him again that night.

When the Short Fiction award came up, I was ready for anything... and while I would have liked another haunted house statuette for my office, I was glad when David Niall Wilson’s story took the award home -- it was my favorite in the category.

Shortly afterwards, Weston Ochse and I, as former winners of the First Novel award, went to the podium to present this year’s First Novel Stoker... which went to Joe Hill. I made a comment about having lost my voice for the convention, which elicited applause from Kelly Laymon, and turned the vocal duties over to Weston. Here’s a clip from iSciFiTV of the presentation:

Once the Stokers were done, the real work of the day began -- hosting the Dark Arts Books Pajama Party. I changed into my pjs and robe, and joined Bill and Whitney and Martel, who did a great job setting the room up during the Stokers, with a full bar, lots of snacks, music and various cool deco touches (thanks to Whitney) like severed fingers, skull lights and a black light. When Bill had first suggested the pj theme, I’d been worried that not enough WHC-ers would dress up for it to make it work... but thankfully I was wrong. At least a third of the partygoers made at least some attempt at pjs, and the main party room was packed all night -- with an overflow room across the hall filling by midnight.

Dark Arts authors Loren Rhoads, Maria Alexander, Jeff Strand and Cullen Bunn were all on-hand, along with scores of others who turned up for the bash.

The full photo gallery is on the on the Dark Arts website, but here are a couple thumbnails:

Visit the full gallery for pix of Mort Castle, Larry Roberts, Edward Bryant, Alexandra Sokoloff, Sarah Langan, Gerard Houarner, Linda Addison, Bailey Hunter, Eunice Magill, Cody Goodfellow, Jimmy Z, Jeremy Lassen, Alan Beatts, Jude Feldman, Christopher Treagus, Kelly Laymon, Wrath James White, Weston Ochse, Bill Gagliani, Dave Benton, John Palisano, Gord Rollo, Monica Kuebler, Lynne Hansen and many, many more.

Bill and Whitney served as bartenders, while Martel handled beer delivery and I was set as the roving host "greeter" and garbage disposal person (irony?). I think I had the best end of the deal, since I got to walk and talk with everyone at the party -- and took a lot of pictures. All I can say is it was a great time, and I was sad to see us have to start closing up at 4 a.m. so that we could get the room clean by 6. We shut the doors on the final diehards at 4:30, and went back to Bill’s room for a final (and his first!) beer of the night.

SUNDAY, March 30

t was a good thing I didn’t drink much at the Dark Arts party, since I opened the Small Press Publishers panel at 9 a.m. with Bloodletting’s Larry Roberts, and then was part of a group breakfast meeting with Stacy Whitman, the YA editor for Moonstone. Then after talking a bit with Gerard Houarner and Linda Addison (and finally buying a hard copy from her of her amazing Stoker-award winning poetry collection Being Full of Light, Insubstantial, which I’d previously read as a PDF), I quickly packed up my room and relieved Loren and Whitney from the Dark Arts table, so they could head to the airport. The result was that I couldn’t do my Music and Writing Horror panel (which I was looking forward to) because Bill was decamping from his room and the rest of our help was homeward bound.

Adam Pepper and Bill and I hung out in the Dealers Room for a couple hours in the afternoon, making some last minute sales at the table before Bill and I finally packed up the SUV and said our goodbyes.

It felt good to get on the road and head back towards home -- which we knew was more than a day away -- and I took the wheel since Bill had driven the bulk of the way coming out. But unfortunately, we weren’t able to stay on the road for long... within three hours I had white-knuckle duty as we were slogging slowly through a small blizzard in Wyoming...and an hour later we came to, literally, the end of the road.

Those gates we saw on the highway at the start of the trip?

They put them down halfway through the state in Rawlins, Wyoming, and locked us down for the night.

Of course, we weren’t the only ones. The highway exits were lined with semis whose drivers were camping it out in their rigs. But we soon realized that we might be camping in the SUV, as we canvassed the town’s hotels and one by one found them full. Someone suggested we stay on cots at the armory, but in the end, I think we found the last room in town -- it was the last room at the dingiest motel we pulled into (a rare ripoff at $50 - evensplit two ways!).

It’s hard to describe the room’s negative appeal. Even the pictures I took don’t do it justice. The sign on the inside of the beatup door read "The Bucking Horse Lodge," though the marquee outside read "The Express Inn." The carpet was an indoor-outdoor green. The spot where the second double bed should have been was empty, though the bed reading light was still in place above where a bed once sat, and the unburied electric piping held an outlet shakily to the wall. The bathroom was tiny and ancient and we both decided that we would NOT set bare feet on the shower floor. The side of the room boasted 1950’s era dark brown paneling with white grout at the top (!?) in the seams, and a beatup bureau with a warm mini-fridge and microwave. I staked out the floor with a comforter for my mattress, though I stuffed towels in the cracks under the bed, with the irrational assumption that it would keep the roaches from running directly out from beneath the bed and into my mouth in the middle of the night. Actually, in the darkest hours, I started to wonder more about the potential for rats coming out from beneath the bed... but in the end, I think we survived the pit without meeting any vermin.

To prepare ourselves for the long night, we headed back out to town to find food and beer, and had burgers at a local bar that boasted an electric Guinness sign in the window. Taking this as a positive cue, I ordered a large, and Bill cringed when the waitress brought me what looked like a small pitcher, and one of the local patrons asked "what the heck’s that stuff you’re drinkin’?"

What can I say, i didn’t want any of the bottled crap they were selling, though maybe I should have, since the beer went down with what felt like the tickle of tiny skins in my throat. I drank it anyway.

Well fortified with alcohol, and minds abuzz with some bizarre conversations among the locals about global warming, spirituality, Al Gore, and some relationship issues that I never did quite understand and which I could never hope to capture in fiction, we spent an uneasy night in the (un)lovingly dubbed Motel Hell, waking up a couple times to check the roads ("still closed," I remember Bill saying at 3 a.m.). By 9 a.m., we were feeling desperate and trapped as I-80 was still closed, and decided over coffee that we would sleep in the SUV if it came to that rather than stay in the depressing room again. But luckily, by 10, the road was open, and we were on it... desperate to get out of Wyoming before they pulled down the gates again.

We stopped in Laramie for gas and again wished we’d been able to camp the night there as planned... and then we cheered when the sign for Nebraska flew by.

Our luck in bad roadside food and lodgings continued through the rest of the day, as we planned to stop of for a big dinner in Omaha... and then as we looked for a promising exit, we suddenly realized we were past Omaha and heading over the Mississippi. No promising exits had presented themselves and we were in Iowa! We stopped for gas and asked about an exit with decent restaurants, and were directed to the next stop down the road... which turned out to have a healthy dose of fastfood chains, but no place where we might find a decent steak. So we decided to hop back on the highway and eat in Des Moines... Bill looked up some possible spots in Des Moines near I-80 and found a well-rated steakhouse... he called and they said they were open til 10... so I stepped on it and we pulled in their lot at just past 9:30... only to find the doors locked. So much for closing times.

The search for dinner was not going well. After an unproductive drive through downtown Des Moines (we found one good-looking Irish bar -- but the kitchen closed at 9!), we pulled off at another exit and stopped at the local Casino for a trip to their well-advertised steakhouse. We got inside and walked to the door.... Closed on Mondays. Seemed to be our luck for the week.

We ate at a truckstop diner with the unpromising name of Grandma Max’s. (Grandma Max? I kept picturing a 70-year-old Jewish man wearing a fake wig and falsies as we walked to the door.) But hell. It was food. It was late. It was just about the end of the line.

And five hours later, we finally pulled into my driveway at 4 a.m. after a solid 18 hours on the road. It was as if the drive we did on Sunday hadn’t counted at all. But all I knew was... it was good to be home in a state where they don’t put gates on the roads and where you can always find a decent restaurant open after 9:30 p.m.

---------   ------------------------------------  ---------

It’s now a week since we left Salt Lake City, and you know what -- I still don’t have my voice back fully. But... I did visit the doc a few days ago and got some new steroids and allergy/asthma meds... so hopefully this week I’ll finally be back to normal.

While I suffered some health issues and probably was hidden too many hours behind the Dark Arts table instead of being out at panels and whatnot, I had a great time at World Horror Con this year -- as I always do. The Dark Arts Pajama Party will live large in my memory for years! As always, there were too many people I didn’t get to talk to enough... but it was still great to see everyone, albeit whirlwind-briefly, again.

As usual (though I may not drive it)... I can’t wait until next year!

7:29 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I’ll be a guest at Dragon*Con 2008!

So the big news that I’ve been hinting at all week and not quite getting around to posting until now is -- last weekend, I received confirmation that I’ll be a guest this fall at Dragon*Con in Atlanta!

I’ve never been to Dragon*Con before, but from what I understand, this is one of the biggest conventions in the country, with more than 30,000 attendees last year, so I’m really looking forward to it! The convention happens just a couple days after the release of Covenant in paperback, so it’s the perfect place to launch the book and start my fall signing tour (which I’ll be setting up and announcing over the next few weeks).

In addition to the Dragon*Con appearance, (and much sooner!) I’ve also just set up a signing at Dark Delicacies Bookstore in Burbank, California for April 12. I’ll be in Los Angeles that weekend on business, so at 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 12, I’ll be hanging out at one of the coolest bookstores in the country. If you’re in the LA area, I hope you’ll come by!

So today, I turned 42. Unlike the rest of the week that seems to have been packed with book announcements, reviews, signing schedulings and more, today was pretty quiet. I DID wake up to a nice present -- both our tax refund and my raise were sitting in my bank account first thing this morning! Now that’s the kind of birthday present I like (waking up in a bed full of attractive naked women might be better, but cash is good, too).

Tonight I updated my regular website with the three bookcovers I designed that have been announced over the past few days, and realized that I’ve hit something of a milestone -- I’ve now created 15 bookcovers for four different publishers over the past five years. I don’t think that when I screwed around to create the first art collage for one that I ever thought I’d end up doing this many in the years ahead. It’s been a lot of fun though! You can see them all here if you’re curious: http://www.johneverson.com/artwork.htm

That’s it for now... I’m spending the rest of my birthday night with a cold glass of Newcastle and a shot of Makers Mark.

Cheers!

7:19 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

A Tease Postponed - SUCKERS, DIVIGATIONS, DARKER DISCOVERIES announced!

OK, so I promised a big announcement the other day, and haven’t had a chance to post about it yet... but since then, a couple other things have happened that I wanted to post about... so I’ll get to the big announcement, I promise! Right after I turn 42 (and geez - thanks for all those birthday wishes!!! My comments page is overflowing!!!)

First of all, "The Eyes Have It," the story I read at last year’s World Horror Convention Gross-Out contest, is appearing in a very limited promotional chapbook issued by Dark Discoveries Magazine.

The chap also features stories by J.F. Gonzalez, Kealan Patrick Burke, Stephen Mark Rainey, Steve Vernon, Bill Gauthier and John R. Little... so I’m looking forward to reading it!

To get it, you can check out the promotional deal at Dark Discoveries website... but look fast -- this one’s going to be available in less than 100 copies.

In addition to that new publication, two books that I did the cover artwork for last year are now up for preorder from Delirium Books. I can’t wait to see these books finally available -- both because I’m proud of the covers, and because the stories are great!

Here’s the info on them pasted from Delirium Books’ Newsletter:

Books 5 & 6 in the Delirium Hardcover Chapbook Series have just been announced. Each signed and numbered hardcover chapbook is side-sewn and has a full graphic wraparound cover and measures 4 1/2 inches x 6 1/4 inches and is exactly 100 pages.

DIVAGATIONS
by John Maclay

The six brand-new stories that constitute John Maclay’s latest collection, Divagations, demonstrate not just his specialty, the short-short story, but also his depth of style and characterization in the longer form. As usual, he is dark and downbeat, but at the same time he holds out hope that by honestly engaging with horror, one can find a better end.

In "Messenger," he treats of a sudden presaging of doom.

In "The Book of Death," he exhibits the mordant style that has won him praise for such from Joe R. Lansdale and the immortal Ray Russell.

In "Journeys," he predicts that even after the most horrible of deaths, love and eternity will prevail.

In "Born," he controversially deals with a major issue of our time.

In "The Cat Lover," he draws a horrid but then heartwarming lesson for animal lovers everywhere.

And in "Widowed," he utilizes two of his further specialties, erotic horror and the terrors of middle age, to also venture into the occult for a dark but wanly fulfilling end.

Read John Maclay’s Divagations, and you’ll see why Steve Vernon, in Hellnotes, has said of his collection Dreadful Delineations (also from Delirium), "This is classic material."

SUCKERS
by J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand

Vampires.

Well, not vampires—Pires. Whack-jobs who think they’re vampires. They’ve inducted an innocent young girl into their cult, and her mother has hired legendary (not in a good way) private investigator Harry McGlade to get her back.

Infiltrating this bloodthirsty cult is too big of a job for just one man, especially when he has the intelligence of half a man. But when he joins forces with the also-less-than-100%-competent Andrew Mayhem, maybe, just maybe, their combined efforts will succeed in thwarting this savage menace. Or perhaps they’ll just embarrass themselves and get killed.

Masters of humor-tainted-horror (or horror-tainted-humor) J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand team up for the first time in this hilariously gruesome adventure that does not contain a single lame "You suck!" or "That bites!" joke. Suckers. The ultimate Idiots vs. Phony Vampires extravaganza!

That’s it for tonight. I’m only 41 for 45 more minutes.

Not that I’m counting or anything...

9:15 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment