I forgot to mention a few things in my last newsletter:
The Missing was nominated for an International Horror Guild Award in the category of novel for 2007: http://www.horroraward.org/.
Jul 20, 11 am, Burlington, Massachusetts: I'll be at the ReaderCon 19 Conference on Imaginative Literature (http://www.readercon.org/) to help present the Shirley Jackson Award. In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson's writing, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. Jonathan Lethem is the host, and there will be lots of amazing guests. For more info, visit the SJA website: http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/
July 23. Wednesday. 7-9 pm. Leading authors read from Shirley Jackson canon to commemorate 60th anniversary of "The Lottery". KGB Bar at 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave) New York City. An evening of live readings from Ms. Jackson's work is sure to unsettle audience members. The event will be co-hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel. The cover charge is $5 per person. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Shirley Jackson Awards. Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, "The Lottery". Authors reading are: F. Brett Cox, Jeffery Ford, Jack Ketchum, Carrie Laben, John Langan, Sarah Langan, Peter Straub, David Wellington, and Jack Womack.
My next story out is "Fenstad's End," which was partly the inspiration for The Missing/Virus. You can pre-order it here: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/_cd059
I've been bad about updating the Mystery Site. That means, everybody who submitted a suggestion over the last two months gets a free copy of "The Lost"-- a signed, limited edition chapbook. If that means you, please reply to this with your address. And please send in more suggestions. I'll update again in September, and this time the winner will receive "The Lost" and the latest issue of the St. John's Humanities Review, which includes my essay, "Why I Write Horror."
New stuff online: "Why I Write Horror": http://media.www.thehumanitiesreview.com/media/storage/paper1300/news/2008/06/01/Spring2008/Why-I.Write.Horror-3386560.shtml A podcast reading of "The Lost": http://www.dreadcentral.com/story/dreadtime-stories-sarah-langans-the-lost
Remember, only you can review my books on Amazon. Because if I do it, it's cheating.
I hope everybody has a wonderful summer. Thanks for your attention.
There are some very good reasons to fear flying, but crashing isn’t one of them
FRIDAY, MAY 02, 2008
I'm fickle when it comes to the United States. I mean, come on. It's embarrassing. We've steamrolled past the bad, and entered the absurd. Celebrity Rehab? Wars fought remotely, by man-operated robots? John Mayer, the cheeseball lothario, who dated both Jessica Simpson AND Jennifer Aniston? Oh, come on! He's totally that guy in high school who winked, then cocked his thumb and index finger like a gun. Come on!
So my visit to the sound editing set of Lion's Gate's "The Burrowers" in Toronto was enlightening. First off, the movie is amazing. The best comparison I can make is to John Ford's "Searchers," with a modern horror sensibility, and like last year's "Zodiac," a movie for grown-ups that will have legs for years to come.
The process of watching it make the journey from script to finished product has been an education. You really have to believe in yourself, your work, and your crew to pull off the magic that is making a movie. But JT has gone a step further, and created something special. Thank God directing was never my calling, because it's too hard, but I'm very proud of him. You all should stay tuned, because it will undoubtedly make a lot of waves when it is released.
And onto Toronto. I tried not to be impressed when I saw the sound room—it looked like the mother board of an alien spacecraft—lots of consoles and blinking lights. But I was, indeed, impressed. JT sat at the helm like Captain Kirk, and also covered my shredded wheat laptop charger wires from where our rabbit had snacked with electrical tape. During my first few nights in the city, we saw "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" – great fun. Not as funny as "White Castle" but surprisingly good-natured and generous—quite an accomplishment for an angry political invective. We also ate fried lobsters in Chinatown on Spadina Street (so good!), and visited the fancy Spoke Club to celebrate some great career news for Jennifer Evans, the president of Sequentia, a Toronto-based communications firm. After three days, I was thinking: clean, pretty, polite, near the water—I could live here!
The fourth day, I thought: clean, polite, pretty…. hmmm….this is getting monotonous. The fifth day, I began to grasp the problem. The television was weird. Lots of high school sports coverage. The restaurant service was slow—they don't work for tips. Nobody rushed. Nobody worked crazy hours, either. They believe in this weird lefty pinko commie concept called "quality of living." In conclusion, Toronto isn't neurotic enough. By a mile.
By day six, Toronto liked me a lot less too. At the coffee shop where I tried to write, they didn't offer free refills or have wireless Internet. They also couldn't understand why any rational human being would want a third cup of coffee. Because I need it, people!
By day seven, I'd fallen out of love, and perhaps it was for this reason that I began to notice that Toronto no longer loved me, either. People were subtlely rude. Not in any way you could pinpoint, but in the small details of common interactions. I was reminded, then, of that episode of "Star Trek," where, in a mirror dimension, another USS Enterprise exists, only it is savage and war waging. Also, they dress sexier, and Sulu's got the creepy hots for Uhura, but that's another story. Anyway, Savage James T. Kirk winds up on the civilized ship, and tries to conceal his identity by impersonating Civilized Kirk, while Civilized Jim perches on the throne of his own bizarro Enterprise. Savage Jim is quickly discovered as an imposter, and thrown into the brig, while Civilized Jim fakes his way through the machinations of the savage world in which he has found himself. When both men return to their proper places, like all good plays, the epilogue informs us that civilized men can fake savagery, but savages cannot pretend to be refined—they're too ignorant.
It occurred to me that I was the savage in Toronto, and the small social queues, which natives understood and signaled, went right over my head. Hence, I was met with rudeness. American bull in a Canadian China shop, I was missing all the codes, and unwittingly behaving badly.
It was with a happy heart that I got on the plane back to New York, where I belonged. It was with a less happy heart that I was seated next to a man who picked both his nose and ears and ate them for more than a half hour. Mid-forties, wedding band, seemingly normal, save the ridiculous amount of carry-on bags he brought with him (what was this, a bus to Cartagena, Columbia?). At first, I ignored. Then, no kidding, I gagged. Looking right at me, he continued. Finally, I said, "Please stop!" He didn't. I suspect he had some kind of compulsive disorder, because the problem seemed out of his control. I'm not one to judge crazy people, as I'm a little nuts myself, but I do wish he'd chosen an illness more socially acceptable. Like freebasing cocaine. I wondered if he was Canadian, but knew he could not possibly be. It was with a heavy heart that I saw which newspaper he was reading: "The New York Post." Soon afterward, I switched seats. Even the steward understood, and winked at me, as if to say, "That guy is really gross!"
As I write this, happily ensconced in my beloved Brooklyn, I wonder: What does all this mean? I don't know. But if Canadians imagined my savagery as 10% as gross as Dr. Fingers', I apologize to them en masse. I also think there is such as thing as too laid back.
And so, in celebration of my awesome, but kind of gross country, I give you the antidote to John Mayer: James McMurtry Oh, he is good, so good. Listen and repeat, until you start pretending you're a cowboy.
Great news. After much reading, and piles of books so high I feared I would be toppled, the SJA Final Ballot has been established. It's a stellar list of excellent fiction, and I'm proud to be associated with it. Go buy what you haven't read. Not a clunker in the pack.
NOVEL Baltimore, Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (Bantam Spectra) Generation Loss, Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer Press) Sharp Teeth, Toby Barlow (William Heinemann Ltd) The Terror, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown) Tokyo Year Zero, David Peace (Knopf)
NOVELLA 12 Collections, Zoran Zivkovic (PS Publishing) Illyria, Elizabeth Hand (PS Publishing) The Mermaids, Robert Edric (PS Publishing) "Procession of the Black Sloth," Laird Barron (The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, Night Shade Books) The Scalding Rooms, Conrad Williams (PS Publishing) "Vacancy," Lucius Shepard (Subterranean 7, 2007)
NOVELETTE "The Forest," Laird Barron (Inferno, Tor) "The Janus Tree," Glen Hirshberg (Inferno, Tor) "The Swing," Don Tumasonis (At Ease with the Dead, Ash-Tree Press) "The Tenth Muse," William Browning Spencer (Subterranean 6, 2007) "Thumbprint," Joe Hill (Postscripts 10, March 2007)
SHORT STORY "Holiday," M. Rickert (Subterranean 7, 2007) "The Monsters of Heaven," Nathan Ballingrud (Inferno,Tor) "A Murder of Crows," Elizabeth Ziemska (Tin House 31, Spring 2007) "Something in the Mermaid Way," Carrie Laben (Clarkesworld, March 2007) "The Third Bear," Jeff VanderMeer (Clarkesworld, April 2007) "Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse," Andy Duncan (Eclipse One, Night Shade Books)
COLLECTION The Bone Key, Sarah Monette (Prime Books) The Entire Predicament, Lucy Corin (Tin House) The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, Laird Barron (Night Shade Books) Like You'd Understand, Anyway, Jim Shepard (Knopf) Old Devil Moon, Christopher Fowler (Serpent's Tail)
ANTHOLOGY At Ease with the Dead, edited by Barbara and Christopher Roden (Ash-Tree Press) Dark Delicacies 2, edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb (Running Press) Inferno, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor) Logorrhea, edited by John Klima (Bantam Spectra) Wizards, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois (Berkley)
The Horror Writer's Association announced yesterday that my second novel, The Missing, is on the final ballot for the Bram Stoker Award in the category best novel. The Missing has made several 2007 year's best lists, including The American Library Association, Fantasy Book Critic, Publisher's Weekly, and Dark Scribe (editor's pick, novel of the year). Below is the final Bram Stoker Ballot in all categories. I'm delighted and honored.
Superior Achievement in a Novel THE GUARDENER'S TALE by Bruce Boston (Sam's Dot Publishing) HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill (William Morrow) *THE MISSING by Sarah Langan (Harper) THE TERROR by Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
Superior Achievement in a First Novel HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill (William Morrow) I WILL RISE by Michael Calvillo (Lachesis Publishing) THE MEMORY TREE by John R. Little (Nocturne Press) THE WITCH'S TRINITY by Erika Mailman (Crown) THE HOLLOWER by Mary SanGiovanni (Leisure Books)
Superior Achievement in Long Fiction AFTERWARD, THERE WILL BE A HALLWAY by Gary Braunbeck (Five Strokes to Midnight) ALMOST THE LAST STORY BY ALMOST THE LAST MAN by Scott Edelman (Postscripts) GENERAL SLOCUM'S GOLD by Nicholas Kaufmann (Burning Effigy Press) THE TENTH MUSE by William Browning Spencer AN APIARY OF WHITE BEES by Lee Thomas (Inferno)
Superior Achievement in Short Fiction THE DEATH WAGON ROLLS ON BY by C. Dean Andersson (Cemetery Dance 57) LETTING GO by John Everson (Needles and Sins) THE TEACHER by Paul G. Tremblay (Chizine) THERE'S NO LIGHT BETWEEN FLOORS by Paul G. Tremblay (Clarkesworld) CLOSET DREAMS by Lisa Tuttle (Postscripts 10) THE GENTLE BRUSH OF WINGS by David Niall Wilson (Defining Moments)
Superior Achievement in an Anthology FIVE STROKES TO MIDNIGHT edited by Gary Braunbeck and Hank Schwaeble (Haunted Pelican Press) INFERNO edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor) DARK DELICACIES 2: FEAR edited by Del Howison & Jeff Gelb (Carroll & Graf/Avalon) MIDNIGHT PREMIERE edited by Tom Piccirilli (Cemetery Dance Publications) AT EASE WITH THE DEAD edited by Barbara & Christopher Roden (Ash-Tree Press)
Superior Achievement in a Collection PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS by Michael A. Arnzen (Dark Regions Press) THE IMAGO SEQUENCE by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books OLD DEVIL MOON by Christopher Fowler (Serpent's Tail) 5 STORIES by Peter Straub (Borderlands) DEFINING MOMENTS by David Niall Wilson (Sarob Press
Superior Achievement in Nonfiction ENCYCLOPEDIA HORRIFICA by Joshua Gee (Scholastic) THE PORTABLE OBITUARY: HOW THE FAMOUS, RICH, AND POWERFUL REALLY DIED by Michael Largo (Harper) THE CRYPTOPEDIA: A Dictionary of the Weird, Strange & Downright Bizarre by Jonathan Maberry & David F. Kramer (Citadel Press / Kensington) STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED by Joe Nassise and David Niall Wilson (Storytellers Unplugged)
Superior Achievement in Poetry BEING FULL OF LIGHT, INSUBSTANTIAL by Linda Addison (Space and Time) HERESY by Charlee Jacob (Bedlam Press [Necro Publications]) VECTORS: A WEEK IN THE DEATH OF A PLANET by Charlee Jacob & Marge Simon (Dark Regions Press) PHANTASMAPEDIA by Mark McLaughlin (Dead Letter Press) OSSUARY by JoSelle Vanderhooft (Sam's Dot Publishing)
There are some new members to this newsletter. Thanks for joining! I've got a few announcements. I'll keep 'em short.
*I've got my one and only New York appearance in Brooklyn on Wednesday, January 16, 7:30pm, at WORD, in Greenpoint. I'm a little worried about turnout, so I'd consider it a big favor if some of you locals showed your smiling faces. Dour faces okay, too.The details:
Word, 126 Franklin Street (718-383-0096) http://wordbrooklyn.wordpress.com/
By Subway: Take the G train to the Greenpoint Ave. stop. Exit at the corner of Greenpoint Ave and Manhattan Ave. Walk down Greenpoint Ave towards the East River, away from Starbucks. Make a left at Franklin Street. Word is 1 block down at the corner of Franklin and Milton.
If you are coming from Manhattan and taking the L, the best way is to transfer to the B61 bus (or walk) from Bedford Avenue. ..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
I'll give a short reading, followed by a signing. There will be wine, and if not, I will bring wine. Afterward, depending on turnout, we'll hit a local watering hole, or go bowling!
Map of WORD: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=126+franklin+st,+brooklyn,+ny+11222&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=49.176833,82.265625&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=16&om=1&iwloc=addr
*If you're in the Philly area this weekend, I'll be signing books on Saturday, January 12, 2:30-3:30 at the Sisters in Crime booth at the American Library Association's Midwinter meeting (Pennsylvania Convention Center, 1101 Arch Street).
*I'll also be speaking at the Garden State Horror Writer's monthly meeting on February 9, 11am. Location to be determined.
*An Interview conducted by Peter Tennant should be in the February issue of the UK Magazine Black Static, so go out and get a copy: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/misc/tta.htm
*Virus (the UK title for The Missing) went on sale in paperback last month. Go out and buy eighteen copies, and give them to all your friends!
*I've been bad about updating the Mystery Site of the Month. If you've got ideas, send them along. I'll be running the contest again starting February 1.
It's now on sale, under the title VIRUS, in paperback in the UK and all UK territories. So go buy a copy!
In other news, I've got interviews running on: Second Life- http://www.slcn.tv/authors-your-pocket-sl-sarah-langan My Book the Movie: http://mybookthemovie.blogspot.com/2007/12/sarah-langans-missing.html Sci-Fi Wire: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=5&id=45554 Fearzone: http://www.fearzone.com/blog/sarah-langan-interview
Also, I interviewed JT Petty for Fearzone: http://www.fearzone.com/blog/jt-petty
Finally, the REALLY good news: Dark Scribe nominated The Missing for a Black Quill award (best book, 2007): http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/nominees/ Other nominees include:
Baltimore: Or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (Spectra) Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill (William Morrow) Heartsick, by Chelsea Cain (St. Martins) The Dust of Wonderland, by Lee Thomas (Alyson) The Missing, by Sarah Langan (Harper) The Terror, by Dan Simmons (Little, Brown and Company)
THE MISSING TRAILER CHALLENGE! Winner gets iphone
Current mood: awake
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
THE MISSING
TRAILER CHALLENGE
Readers, writers, movie-lovers, horror movie-lovers, YouTubers, amateur video makers AND SO ON...
I invite/command you to make a 30 second movie trailer for my new book THE MISSING! The winner gets an Apple iPhone!*
All entries will be linked to my website, and here on myspace, so even if you don't get the i-phone, it's all roses. I'll also throw in copies of my most excellent novels, THE MISSING and THE KEEPER to everybody who plays. Because playing is important!
THE MISSING and rules below.
About THE MISSING
A remote and affluent Maine community, Corpus Christi was untouched by the environmental catastrophe that destroyed the neighboring blue-collar town of Bedford. But all that will change in a heartbeat . . .
The nightmare is awakened when third-grade schoolteacher Lois Larkin takes the children on a field trip to Bedford. There in the abandoned woods, a small, cruel boy unearths an ancient horror—a contagious plague that transforms its victims into something violent, hungry . . . and inhuman.
The long, dark night is just beginning. And all hope must die as the contagion feeds—for the malevolence will not rest until it has devoured every living soul in Corpus Christi . . . and beyond.
RULES
- Contest runs 10/1-10/31. All entrants must submit by 11:59 on 10/31.
artistic
awake
