It has been a while since my last update and so much has happened, and yet nothing has happened. For starters, I finally got my contributor copies of both Speculations and The Phantasmagorical Promenade.
Requisite author pic with my contributor copy of The Phantasmagorical Promenade.
The latter is a sweet collection of ghostly poems and stories edited by Duane Pesice for Planet X Publications. The sublime front cover and interior art is by Mutartis Boswell, the back cover is by Lucy Alvarado. I immediately read the pieces by my friends and acquaintances, which were great, then I moved on to the other offerings. Everything I read was entertaining and I even enjoyed the few bits I have read so far from the authors and poets who were unknown to me. Granted, nothing here is going to give M.R. James a run for his money, but it was all interesting if not straight up spooky fun. I was pleased to find that my personal anecdote, Night Hag, was accompanied by one of Mr. Boswell’s striking skull face illustrations.
Me and my contributor copy Speculations 2018.
Speculations, edited by Frank Coffman for Mind’s Eye Publications, is a slimmer book than The Phantasmagorical Promenade, although it has about as many contributors, most likely the difference in size owing to the difference in content, the former featuring short stories which take up more pages. The cover art as well as the interior artwork are by David M. Hoenig. This collection features work by some of the members of the Weird Poets Society, of which I am a member. I read poems by Frank Coffman and Scott J. Couturier, both of which I enjoyed. Mr. Couturier had shared his poem The Lich-Queen with me some time ago, and it was a pleasure to reacquaint myself with it.
The few other poems I read didn’t move me much and overall the calibre of the remaining work did not seem to be on par with what I am used to in Spectral Realms. I was also upset that despite having gone over it online with the person in charge of the visual aspect of the book, whose name escapes me, my poem My Bantam Black Fay, which opens the book, has formatting issues that messed up the line breaks of about half of the poem. I have since decided to clean it up and submit it to S.T. Joshi at Spectral Realms to see if I can get it printed properly.
In other news, Morbidezza & Other Denizens of the Dark is just about ready for the printers. I am only waiting for Denisse to set up the Table of Contents and complete the cover art. It may take some time to scrape up the money for the printer, but hopefully it will be finished before the end of 2019. I also have been thinking a lot about the recital I was hoping to do for promoting the book. I really want it to be a performance. I have been thinking a lot about this lately and after seeing some live videos of the band Twin Temple doing their Satanic rock & roll show, I really have been chomping at the bit to go out there and give the poetry crowd a dark spectacle like they’ve never seen before. I wouldn’t do anything as overtly Satanic as Twin Temple, but I think our prop table would look very similar. By the way, if you haven’t heard or seen them, I suggest going online and checking out some of their live clips, they are what my friend Sali Z would call amaze-balls.
Twin Temple “Satan’s A Woman” 45 rpm
