by john | Feb 2, 2015 | Uncategorized
You might have heard about this little anthology I’ve got coming out that I co-created and co-edited with Emily Lavin Leverett, call The Big Bad II. All month I’ll be hosting guest blog posts from authors in the anthology talking about the Evolution of Evil – how they came up with their story for The Big Bad. This is Nicole’s take.
I’m an 80s brat. Born in ’74 (still younger than me! – JH), but reared on the Eagles, The Police, Michael Jackson, and Prince. My coming of age years sprouted firm and fully underneath the bestseller might of V.C. Andrews and Stephen King at the height of his popularity and horror movies. My parents sought out horror via the revolutionary VHS (sometimes we managed to snag a BETA version in error from the video store. My father would be furious), and watch the carnage unfold on our home television set until the wee hours of the night. Then, my folks and I would load up into our car and go to the Waffle House® for breakfast.
Film after film failed to frighten me. You see, I grew up in a public housing project. The gritty horror of inner city life rendered Freddy’s one liners and Jason’s “campy” antics to farce and funny. In a word, it was overkill. I saw real people die from drug overdoses, gunshot, and stabbings. Blood stained sidewalks, police brutality, and common fist-fights in my every day diet made Hollywood’s scary settings more cartoonish than horrific.
My story, “Sweet Tooth,” in The Big Bad, Volume Two, is based on what did terrorize me as an 80s teenager. The candy lady. Her apartment was in our neighborhood, and like most people in the projects, she hustled to make her government-subsidized wages stretch. She sold candy, pop, gum (no, it’s not the same as candy), and chips from her kitchen.
As a youth, I feared her, like my protagonist, Bryce Howerton, does in my story. Her place smelled strange-weird, a mixture of ancient dirt and leftover death. My stomach hurts even now as I think about that odor and how it made my own sweet tooth ache from disgust. From that single horror—a filthy apartment that sold food products to kids—also coupled with the news coverage of razor blades in apples at Halloween and sweets had become suspect for me ever since.
To this day, I still prefer salty snacks to anything “sweet.”
My second fear as a teenager grew from the abduction of young black children in the Atlanta area. The Atlanta Child Murders turned my momma into a protective force. Her fear fed mine and together it grew to incredible size. The community’s outrage over the seemingly lack of interest in black lives, even then, seemed horrific (#blacklivesmatter).
Twisted and intertwined, these two fears became the crux of “Sweet Tooth,” a short story of an inner city teen and his very real fear of the hood’s candy lady. Of course, those facts mixed with fiction, and what Bryce learns about the discarded bodies, the candy lady, and himself if what great storytelling is all about.
So, check out “Sweet Tooth,” and other tales of villainy in The Big Bad, Volume Two, from Dark Oak Press and from the editing genius of John Hartness and Emily Leverett.
As for me, you can follow me on Twitter @nicolegkurtz, find me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/nlkurtz), and groove with me on Google+ (mochamemoirspress). You can find my other works of horror at Other Worlds Pulp, my website, http://www.nicolegivenskurtz.com.
by john | Jan 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
Somewhere in the digital archives of my life there’s a video Literate Liquors with Tonia Brown from last ConCarolinas. That translates into “John shot it but doesn’t know where the file is and hats editing video anyway.”
But she kindly agreed to come on the show again, so we set up in my mobile studio and hung out for a little while, talking about farts, butthole bronzing, being funny horror writers, and all sorts of other shit.
So without further ado, here’s Tonia!
She’s got a new book out, called Hauling Ash, and here’s a link for that –
And another new re-release of a book called Skin Trade, so check that one out too!
by john | Jan 29, 2015 | Book Spotlight, Writing
I promised y’all another edition of The Big Bad, and while it took all of 2014 and a little piece of 2015 to deliver, it’s coming now! The Big Bad II will release on February 24th from Dark Oak Press and Media, and here’s the awesome cover!
Volume 2 includes more stories of evil and monsters like:
Mercy’s Armistice – J. T. Glover
A Family Affair – Selah Janel
Old Nonna – Gail Z. Martin
Letters to Logroth – Jason Corner
Skippin’ Stones – S. H. Roddey
The Sea Witch – Kasidy Manisco
A Day in the Life – James R. Tuck
Overkill – Sara Taylor Woods
Voodooesque – Eden Royce
A Fitter Subject for Study – Sarah Joy Adams
Ghosts and Sands – Jay Requard
Teacher of the Year – Riley Miller
Feels Like Justice to Me – Edmund R. Schubert
Portrait of the Artist as a Psychopathic Man – Stuart Jaffe
The House on Cherry Hill – Emily Lavin Leverett
Sticks and Stones – Bobby Nash
Sweet Tooth – Nicole Givens Kurtz
Just Pretending – Linden Flynn
Phone Home – E. D. Guy
I Think of Snow – J. Matthew Saunders
Little Gods – Neal F. Litherland
Drawing Flame – Misty Massey
The Witch Hunter – M. B. Weston
The Cully – D. B. Jackson
You might notice that there is a name missing from that list – mine. I don’t have a story on this year’s anthology, sorry to say. With everything that went on in my life in late 2014, I couldn’t pull my crap together enough to write a good one, and anything I had working wasn’t of a quality to stand beside the stories we had, so I decided not to include a story. I also stepped away from a lot of the editing, leaving the lion’s share of the work to Emily Leverett, who stepped up and made the whole thing happen. We still have a book that we’re both proud of, with some incredible stories by new and established writers, and a couple of tie-ins to existing story or novel series that I can’t wait for y’all to read. This is an incredible collection, and I’m thrilled for y’all to get it in your hot little hands.
by john | Jan 23, 2015 | Uncategorized
Y’all can check it out here or somewheres else, whatever you wanna do.
Damn, but I am a good-looking fella, ain’t I?
In other news, the Weird Wild West Kickstarter that I’ve been flogging near to death for a couple weeks has ended, and it funded enough to make a couple of the stretch goals and guarantee that the book would be published, so that’s really cool. I’m pretty excited about being in this anthology with some awesome folks, and who knows, I might even make a little money off it.
Raising Hell debuted this week, and I couldn’t be happier about the love it’s getting. The book has received some very positive reviews, and we’ve moved over 200 copies in the first week alone! That’s pretty good numbers for a self-published novella, so I’m really grateful for all the folks who have taken a flyer on this new character with me. I think it’s the best thing I’ve produced so far, but I think that whenever I release a book. And let’s face it, I’m supposed to think that – because if I’m not growing as a writer, I’m dying as a writer. So I want to think everything I write is the best thing I’ve ever written. If you haven’t checked it out yet, what are you waiting for? It’s exclusive to Amazon for the first 90 days, so buy it here!
I’ve also reached a milestone on my Patreon page – $100 pledged per month. That means I’ll be doing another reading of a Bubba the Monster Hunter short story on a future episode of Literate Liquors. Thanks again to everyone who has pledged, I really appreciate you all!
by john | Jan 13, 2015 | Literate Liquors
My dear friend Misty Massey returns to Literate Liquors and we talk about the Weird Wild West anthology Kickstarter she’s putting together, publishing, Kickstarter backlash, the Charlie Hedbob attacks and anything else that crosses our silly little minds. Give us a listen!
Here’s the Kickstarter we were talking about –
Here’s the video from the last time Misty was on Literate Liquors, a couple of years ago!
