tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545055827559305692024-02-20T21:30:37.343-08:00Southern-Fried & Horrified: News & Notions from Horror Author Ronald KellyRonald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-58383442187378618802021-02-24T14:41:00.001-08:002021-02-24T14:41:50.567-08:00IRISH GOTHIC: TALES OF CELTIC HORROR Now Available!<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemURSF14p26kZ4B87DdCcToAyqPVyL4lXnpH7TpXKUS5V7EBw6Gx8zgSOpAGzhPr1lLC3sliN08EDp0ZLacnlVSbPIfnSbXDSz77Kbbv0eML-kTJB979ySGf76UN_C8lASfP6KQ0hQSx-/s1019/IrishGothic_FRONT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="661" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemURSF14p26kZ4B87DdCcToAyqPVyL4lXnpH7TpXKUS5V7EBw6Gx8zgSOpAGzhPr1lLC3sliN08EDp0ZLacnlVSbPIfnSbXDSz77Kbbv0eML-kTJB979ySGf76UN_C8lASfP6KQ0hQSx-/w416-h640/IrishGothic_FRONT.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;">My new collection of Irish horror stories, IRISH GOTHIC: TALES OF CELTIC HORROR is now available from Crossroad Press.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;"><br /></b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;">When Irish eyes are dying<br />Breath chills till time is over,<br />Death pulls slowly graveward<br />To rest ’neath sod and clover…<br /><br />Ireland… Sweet Erin…The Emerald Isle. In the bright and bonnie light of day, it is a place of beauty, history, and good humor. Of rolling green hills and stone walls at every step of a mile. A kind blessing for health and happiness, and a pint in your hand at the village pub… as well as the sound of fife and fiddle, the lilting tune of laughter, and the cheerful dance of a jig.<br /><br />But, as the sun takes leave and dusk descends, deep shadows and the dank of an evening mist claim the Land of Saints. Within the cloak of night, boogies and beasties roam the moors, keen for the echo of lonesome footsteps and the alluring scent of fear and dread. Banshee, selkie, leprechaun, and fairy alike. The restless spirit of the Sluagh and the bestial form of the werewolf, hungry and on the prowl.<br /><br />In <i>Irish Gothic: Tales of Celtic Horror</i>, Ronald Kelly returns to the land of his ancestry and explores the dark superstition and frightful folklore of Ol’ Éire. Seven stories of Celtic gothic terror… tales to quicken the beat of the heart and chill one’s bones to the very marrow.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia58n9fch3iFM9prpov-3OeOxwu42hZQKFLzNYKO8qkh2REosJ2ffa01KQSvz6cCVoBLQnA89Da3mw0cmxarDPqy5zQl6y35gC7hLMkCc0zzVrmeq4OzizHHPh_pQyWTYXsYZkrxlXwWu6/s1280/Irish+Gothic+wallpaper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia58n9fch3iFM9prpov-3OeOxwu42hZQKFLzNYKO8qkh2REosJ2ffa01KQSvz6cCVoBLQnA89Da3mw0cmxarDPqy5zQl6y35gC7hLMkCc0zzVrmeq4OzizHHPh_pQyWTYXsYZkrxlXwWu6/w400-h225/Irish+Gothic+wallpaper.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><b><br /></b></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>IRISH GOTHIC also includes a special feature "Irish Celtic Creatures & Cryptids", as well as a Gaelic/English Translation Guide, to help decipher some of the Gaelic words and phrases throughout the collection.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b><span style="background-color: black;">You can now order IRISH GOTHIC in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Gothic-Tales-Celtic-Horror-ebook/dp/B08TG9HFKQ/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3EO8IYJTOYR1L&dchild=1&keywords=ronald+kelly&qid=1614205164&sprefix=RONALD+KELLY%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-2" target="_blank">e-book</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Gothic-Tales-Celtic-Horror/dp/1637899890/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1614205164&sr=8-2" target="_blank">paperback</a> from Amazon. Many Happy Irish Nightmares, y'all!</span></b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlyJ9k8eOWY7qz0YZ6AtVR1F-7b5x1MXap5DPl2tcw_MkfCHNQmAYUcK9_qLiluQiFoSUbcd8SrXr5Hj0yzSB934HM5eoYGPIaMlBExCuS7_yuhZflk2LcA__Q1zNwRCJps5LwbPEx0kI/s641/Irish+Gothic+shamrock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlyJ9k8eOWY7qz0YZ6AtVR1F-7b5x1MXap5DPl2tcw_MkfCHNQmAYUcK9_qLiluQiFoSUbcd8SrXr5Hj0yzSB934HM5eoYGPIaMlBExCuS7_yuhZflk2LcA__Q1zNwRCJps5LwbPEx0kI/w375-h400/Irish+Gothic+shamrock.jpg" width="375" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #04ff00; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-91969516723036249802020-09-18T21:16:00.005-07:002020-09-18T21:19:25.144-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE HALLOWEEN STORE</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>& OTHER TALES OF ALL HALLOWS' EVE</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Now Ready to Preorder!</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #ffa400; font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqzgFhF7v2WwWArCQl37GDWOypvcsBmZvV4Ml_lVlV5TA2fEmmqxJ1WF3tbrNW7hmkR8aoSIMxbQA0ts7dQC1nMaVV_fWzaCv7owYbDEuOZye_GT8aGGcuF5t2VGTEFOsoYA8LTdpAkb4O/s2048/The+Halloween+Store+front+cover+final.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1287" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqzgFhF7v2WwWArCQl37GDWOypvcsBmZvV4Ml_lVlV5TA2fEmmqxJ1WF3tbrNW7hmkR8aoSIMxbQA0ts7dQC1nMaVV_fWzaCv7owYbDEuOZye_GT8aGGcuF5t2VGTEFOsoYA8LTdpAkb4O/s320/The+Halloween+Store+front+cover+final.jpg" /></a></span></div><p style="color: #ffa400; font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><b>My new collection of Halloween stories and essays, THE HALLOWEEN STORE & OTHER TALES OF ALL HALLOWS' EVE is now available for preorder in paperback and e-book editions.</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><i><b style="background-color: black;"><span>When you first enter The Halloween Store, things seem normal. Fun and frightful decorations, ghastly costumes and masks of the season, and bags of candy galore. Then, as you travel farther into its shadowy depths, things begin to change. The air smells of damp autumn leaves and candle-scorched pumpkin. The shelves of All Hallows’ Eve fare grow darker and more disturbing. Strange and unsettling things of Halloweens past and present lurk amid the cobwebs and dust…</span><br /><br /><span>Four trick-or-treaters purchase vintage costumes from a strip-mall shop, only to discover that they must sign a mysterious disclaimer for the Halloween celebration to come…</span><br /><br /><span>After a man’s missing daughter is found–near death and physically altered–he must once again face a horrifying monster from his own childhood…</span><br /><br /><span>A teenage girl hitches a ride after a Halloween rock & roll concert, only to learn that her favorite singing idol has made a pact with the Devil himself…</span><br /><br /><span>Three kids receive unusual treats during a Halloween stop at their favorite teacher’s house…</span><br /><br /><span>During a random visit to his hometown, a businessman treats a young boy to the joy and excitement of a Halloween festival, only to find that things are not what they first appeared to be…</span><br /><br /><span>A rash of ghoulish jack-o’-lanterns leads a small-town sheriff to the doorstep of one of the most notorious serial killers of all time…</span><br /><br /><span>An advertisement in the back of an old comic book prompts two friends to place an order that they soon come to regret…</span><br /><br /><span>Seven horrific tales and two nostalgic essays… hand-picked for your Trick-or-Treat bag. But beware! With the arrival of a 2020 Halloween, there is no telling what terrifying treats and petrifying prizes may await you!</span></b></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"><b><br /></b></span></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><span><b style="background-color: black;">This is my first collection of Halloween tales since <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mister-Glow-Bones-Other-Halloween-Tales-ebook/dp/B00O6ET30O/ref=sr_1_5?crid=CMZD5WDGOPW8&dchild=1&keywords=ronald+kelly&qid=1600487730&s=digital-text&sprefix=ronald%2Cdigital-text%2C157&sr=1-5" target="_blank">MISTER GLOW-BONES & OTHER HALLOWEEN TALES</a> in 2014. Published by Crossroad Press under the Macabre Ink imprint, THE HALLOWEEN STORE offers five brand new tales, plus Halloween versions of two RK favorites, plus two nostalgic essays .</b></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><span><b style="background-color: black;"><br /></b></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><span><b style="background-color: black;">The official release date for THS is on September 25th. You can preorder the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Store-Other-Tales-Hallows/dp/1952979730/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1600487730&sr=1-1" target="_blank">paperback</a> and the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Store-Other-Tales-Hallows-ebook/dp/B08H5QZGYW/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1600487730&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Kindle e-book</a> now to receive your copy before the month of October rolls around. For you Nook fans, you can preorder the Barnes and Noble Nook edition <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-halloween-store-and-other-tales-of-all-hallows-eve-ronald-kelly/1137578455;jsessionid=90E677D4FC74141A6C53EF939B55138A.prodny_store01-atgap17?ean=2940162874737" target="_blank">here</a>.</b></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNm544J8ofSLeqvMcBpxlviwn3RNxFr_N0t1kG6nADbY1CicS5VNdpFiqtqQ2tgmhumcrdMphdL3Mk9htAwbXawpBArTebVsGCUcD1SbD9bCJN5mhzYiSsTWn5bJl3VOSRvTTKOFPe7L1J/s2048/Mister+Glow-Bones+ebookcover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1287" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNm544J8ofSLeqvMcBpxlviwn3RNxFr_N0t1kG6nADbY1CicS5VNdpFiqtqQ2tgmhumcrdMphdL3Mk9htAwbXawpBArTebVsGCUcD1SbD9bCJN5mhzYiSsTWn5bJl3VOSRvTTKOFPe7L1J/s320/Mister+Glow-Bones+ebookcover.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;">If you haven't read MISTER GLOW-BONES, it is currently available in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mister-Glow-Bones-Other-Halloween-Tales-ebook/dp/B00O6ET30O/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3DEE8KCS0AY2C&dchild=1&keywords=ronald+kelly&qid=1600488684&s=digital-text&sprefix=ronald+%2Cstripbooks%2C161&sr=1-5" target="_blank">e-book.</a> A paperback edition with new bonus stories will be published by Crossroad Press in October of 2021.</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;"><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;">2020 has been a strange and difficult year for us all. Don't let it ruin your Halloween spirit... grab yourself a Trick or Treat bag full of Halloween fun and order now! </b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><p></p>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-22700480994851202512020-08-21T20:27:00.004-07:002021-05-07T18:49:00.130-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Author's Insight:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ffa400; font-size: xx-large;"><b>HINDSIGHT</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCYPKt5QzX8fYj924-iiw_pVKgoMVHg6FumggYG3Gr7LOEleuBTZ7RRmSs5hfhT5K_SBjlhFRxW40q_rVwhZB2cpHePrInS7BkB-gcnwTr2t02YrFjgqaGiiahaMIHt8LG8356xMYSUsKB/s1280/Hindsight+covers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCYPKt5QzX8fYj924-iiw_pVKgoMVHg6FumggYG3Gr7LOEleuBTZ7RRmSs5hfhT5K_SBjlhFRxW40q_rVwhZB2cpHePrInS7BkB-gcnwTr2t02YrFjgqaGiiahaMIHt8LG8356xMYSUsKB/s640/Hindsight+covers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A while back, I posted series of Author's Insights on my Facebook page, detailing my journey as a mid-list mass market paperback author for Zebra Books. It was a nostalgic and introspective trip down memory lane.. one that was both enjoyable and bittersweet for Ol' Ron. I've decided to repost these Author Insights here at Southern-Fried & Horrified for those who missed it the first time. I hope you enjoy them and get a sense of how things were back then and how a unique era of horror pap</span><span style="font-family: arial;">erback publishing both thrived and perished within the matter of only a few crucial years. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="38gn8-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="38gn8-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="38gn8-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">Author's insight: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hindsight-Ronald-Kelly-ebook/dp/B00AWRNH3S/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3T2K0YMUOBB0W&dchild=1&keywords=hindsight+ronald+kelly&qid=1598067520&s=digital-text&sprefix=Hindsight+r%2Cdigital-text%2C168&sr=1-1" target="_blank">HINDSIGHT</a></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="11rd2-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="11rd2-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="11rd2-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">Original title: THE TOBACCO BARN</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="5sbla-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5sbla-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5sbla-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">Publication date: 1990</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="13sq8-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="13sq8-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="13sq8-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">Emotion: Bittersweet</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="eekoh-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="eekoh-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="eekoh-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="ckv0i-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ckv0i-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="ckv0i-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">After writing and publishing short stories of Southern-fried horror in the small press horror magazines for several years, I tried my hand at my first horror novel. It was heavily inspired by family history... two aspects in particular. First, my mother's life as a child during the Great Depression and her gift of second sight. And secondly, a brutal triple murder that took place in a rural barn during that time, one of the victims being my mother's teenage cousin. I had heard so many stories about the Depression, the murder case, and my mother's childhood from both my mom and my grandmother that the essence and place of time of the mid-1930s was fully accessible. I had no trouble whatsoever writing about rural life in that tragic and hardscrabble period in American history, since I had relived those times through their words.</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="7r7eg-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7r7eg-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="7r7eg-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="22pmr-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="22pmr-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="22pmr-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">Some may balk at my claim that my mother possessed the gift of second sight, but it was no laughing matter for her family. I witnessed the anxiety and depression that it brought her... not knowing when it would happen or what she would see. Most of what she saw involved death. The time when I was five years old when she dropped a can of biscuits on our dog's head and immediately saw her brother crushed beneath wrecked truck. Another, when she reached across a fence to take a watermelon from our neighbor and she saw him dressed in his Sunday best, lying in a casket. Both came to pass, as she knew they would. But she never told anyone... never warned them of what was to come. She lived with that awful, uneasy feeling of dread until her vision came full-circle and finally took place.</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="br9e7-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="br9e7-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="br9e7-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="8t3t2-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8t3t2-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="8t3t2-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">I based that first novel on the youthful life of my mother and that brutal mass murder and titled it THE TOBACCO BARN, setting the massacre inside an abandoned tobacco-curing barn. I submitted it to my agent at the time, the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and waited. It was a long wait. They must have submitted it to every publisher in the alphabet, from A to Z, because, two years later, it was finally accepted by Kensington Publishing for their Zebra imprint. My reaction to the sale? A mixture of elation and worried apprehension. After all, this was Zebra Books... the dreaded red-headed stepchild of mass market publishing. I knew how my peers in the writing community regarded the big Z, with its hologram images, foil embossed titles, and -- heaven forbid -- those tacky skeletons. Even after I had become an established Zebra author, I still carried around the stigma of being a Zebra "horror hack". During the first World Horror Convention, before a panel on Regionalism in Horror, Charles Grant looked over at me and said, "I've read your stuff. It's damn good. So... why the hell are you writing for Zebra?"</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="72u0e-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="72u0e-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="72u0e-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="6rls1-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6rls1-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="6rls1-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">I guess the one that was most excited about that first novel sale was my mother. It wasn't because the book was loosely based on her life or that it was a dark tale of horror/suspense... her very favorite type of fiction. No, it was because it was something we both had been looking forward to for a very long time. She was my biggest supporter and to see this happen, for her firstborn son, was something she relished with great pride and joy. "You're doing it," she told me excitedly. "You're actually going to be a published author."</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="2i0ja-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2i0ja-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2i0ja-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="70c3m-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="70c3m-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="70c3m-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">Then, almost immediately after the sale, the bad times came. My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer (she had never smoked a cigarette in her life, but had grown up around smokers most of her childhood and in the Nashville textile mill she had worked in before marrying my father). A difficult surgery took place in February of 1989 and, for a while, she seemed to recover completely. Then in the fall of that year it came back with a vengeance. She began to spend more time in the hospital than at home and her weight dropped away drastically. I urged her to read the type-written manuscript of THE TOBACCO BARN (by then retitled HINDSIGHT by the powers that be in the Zebra editorial ranks). But she refused. "I want to read it as a real book," she told me. "I want to hold it in my hands and smell the ink and paper and just devour it...knowing that it came from your imagination and your heart."</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="eojab-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="eojab-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="eojab-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="2vs8v-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2vs8v-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2vs8v-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">But, as it turned out, she never did. As September passed into October, she grew sicker and horribly frail. She went to the hospital for the very last time and never came home. The cancer that ravaged her body took hold of her brain in early November and she began to fade. Her last words to me before lapsing into a coma: "Look at all the pretty flowers!" Later, I would wonder if she had caught a glimpse of Heaven, or had foreseen her own funeral... because every wall of that funeral home ended up covered with flower arrangements from the people who loved her the most, which were many.</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="1v8tn-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1v8tn-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1v8tn-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="2buk-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2buk-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2buk-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;">A month after her passing, Zebra sent me copies of HINDSIGHT, several weeks before it hit the bookstores. It was the darkest and loneliest December I ever spent. But I didn't forsake her memory or the things she loved best. I put up the Christmas tree as always and sat in the darkness, staring at the wink and blink of the colored lights.</span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="fgm0n-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fgm0n-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="fgm0n-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="b0qec" data-offset-key="a5at8-0-0" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a5at8-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="a5at8-0-0" style="background-color: black; color: #ffd966; font-family: inherit;"><span>In early January, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hindsight-Ronald-Kelly-ebook/dp/B00AWRNH3S/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3T2K0YMUOBB0W&dchild=1&keywords=hindsight+ronald+kelly&qid=1598067520&s=digital-text&sprefix=Hindsight+r%2Cdigital-text%2C168&sr=1-1" target="_blank">HINDSIGHT</a> was released. To say that holding it in my hands was bittersweet would be an understatement. Then came the book signings and the fanfare, and the preparation of my next novel, PITFALL, which I had sold to Zebra six months earlier. In time, I learned to love that simple horror novel with the cover of the frightened child in the barn doorway and the disembodied eyes that leered at her from the darkness. And I would think of Mama and wonder if they had a Horror section in the libraries of Heaven</span><span style="font-size: 14px;">.</span></span></div></div>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-36759284709161930812019-03-15T22:51:00.003-07:002022-01-02T22:06:24.862-08:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">SADDLES, SIX-SHOOTERS, & SEX</span></h2>
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<span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Writing for the Jake Logan Series</span></h2>
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<span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>You may not be aware of it, but novels of Southern horror weren't the only books I wrote in the early 1990s. I also wrote western novels... albeit under a different name. A very famous name as far as long-running western series were concerned. </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Yes, I wrote two novels for the Jake Logan series. That seemingly un-ending line of adult westerns that featured the adventures of John Slocum, an ex-Confederate soldier turned drifter, gambler, lawman, outlaw, cowboy, and about any other occupation that folks in the Old West took up in those bygone days. It was also one of the first series -- along with Longarm, Lone Star, The Gunsmith, and Edge -- that incorporated a healthy dose of hot, steamy sex into its adventurous storylines. </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>And how did a young author, just starting out in the business, net such a writing coup? Well, pour yourself a shot of rotgut, light up a Clint Eastwood cheroot, and I'll give you the lowdown.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;">In 1992, around the time that<i> Moon of the Werewolf (Undertaker's Moon)</i> was published by Zebra Books, my agent at the time, Joshua Bilmes of the Scott Meredith Agency, called and asked if I would consider filling a lucrative writing spot that had suddenly opened up. When I asked him which one, he said Jake Logan. Now, I had only heard of the series and seen them on about every bookstore rack imaginable, but had never actually read one. I must admit, I was a tad hesitant to answer with a resounding "Hell, yeah!" You see, I was like most young authors back then and one thing I had equal portions of were pride and a bit of an overblown ego.<i> What?</i> I thought,<i> "write a book that won't be published under MY name!"</i> The thought of ghost-writing at the time was almost taboo in the back of my mind. After all, the main reason I wrote under my natural moniker of Ronald Kelly -- and balked at the thought of using a pen name like some of my contemporaries -- was because I felt I had something to prove. A high school creative writing teacher -- upon learning that had no plans to attend college -- shook her head in patronizing pity. "No one becomes a published author without a college education," she said, as if giving a grim and gloomy eulogy at a funeral of my own making. But, coming from a rural family where folks barely graduated high school, let alone even contemplated college, I followed family tradition and got a full-time job in the factories, while attempting to forge a writing career on the side. It took twelve long years of honing my writing skills through trial and error, and submitting endless reams of short stories and articles without success, before I finally began selling horror stories to little small press horror magazines in the mid-80s; publications like<i> Deathrealm, Grue, Noctupla,</i> and, of course, Rich Chizmar's<i> Cemetery Dance.</i></span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Anyway, I told my agent that I would consider it and would let him know something within a week or two. He told me not to wait very long. Apparently, Jake Logan had a small stable of ghost writers, four or five at the most, and the one I was to replace had, sadly, kicked the bucket. If I didn't jump into the empty spot soon, it would go to another writer.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>I wrestled with the idea for a few days, then decided to call someone who had been in the publishing business a while longer than I had. The someone I called for advice was none other than Joe R. Lansdale, hisownself. Now, I had known Joe for a while; we'd traded correspondence and talked over the phone from time to time (that's what we did back yonder before the internet made things a hell of a lot easier), and a year earlier he had accepted my dark Louisiana Cajun story "Beneath Black Bayou" for <i>Dark at Heart, </i>a crime/suspense/horror anthology that he and his wife, Karen, had put together for Dark Harvest. So I called him up one evening and caught him just as he was leaving for martial arts training (I seemed to be annoying like that, in an eager puppy-dog kind of way). As usual, Joe was gracious to the max (sounding a lot like a Nacogdoches, Texas version of Charlie Daniels). When I asked him about ghost-writing, he admitted that he had done it before, as well as having written under a pen name, and that it was no big deal. I thanked him and called my agent back the next day. And started my brief (<i>very</i> brief) gig as a genuine western ghost-writer. </b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The first thing I received from Berkley Books was a contract and the Jake Logan Bible. The contract stipulated that for each Jake Logan western I wrote, I would earn a flat $5,000 with no royalties to be paid out afterwards. In my mind that was fair trade; five-Gs for a measly 180 page book seemed like a godsend at that time in my writing career. Despite the fact that I was writing regularly for Zebra, times were tough. My wife, Joyce, and I would pick up cans by the side of the road and cash them in for supper money... which usually consisted of a 24 count box of fishsticks and a box of cheap macaroni and cheese (the powdered kind, not the first-class stuff with the real cheese packet). </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Jake Logan Bible consisted of fifty double-spaced pages stapled together and told you everything you wanted to know about writing for the series. It gave the background and history of the hero, John Slocum, as well as popular plot examples and writing tips. It also gave, in great and steamy detail, the particulars of writing the customary three to four sex scenes that were required for each novel. Lordy Mercy, it was almost as good as a copy of Penthouse! It gave various sexual positions and places where Slocum and that novel's western hottie could perform the dirty deed. At the side of the trail, in a saloon's upstairs room, in the rocking chair on the front porch of a lonely widows farmhouse... the choices were endless. It also told you what Slocum was allowed -- and not allowed -- to do, during his sexual escapades. Ol' John was open to any position imaginable, but there was some things he wouldn't engage in. Oral sex (as foreplay) was okay, but under no circumstances would there be any type of anal sex. Slocum didn't plow the mudhole, no matter how horny he might be. And there would be no taboo stuff, like bestiality (which happened with sheep and such a lot back then). Slocum could dally around with the heroine-of-the-month, but his horse stayed in the barn, safe and unmolested, where it belonged.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So, in 1993 and 1994, I wrote and published two Jake Logan westerns.<i> Slocum and the Nightriders</i> (#174) was about the hero getting caught in the middle of a range war between a poor rancher and a dastardly cattle baron.<i> Slocum and the Gold Slaves (#187)</i> took a departure from the usual western setting, having Slocum drugged and abducted during a whorehouse tryst and ending up in a glory-hole in Alaska, digging for gold with a team of similarly shanghaied prisoners. I must admit, figuring out the three sex scenes for <i>Gold Slaves </i>was a bit tricky. Slocum is abducted immediately after a whore-hopping scene and ends up slinging a pick in the frigid depths of the gold mind. So how in the world is he going to get lucky, in a mine full of men, with nary a frolicsome harlot in a five hundred mile radius? That's where Blake Duboise entered the picture; a stage actress who masqueraded as a man to locate her father, a prospector that owned the Glory Hole, but had mysteriously disappeared. After being captured, she was subjected to manual labor, before her true gender was discovered by Slocum. Believe you me... it took some nimble acrobatics on their part to get it on amongst ice cold boulders with their ankles chained securely together. But where there's a will, there's a way, I reckon. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">One other thing that I included in both Jake Logan novels, was my last name somewhere in the storyline (that youthful pride rearing it's ugly head again). In<i> Nightriders</i> it was rancher George Kelly and his voluptuous nymphomaniac of a daughter, Prissy. While in<i> Gold Slaves</i> the one who abducted John Slocum and spirited him away to the Glory Hole was none other than the legendary slave-trader Shanghai Kelly himself.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So, I wrote the two Jake Logans. It took me a mere two weeks to complete each novel and, afterward, I collected a cool five-grand for each. I began brainstorming further Slocum adventures, figuring I was going to turn that gig into a lucrative side career... and, in the process, start eating sirloin steak instead of Raman noodles. Then, suddenly and most unexpectedly, it all came to a halt. Berkley decided to end the Jake Logan series for an indefinite period of time. Discouraged, I went back to my horror writing and left the adult-western genre behind. Six months later, they decided to bring Jake Logan back, but despite my intentions to return to the series they had already hired another writer to fill the vacant spot, leaving me out of the picture.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I reckon I can't complain. I got ten-grand out of the gig, as well some much-need writing experience and some valuable lessons in big name mid-list publishing and contract clauses and stipulations. Wikipedia has me listed as one of the Jake Logan writers and you can find<i> Nightriders</i> and<i> Gold Slaves</i> in used bookstores and listed on eBay every now and then.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So, if you like your western adventures with a little raunchy action peppered throughout the cliff-hanger chapters, you might want to search out the two I had the opportunity... and, yes,<i> pleasure</i>.. to pen. And if you want to sit, naked, in your armchair late at night, wearing only boots, chaps, and a Stetson, flipping feverishly to the naughty parts... well, more power to you, partner. </span></b></div>
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Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-79404841624807256502019-02-25T14:17:00.001-08:002019-02-25T16:15:45.357-08:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: lime;">Join me for a March reading of my epic novel of Southern Horror at Goodreads</span><span style="color: lime;"><br /></span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We're going on a journey in the month of March... you and I. Will it be a fun journey, you ask? One full of adventure and thrills? A place unlike any we've ever set foot in before?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Oh, yes. Most definitely. And one chocked full of nasty critters and nightmares, to boot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You are invited to join me at Goodreads during the month of March for a journey into the darkest and most dangerous territory south of the Mason-Dixon line. The Horror Aficionados group at Goodreads have honored me as a Guest Author this coming month and the reading selection we have selected is my epic novel of Southern-fried horror, FEAR. Those participating in the group read will have Ol' Ron at their beckon call, to answer questions about the novel, the writing and inspiration process behind it, as well as anything else y 'all want to know. And to make the journey easier, I'm putting the price of the e-book of FEAR down to only <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fear-Ronald-Kelly-ebook/dp/B006E9027M" target="_blank">99 cents</a> throughout the month of March. Where else can you get a mini-vacation -- albeit in the dark and evil providence of Fear County -- for less than a buck?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">To join the Horror Aficionados, simply head on over to <a href="https://goodreads.com/" target="_blank">Goodreads</a> <span style="color: lime;">. If you're new to GR, register for an account and login. If you you're a Goodreads veteran, join the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/108-horror-aficionados" target="_blank">Horror Aficionados</a></span> community, where everything horror and dark fantasy (books, movies, television, audio, etc.) is on the menu. Then join us for information and interaction on my <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/19727258-march-2019-group-read-with-guest-author-ronald-kelly" target="_blank">Guest Author</a> thread. I'm all fired up and ready to answer questions about FEAR, the legend of Fear County, the cast of characters, and whatever else crosses your mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And, as an added bonus, the e-book of FEAR includes the Fear County-based novella, "The Seedling". For those folks who read along in the Zebra, Pinnacle, or Sinister Grin paperback editions (which doesn't have the novella), I will be posting the novella in its entirety on Ronald Kelly.com.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So make a point to join me and the Horror Aficionados in the balmy month of March for the reading and discussion of FEAR. I'll be waiting for you at the sunny side of the Fear County line... along with Jeb, Sam, Roscoe Ledbetter, and Ol' Buckshot. We're off to see the Granny Woman, with miles of monsters and menace betwixt us! </span></div>
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</span>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-70201034124052864022019-02-22T21:36:00.000-08:002019-02-22T21:36:58.310-08:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
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<b><i><span style="background-color: black; color: #ea9999; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Time stands still for no one...</span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><span style="background-color: black;">No, that's not the opening statement from the cremation insurance flyer that I got in the mail the other day. It's a warning. A warning that time is running out... to preorder <a href="http://thunderstormbooks.com/thunderstorm/book/more-sick-stuff/" target="_blank">MORE SICK STUFF</a> , the long-awaited sequel collection to the original</span></span><span style="color: #ea9999;"><span style="background-color: black;"><i> THE SICK STUFF.</i></span></span></span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="background-color: black; color: #ea9999;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>MORE SICK STUFF</i> offers ten extreme stories of visceral horror... stories much stronger and more intense than my usual tales of Southern-fried horror. Thunderstorm Books is releasing<i> MORE SICK STUFF</i> in April of this year as a Black Voltage title. This limited, signed and numbered hardcover edition features artwork , inside and out, by the master artist of horror, Alex McVey. </span></span></span></b></div>
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<i style="line-height: 25.5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="background-color: black; color: #ea9999; font-size: large;">Vile, unstable, brimming with ill intent, like pus on the verge of eruption. Repulsive to gaze upon and even more disturbing to comprehend. It reaches out and discovers that the other – its twin – has abandoned this cancerous womb long ago. Angry and alone, it thrashes violently, tearing, clawing its way from dormancy into daylight… and onto the dark playground of your bookshelf.</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span>A decade following the birth of The Sick Stuff, </span><span>an even larger and loathsome sibling emerges from the Thunderstorm press; anxious to share its horrors, eager to cut deeply and expose the raw nerves of fright and revulsion. More Sick Stuff </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">offers ten abhorrent tales to tantalize and torture the fragile psyche; to cause the stomach to revolt and gooseflesh to crawl as though something, visceral and alive, lurks just beneath the surface…</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="background-color: black; color: #ea9999; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">You can preorder<i> MORE SICK STUFF</i> through February 23rd. After that it is sold out. So why miss out? Order your copy now! </span></b></div>
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</span>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-25428967982417056862019-02-19T17:52:00.000-08:002019-02-19T17:52:02.648-08:00<span style="color: #009000;"></span><h2 style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #f6b26b;">Round 3 of my Hailey's Comet Career</span></h2>
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<b>"Okay.... two years worth of writer's block is long enough. Now get your butt behind that keyboard and get to work!"</b></div>
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<b>That's what I told myself in mid-September of 2018. For at least a couple of years (it could have been longer) I was stuck in creative Neutral, not with my foot on the pedal, spinning my tires in anticipation, but in a steady, rumbling idle that was going nowhere. After pitching my Southern-fried zombie novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Buzzard-Zone-Ronald-Kelly/dp/1949914542" target="_blank">THE BUZZARD ZONE</a> to David Wilson at Crossroad Press back in 2016, I set to work. Then, when I got three-quarters of the book done, it happened. The fabled Writer's Block. I'd had mild cases of it before, like a brief bout of the stomach flu; twenty-four hours on the mental crapper and then I was fine again. But this time it was full-blown. I was stuck -- like Indiana Jones floundering in quicksand -- and I found myself going nowhere. And, before I knew it, with no fresh material going to publication, I found my writing career dead in the water, like Daffy Duck at the hands of an Elmer Fudd gone wrongfully postal. </b></div>
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<b>This wasn't the first time my career had been plunged into literary limbo. It first happened in 1996, when the horror market imploded (due to an oversaturation of too much horror fiction on the bookracks...much of it pretty danged bad). My agent called me on an autumn day (October 9th at 3:30 in the afternoon... I remember it well), and I, all excited over the prospect of a new multi-book deal from my publisher, Zebra Books, was shocked out of my socks by the news that the Big Z was shutting the doors of its haunted house of mid-list horror paperbacks. Further more, the two novels that were already scheduled for release, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Hollow-Ronald-Kelly-ebook/dp/B01M2V7FYK/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550624155&sr=1-1&keywords=Hell+Hollow" target="_blank">HELL HOLLOW</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Restless-Shadows-Ronald-Kelly-ebook/dp/B00J17DCFI/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550624227&sr=1-1&keywords=Restless+Shadows+by+ronald+kelly" target="_blank">RESTLESS SHADOWS</a> , would be returned to me with Zebra's blessings... along with a big, fat pink slip.</b></div>
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<b>As many know, that was the beginning Ol' Ron's ten-year hiatus from, not only the horror genre, but from writing as well. There was a couple of reasons for my self-exile. One was the near non-existent horror market in the later half of the 1990s and my agent's sage advice that I "write anything<i> but</i> horror". It was a bit of advice, in my depressed and downtrodden state, that I took entirely too much to heart. I tried writing in other genres -- mystery, young adult, children's book, even a short-lived delving into the "gasp!"romance market. But nothing took. I was a horror writer, dammit, and that was what I was meant to write. The second reason that I abandoned horror for a decade was my religious convictions. I'm a Christian (a genuine dyed-in-wool Southern Baptist) and, at that time, the Holy Spirit was working overtime on me. I began to rationalize that I wasn't really supposed to write horror... that God hadn't given me the talent to scare and disgust with the written word, but maybe, you know, that<i> other</i> fellow was providing the inspiration. I wondered how I could attend church on Sunday and then turn around write about vampires, werewolves, serial killers, and all kinds of dark nastiness the rest of the week. So I decided to stop writing completely. Just give it up and turn my life and aspirations to something else. And, for ten long years, I was completely miserable.</b></div>
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<b>To make a long story short, after alot of soul-searching and realizing that God wanted me to write horror (perhaps for the sole reason of perpetuating the good-versus-evil story... which had wandered into a gray area in horror at that time) I decided to finally return to horror writing. Between 2006 and 2016, things when great. Both HELL HOLLOW and RESTLESS SHADOWS were published, as well as all eight of my Zebra novels as the Essential Ronald Kelly Collection by Thunderstorm Books. Anthology invitations were steady and the new advent of digital books brought all of my work to the Kindle/Nook reading public. Throw in several short story collections -- <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Grinding-Ronald-Kelly-ebook/dp/B005C68A36/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550625456&sr=1-1&keywords=Midnight+Grinding+by+ronald+kelly" target="_blank">MIDNIGHT GRINDING</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-Burn-Ronald-Kelly-ebook/dp/B0058E30SW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550625568&sr=1-1&keywords=AFTER+THE+BURN+by+ronald+kelly" target="_blank">AFTER THE BURN</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mister-Glow-Bones-Other-Halloween-Tales-ebook/dp/B00O6ET30O/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550625644&sr=1-1&keywords=Mister+Glow-Bones+by+ronald+kelly" target="_blank">MISTER GLOW-BONES</a>, to name a few -- and Round 2 of my seemingly lost writing career was on track and cruising along nicely.</b></div>
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<b>Then that nasty bout of W.B. hit me (sort of rhymes with V.D. doesn't it... and hits the creative nuts just as hard!) David at Crossroad kept emailing me; sending my e-book royalty statements with cryptic notes attached, chanting<i> zombie...zombie...zombie.</i> I knew that I needed to sit down and finished TBZ; after all David was all ready to publish it and he even had the cover. But I just couldn't bring myself to sit down and finish it. It seemed much easier to come home from work and plop down in front of the TV and watch Netflix, than limber my fingers and begin typing. Then in mid-September of last year, David gave me the kick in the rump that I needed. "We can get this book out by Halloween if you can get it to me by the first of October." The thought of having a book out by All Hallows Eve was appealing to me and so I took a deep breath and sat down in front of the keyboard. And, lo and behold, it all came back to me. I started writing again.</b></div>
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<b>Needless to say, the remaining fourth of TBZ went slower than I anticipated and I didn't get it finished until nearly November. David certainly didn't waste any time, first releasing the book in trade paperback and placing the e-book on preorder status, until it's release in mid-December.</b></div>
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<b>Now things seem to be moving in the right direction again. TBZ is doing well and my much-awaited sequel to my little collection of extreme horror tales, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sick-Stuff-Ronald-Kelly-ebook/dp/B0039PU8TQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550626477&sr=1-1&keywords=THE+SICK+STUFF+by+ronald+kelly" target="_blank">THE SICK STUFF</a>, is finished and in production at Thunderstorm Books. <a href="http://thunderstormbooks.com/thunderstorm/book/more-sick-stuff/" target="_blank">MORE SICK STUFF</a> will be released in a limited hardcover edition this April. After that, Thunderstorm will be publishing a limited hardcover of THE BUZZARD ZONE, and I have several other projects currently in the works.</b></div>
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<b>So, for now, Ol' Ron is back in the saddle again. But in the back of my mind there's that nagging feeling that creative disaster could strike again. It's almost like my career is like a literary form of Hailey's Comet, one that comes and goes every ten years. But I can't let that slow me down now. I'll simply wait until 2028... and, holding breath, keep right on typing. </b></div>
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</span>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-59287434690511953592016-07-09T05:30:00.000-07:002016-07-09T05:51:25.339-07:00Hell Hollow: A Case of Literary Death & Ressurection <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There was a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth...</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "georgia";">That was me back in 1996.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "georgia";">Oh, the year didn't exactly start out that way. In fact, my literary career seemed extremely healthy and productive and destined to continue for years to come, without a hitch. I would net multi-book contract after contract and write dozens of mid-list horror novels for that red-headed stepchild of genre publishers, Zebra Books. But then, sometimes, a writer turns a blind eye to bad omens and secretive whisperings in the publishing industry. Sometimes they fool themselves into thinking every thing is just fine and continue onward, spinning their tales, their eyes on a hazy future that could be reality or a clever mirage. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "georgia";">I was one of those unfortunate mass market paperback writers. Yes, I'd heard the news, knew the declining state of the genre I had invested so much time and effort (and imagination) into. Authors were being cut by the publishing houses by the dozens. Publishing houses were abandoning their horror lines because the market was oversaturated with horror fiction, alot of it substandard and just plain bad. The boom of the late 80s had past. Publishers like Tor and Berkley, Pocket and Pinnacle, and the big Z had force fed readers horror pabulum until they were sick and tired of it. Readers stopped buying the mid-list books and, in turn, publishers began to make drastic cuts to keep afloat. And when they couldn't salvage their horror line and it began to sink like a haunted house of a Titanic, they simply gave up. And put dozens of talented horror authors out of a job.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="color: #e06666;">But it wouldn't happen to me, I told myself. Everything was looking great on my end. Several months before, I had sold two novels to Zebra (which would have been my 9th and 10th with the publisher); </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Hell Hollow</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;"> and </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Restless Shadows</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;">, and they were even scheduled for publication. So I cooked up two or three new novel ideas and submitted them, expecting a third multi-book contract to keep my productive career afloat. But I didn't get it. They rejected the story ideas -- perfectly </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">good</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;"> ideas -- without explanation. I asked my agent what was going on and, at that time, he had no answers. Or he knew the answers and hesitated to break the sad and sober news to me.</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "georgia";">So I came up with a few more solid horror novel ideas. And they were rejected, too. It was then that the cold and dark shadow of professional dread descended upon me. My wife and I hit a financial brick wall due to me being unable to sell Zebra on another multi-book contract and her losing her job due to sickness. We left Nashville with everything we owned packed in my Camaro and in the back of my father-in-law's SUV and headed for the country. That was April of 1996. We struggled through the summer and hoped for a better autumn. Fall finally came with a dry blanket of fallen leaves and the bitter smell of woodsmoke in the cool, Tennessee air. But still, Zebra was silent and stubborn, and I was stuck in literary limbo.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="color: #e06666;">Then it came. The 9th of October. My own personal 9/11. The call came from my agent in New York. Zebra had ditched their horror line. I was suddenly without a publisher I had depended on for nearly 7 years; the key reason I was able to retire from factory work and write full-time. And, what was worse, both </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Hell Hollow</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;"> and </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Restless Shadows</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;"> would no longer be published. They would be returned to me to do as a please and, by the way, you can keep the advance money, per the stipulations of the contract signed for the two.</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="color: #e06666;">The rest is Ron Kelly history. I grew discouraged and depressed and tried desperately to continue my writing career. It didn't happen. Those who had written for the horror genre and lost their publishers were shunned and ignored... treated like pure poison. My agent's advice? "Write anything </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">but</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;"> horror." And, unfortunately, I took his advice to heart. I tried to write in other genres, even children's fiction, but none of it took. I was a horror writer, pure and simple, and no one wanted me or what I had to offer. After four months of trying every publishing venue imaginable with no results, I simply gave up. I stuck the two unpublished books back in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet, laced up my steel-toed boots, and went back to the factories that I had escaped back in 1989. </span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "georgia";">And that was the way it was for ten long years. Working the day shift, first at an electric motor assembly plant, and then at an automotive electro-coating company (where I am still currently employed). There were good times, of course; I grew closer to my wife, Joyce, than I had been when I was spending 90% of my days and nights in front of a keyboard and, together, we began to raise a family. I gave my life to Christ and became a Christian, which put further distance between me and the secular life of a horror author. But despite the peaceful, uneventful life that I lived, I simply wasn't happy. That nagging need to write was still there, deep down inside, wanting to escape from the crypt of my self-imposed exile. But I was stubborn and unwilling to chance it. I ignored the horror genre and anything related to it. I'd had my chance and I blew it. My novels were lost in a past that was painful and tragic, at least in my mind. Everyone had completely forgotten that mid-list Zebra hack named Ronald Kelly.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "georgia";">Or so I thought.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="color: #e06666;">Then in 2006 something strange happened. Folks on the horror forums began to talk about me and my old books began to sell briskly on eBay. Old writing pals and past fans began to contact me, urging me to return to the genre I had abandoned a decade ago. "Things are better now," they told me. "The genre is healthy and booming again." And, with a growing flame of excitement and hopefulness, I began to believe them. What cinched it was a phone call from an old friend, Richard Chizmar, from Cemetery Dance Publications. He wanted to publish me again. We talked and agreed on two projects: a short story collection, which would become </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Midnight Grinding & Other Twilight Terrors, </span></i><span style="color: #e06666;">and a novel. And that novel turned out to be the long dead and buried </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Hell Hollow.</span></i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Hell Hollow </span></i><span style="color: #e06666;">was published in hardcover in 2009 to rave reviews and steady sales that would result in it selling out. After that, my writing career was back on track and I published numerous books with numerous publishers: Cemetery Dance, Thunderstorm Books, Bad Moon Books, Crossroad Press, etc. After several potential publishers had folded, the Essential Ronald Kelly Collection (all 8 Zebra novels, plus bonus features, published in beautiful hardcover editions) finally found a home at Thunderstorm Books, much to the delight of my fans, both old and new.</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="color: #e06666;">But what about the subject of this blog post, you ask? What about </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Hell Hollow</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;">? What about that creepy, Southern-fried horror novel about four kids who battle the hellish evil of the soul-harvester Doctor Augustus Leech; a serial killer possessed by the demonic presence of a murdered medicine show man nearly a century before? An agent of Satan who operated both in our world and in a world of his own, a world of wondrous dreams that could turn into hellish nightmares for the owners of the special playing cards he dealt to his unaware victims?</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="color: #e06666;">Well, </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Hell Hollow </span></i><span style="color: #e06666;">enjoyed a year or two of popularity, then sort of faded into the background. The CD edition sold out and was unavailable for purchase. It was offered as an e-book for a while and then an audio book (which is still available through Audible.com). For several years it was totally unavailable in print form. That is, until now. Thanks to the good folks at Sinister Grin Press, </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Hell Hollow</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;"> and two other RK novels, </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Undertaker's Moon </span></i><span style="color: #e06666;">and </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Fear </span></i><span style="color: #e06666;">have been resurrected to live among the annals of horrordom once again. The trade paperback edition of </span><i><span style="color: #e06666;">Hell Hollow</span></i><span style="color: #e06666;"> is now available for purchase at Amazon.com for only $17.59. You can order your copy of <i>HH</i> </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Hollow-Ronald-Kelly/dp/194404423X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467850157&sr=1-4&keywords=sinister+Grin+Press"><span style="color: #f1c232;">here</span><span style="color: #e06666;">.</span></a><span style="color: #e06666;"> </span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "georgia";">Here's your chance to read the RK novel that almost remained unpublished due to the implosion of the horror genre back in the mid-90s. A novel that may have been entombed in the dusty darkness of a filing cabinet drawer, dead and buried, if it hadn't been for your interest and support back in 2006. Thanks for letting me come back to entertain you with my particular brand of Southern-fried horror. I hope you enjoy the evil antics of the sinister Doctor Leech in shadowy, backwoods wilderness known to locals as Hell Hollow.</span></b></div>
<br />Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-14261828111993396892015-09-25T22:50:00.000-07:002015-09-26T04:04:25.992-07:00Sisters of Slaughter: The Literary Rise of Garza & Lason<div align="center">
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<span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Something very rare is taking place in the horror genre... something that I haven't witnessed for quite some time. Twin sisters who write the nastiest, most horrifying and effective prose in the form of a single literary entity. Yes, take it from me, it's damn rare. It's enough of a feat for one person to write gruesome and macabre fiction with fluidity and a vision that grabs you by the throat and says "You're mine until the last freaking sentence is over and done with!". But for two writers to do it and do it seamlessly -- almost as though the combined might of two intellects and imaginations had merged into a single flesh-and-blood wordsmith... well, like I said, it's rare. More than that, to us in the genre (both those who read the stuff and write it) it's both exciting and encouraging.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Georgia;">The last time I came across a horror-writing sister duo was in 1991 at the first World Horror Convention. Like myself, this twin-team wrote for Zebra Books and under a single nomenclature. Regretfully, I do not recall their individual names (it has been nearly 25 years), but I remember that they were an odd pair; one was an extroverted party girl, while the other was quiet, reserved, and a devout Christian. But they wrote effective horror novels... not very many, but they consistently accomplished a cohesive story that melded well and did not reveal the fact that two people had collaborated on the project, rather than simply one. I have no idea what happened to them. Like many on the Zebra roster of authors, they faded from the scene after the unfortunate implosion of the horror genre in the mid-1990s and the abrupt shutdown of Zebra's horror line (ask me about it some time and I'll tell you a genuine tale of writer's angst and woe.)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Georgia;">Now we have two more on the horror scene, but with much more potential and originality (and downright <em>freshness</em>) than most collaborative teams I've come across in the past two decades or more. They call themselves the Sisters of Slaughter and when you read what they have to offer you can't help but say "Yeah, that moniker fits just right!". Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason hail from Mesa, Arizona, where they raise their families (they are both loving mommies and wives) and write grisly and gruesome tales of terror that make your skin crawl so much that it's a wonder that it doesn't slither right off your bones and cower beneath the bed, dimpled with goosebumps and shuddering in fright. Like most sibling teams, their personalities vary. Michelle is the outgoing, kick-ass sister unafraid to take risks, while Melissa is the quieter, more reserved , and calculating of the pair. Together, the mixture of their individual talents meld almost psychically, resulting in a horror reader's delight... and a horror writer's respect (and perhaps even a little bitty touch of envy).</span><br />
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<span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Georgia;">So far, they have only published a handful of short stories, but what they have published has proven strong enough and effective enough to make the reading public sit up on the morgue slab and take notice. I've had the pleasure of getting to know these two ladies through the magic of social media (namely Facebook) and, in turn, have read both their published and unpublished work, and even edited for them on occasion. My opinion of their literary efforts thus far is extremely positive, not because I am particularly fond of them (I call them 'cuz" and that's the way it feels... we're kin both in terms of professionalism and friendship), but because they are so damn good at what they do. And like all genuinely talented and versatile writers, they can write almost anything, from present day horror to antiquated gothic tales of the macabre that would give Poe and Lovecraft a run for their money.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Georgia;">If you haven't sampled the fiction of the Sisters of Slaughter, then you're missing out, big-time, and you need to correct that unfortunate situation immediately. You can start your indoctrination with their chilling story "A Church in the Middle of Nowhere" in the James Newman benefit anthology, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Widowmakers-Benefit-Anthology-Dark-Fiction-ebook/dp/B00NN9G7U2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1443239444&sr=1-1&keywords=Widowmakers">Widowmakers</a>. (Truthfully, I've suggested to M & M that they should seriously consider expanding this story and its incredible characters -- particularly the antagonists -- into a novel-length offering). After you've recovered from that tale of terror, you can move on to even more savage and sinister doings in "Hydrophobie" in Sinister Grin's latest anthology, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Meat-2015-Tony-Cella-ebook/dp/B015DNQ4JE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1443239337&sr=1-1&keywords=Fresh+Meat">Fresh Meat 2015</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Georgia; font-size: small;">For someone like myself, who has been in and out of the horror genre for nearly 35 years now, it is exciting, refreshing, and encouraging to come upon a pair of writers as good and imaginative (as well as humble and down-to-earth) as Michelle and Melissa. When you read what they have to offer so far, you will be as hungry as a werewolf beneath the brilliant and transforming influence of a full moon... hungry for, well, <em>fresh meat</em>. Sometimes I can't help but wonder "Where will these two be in five or ten years?" But it doesn't take much imagination on my part to figure that out. They will be at a signing table at some major horror convention with a line of fans winding its way around the walls and out the door, or mounting the podium to graciously receive one of those spooky little haunted houses reserved for excellence and achievement in our particular field of expertise. And after it's all over and done with, they'll be back at home, wiping snotty noses and writing even more tales of sisterly-inspired horror for all of us to enjoy and carry with us for a day or two (or more). Tales that will lay dormant in daylight and then, in the dead of night, return to haunt and horrify, bringing the frantic feeling that something unseen lurks in the dark corners of the room or beneath the bed, ready to reach out of the blackness and lay it's cold, clawed fingers upon your throat, squeezing tight the scream that yearns to break free.</span>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-5777507723970998752014-05-11T15:51:00.003-07:002014-05-11T15:51:57.015-07:00And the Auctions Begin...I have now started listing items for the Helping the Hoss Benefit Book Auction for author James Newman. You can check out what I'm listing at the link below:<br />
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<a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/rkelly3368/m.html?_nkw&_armrs=1&_ipg&_from">http://www.ebay.com/sch/rkelly3368/m.html?_nkw&_armrs=1&_ipg&_from</a><br />
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<br />Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-12684291858106547572014-05-10T21:28:00.001-07:002014-05-11T06:17:04.613-07:00Ladies & Gentleman, Let the Bidding Begin! : The Helping the Hoss Benefit Book Auction for James Newman begins Sunday, May 11th!<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>As some of you folks may know, I've been putting together a benefit book auction to help raise money for James Newman and his family, to help out with medical expenses, loss of wages due to James inability to work, and household bills. After several weeks of contacting and talking with some of the major authors and publishers in the horror fiction industry, our benefit book auction is about ready to get off the ground. Stacks upon stacks of beautiful books signed by some of your favorite authors in the horror genre are sitting here in the Kelly living room, waiting their turn to be listed on eBay May 11th through the 17th.</strong></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong><br /></strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>If you haven't heard the entire story, here it is.</strong></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>On April 27th , while on a biking trip with his
wife Glenda and their two sons, James and his family were relaxing at a table
in a picnic area of Sycamore Flats in Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when a heavy limb fell from a tree and struck
James, causing several debilitating injuries, including four fractured
vertebrae in his back and several severe fractures in his left arm. James has
had extensive surgery to his arm (which implemented multiple plates and pins)
and is wearing a back brace to stabilize his injured spine during the healing
process. He will be unable to work for an indefinite period of time and faces
months of painful physical therapy.</strong></span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>James is one of the top authors in the horror
genre and is well respected and loved by his peers, readers, and fans. He is also a dear and loyal friend to just about anyon</strong></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>e who has crossed his path, professionally or </strong></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>privately. Ol' Hoss (as</strong></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>I'm fond of calling </strong></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>him) has been a good friend of mine since we </strong></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>became acquainted following my return to horror in 2006. So when I heard what had happened to him, I tell you, I was nearly sick to my soul. After the initial shock passed, I knew that I had to lend a hand any way that I could. So I knocked on some doors (some of them </strong></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>mighty big) and solicited for donations of signed books, then organized this series of horror book auctions to raise funds for James and his family. Day after day, boxes and padded envelopes of books by some of the horror genre's leading authors and publishers began to show up on my doorstep, for which I'm humbly grateful. The horror community has a huge heart, folks; when one of their number falls upon hard times, they are always there to lend a hand any way possible. They go above and beyond the call of duty, with no questions asked.</strong></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">So far we have 55 signed books written by the likes of Stephen King, Joe R. Lansdale, Robert McCammon, F. Paul Wilson, Graham Masterson, and dozens of others. Now it's time to offer these beautiful tomes full of weird and macabre story-telling goodness to the horror fans who support us and give us the encouragement to keep doing what we do best: scare the living crap out of you!</span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Help the Hoss Benefit Book Auction for James Newman will be split into four days of auction listings: May 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th. Each book will be listed individually for a duration of 3 days (to give folks time to transfer funds to PayPal if necessary), which will make their auctions end on May 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th. If items are not bid on, we will extend the auctions a few days more, relisting the books or combining them in multiple-book sets.</span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">We have autographed </span></strong></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">books coming in every day, but as of tonight, this is what we have scheduled for the nights of May 11 through 14:</span></strong></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;"><u>May 11th</u></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><u><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></u></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Hunter from the Woods - Robert McCammon</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Grimm Awakenings - Bryan Smith</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Lesser Creatures - Peter Giglio</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Burden of Indigo - Gene O'Neill</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Vector Borne - Michael McBride</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">December Park - Ronald Malfi</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Restless Shadows (slipcased) - Ronald Kelly</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Blood Red - James A. Moore</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Scratch (remarque by the artist) - Brian Keene</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Ugly as Sin - James Newman</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Summer of Winters - Mark Allan Gunnells</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Coldbrook - Tim Lebbon</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Specters in Coal Dust - signed by Brian J. Hatcher & Ronald Kelly</strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Legends of the Mountain State 3 - signed by Brian J. Hatcher</strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Screaming to Get Out - J.F. Gonzalez</strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>The Wicked - James Newman</strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;"><u>May 12th</u></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><u><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></u></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Two Bear Mambo - Joe R. Lansdale</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Lurkers - Kristopher Rufty</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Revival House - S.S. Michaels</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Dreams in Black and White - John R. Little</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Father Gaetano's Puppet Catechism - Christopher Golden </span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">World of Hurt (slipcased edition) - Brian Hodge</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Dark'Un - Ronald Kelly</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Clickers - J.F. Gonzalez & Mark Williams</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Painted Man - Graham Masterson</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Wicked - James Newman</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">666 Hair-Raising Horror Movie Trivia - James Newman</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Return of the Mothman - Michael Knost</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Permuted Press / set of three trade paperbacks</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;"><u>May 13th</u></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><u><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></u></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Soft and Others - F. Paul Wilson</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Late Night Horror Show - Bryan Smith</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">After the Burn - Ronald Kelly</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Back Roads and Frontal Lobes - Brady Allen</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">New Dark Voices - Gene O'Neill</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Haunted Forest Tour - Jeff Strand & James A. Moore</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">A Soul in a Bottle - Tim Powers</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Forum - James Newman</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Burial Ground - Michael McBride</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Invisible Fences - Norman Prentiss</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Seal Team 666 - Weston Ochse</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;"><u>May 14th</u></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><u><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></u></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Shining (deluxe slipcased) - Stephen King</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Stealing Night - Peter Giglio</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">The Way of the Flesh - Tim Waggoner</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Murder at PK's - Roger Dale Trexler</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Pitfall - Ronald Kelly</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Clickers / Downward Spiral - J.F. Gonzalez</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Animosity - James Newman</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">People are Strange - James Newman</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Missile Gap - Charles Stross</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Permuted Press 3 trade paperback set</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">3 signed book set by Brian J. Hatcher</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;">Of course there will be more coming in as the week progresses (out of 50 contributors who have pledged books, 22 are still in the process of sending their donations), so the four lists above will grow by several authors every day, so keep your eyes peeled for changing developments.</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>As with every benefit event there are certain rules and conditions, which I will list below:</strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong></strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966;">1. <span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Each auction will be three-days in duration, to give everyone sufficient time to participate and transfer funds to PayPal if necessary.</span></span></strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong></strong></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966;">2. <span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Bidding will be limited to residents of the
United States. We would love to include Canada and International bidding, but
the expensive postage and chance of damage during shipments outside the US
makes doing so more risky and time-consuming. I sincerely apologize for this
exclusion in advance. </span></span></strong></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></span></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">3. <span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">After each individual auction ends, the </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">winning
bidder will be expected to make payment, via PayPal, within three days from the
ending time (immediately after winning the item is preferred). Upon payment, the money will be automatically transferred to the Newman family.</span></span></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong></strong></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong><span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">4. <span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">S</span></span></span></span></span></span></strong></span><strong><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">hipping of the item will be made by Media Mail
through the United States Postal Service, unless the bidder specifically
requests First Class or Priority Mail and pays for those charges. Slipcased editions will automatically be tagged with First Class shipping in their individual auctions to expedite swiftly and prevent damage in transit.</span></span></span></span></span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></strong><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>5. All sales are final and there will be no refunds.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong></strong></span><br /></div>
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<span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>As well as the book auction, we are also taking monetary donations for James and the Newman family. If you desire to contribute in that manner, you can contact me <a href="http://www.ronaldkelly.com/"><span style="color: #f1c232;">here.</span></a></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong><br /></strong></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ffd966; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>I hope you'll stop on by at eBay and check out the benefit auctions going on during the week of May 11th through 17th. I'll be providing links on my Facebook page and feed, as well as on Twitter, the Cemetery Dance Forum, RonaldKelly.com, and of course here at Southern-Fried & Horrified. Maybe you'll find some rare and incredible signed books to beef up your bookcase... and have the opportunity to help a good man and his family through a difficult time in the process.</strong></span><br />
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Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-24834535015487277602014-05-01T14:39:00.000-07:002014-05-02T03:29:07.776-07:00Helping the Hoss: A Benefit Book Auction for James Newman<div align="left">
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Whenever I come across someone who I grow to regard with respect and affection, I usually end up calling them "hoss". Hoss is an expression we Southerners bestow upon someone who is not necessarily large in stature (think Bonanza's Dan Blocker), but, instead, large in heart and soul.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">I've been calling James Newman "Hoss" for a while now; since 2006 in fact. I reckon it's because I feel a true kindredship with the man; we come from similar backgrounds, are both working men and family men, and share a mutual faith in God. I first saw his name on the spine of a book. After being on a self-imposed hiatus from horror writing for 10 years, I was tentatively considering a return to the genre and the first novel I pulled off the shelf was <em>Midnight Rain</em>. I read the author bio on the inside cover of that paperback and was intrigued. He was from North Carolina, so he was a fellow Southerner. That was enough to prod me into turning that first page and begin reading. After I finished, I put that book down (it has since become one of my all-time favorite novels), grinned, and thought <em>I think I can do this again... but can I do it as good as this guy?</em> A couple of days later I sat down and tried... and I've been writing ever since. Later I discovered that James had had a similar experience with my novel <em>Fear</em> years earlier, which inspired him to give horror writing a try. So, in a way, our literary connection was mutually beneficial... even though we didn't know each other personally at that time.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Eventually, we did become good friends, through emails and phone calls and horror conventions. He wrote the introduction to my little collection of extreme horror stories, <em>The Sick Stuff</em>, and I wrote one for the trade paperback edition of <em>Midnight Rain</em>. We shared a room at Hypericon in Nashville and I introduced him to Joe R. Lansdale (who later invited him to lunch... which James graciously declined... the big dummy!). He began calling me Dude and I began calling him Hoss and that's how it has been for going on eight years now.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Then last week I heard about James' unfortunate accident; how a heavy tree limb -- a "widow-maker" the park rangers called it -- had fallen on him while he relaxed at a picnic table during a biking trip with his wife, Glenda, and their two sons. The limb had nearly lived up to its nomenclature, fracturing four vertebrae in his back and fracturing his left arm in multiple places. Truthfully, when I heard about it, I felt sick deep down in my soul. One of the most friendly and humble men I'd ever had the pleasure to know had been dealt a devastating blow. So had his family, although the toll on them had been purely emotional. The Newman family was undoubtedly in for a hard time. There would be loss of work, medical bills to pay, and weeks of physical therapy for the Hoss... and a helluva lot of pain.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Oddly enough, I was dealing with an emotional blow of my own at the same time. While heading to work at 4:30 am on Good Friday, I had collided with a stalled car on the interstate at 60 mph. It was a crash that should have been fatal... should have killed me... but, strangely enough, it hadn't. My car was totaled, but I walked away without a scratch. True, I was grateful for God's intervention, but I still found myself emotionally wounded by the accident. I felt terribly down -- depressed, suffering insomnia, experiencing writer's block, looking at my mortality flat in the face and wondering why I had been spared. Then I heard about James' accident and my pity party stopped dead in its tracks. What right did I have to mope around, feeling sorry for myself, when one of my best friends in the writing community was lying in a hospital bed, experiencing excruciating pain at every little movement?</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">So I put my personal angst aside and went to work. I began to email and Facebook message every horror author and horror publisher that I knew (and many that I didn't) and began to put something together for the benefit of my friend and his family. Looking back, I believe the Lord delivered me from a potentially fatal car crash because He had things He needed me to do. I believe this is one of them.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">And, so, on the week of May 11th through the 17th of 2014, we will be holding "Helping the Hoss: A Benefit Book Auction for James Newman". Dozens of signed books donated by the most talented (and good-hearted) authors of the horror genre (as well as many leading publishers of horror fiction) will be put up for bid in multiple auctions during the course of the week. All proceeds from the sales of these books (minus the shipping charges) will be paid directly to James and his family. I would like to extend a huge "Thanks!" to the folks listed below for responding to my messages and donating the books we will be putting up for auction. All of them know, love, and respect the Hoss, and acted swiftly, compassionately, and without a moment's hesitation to make this benefit possible.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Joe R. Lansdale</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Robert R. McCammon</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">F. Paul Wilson</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Kealan Patrick Burke</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Kristopher Ruffy</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">John R. Little</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Weston Ochse</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Michael Wilson/ Permuted Press</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Ronald Malfi</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Christopher Golden</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Gary Braunbeck</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Paul Goblirsch / Thunderstorm Books</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Graham Masterson</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Nate Southard</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Mark Allan Gunnells</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Richard Chizmar / Cemetery Dance Publications</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Brian Hodge</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Tim Waggoner</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Roy Robbins / Bad Moon Books</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Jesus Gonzalez</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Bill Schafer / Subterranean Press</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Ty Schwamberger</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Charles Day / Evil Jester Press</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Brian J. Hatcher</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">David Niall Wilson</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Chris Morey / Dark Regions Press</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Bryan Smith</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Brian Freeman</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Ronald Kelly</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Gene O'Neill</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Michael McBride</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Jeff Strand</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Mark Justice</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Tim Lebbon</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Peter Gigilo</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Gord Rollo</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Michael Knost</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Norman Prentiss</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Tom Montelone</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">James A. Moore</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;">Mind you, this is an <em>incomplete</em> list. I haven't yet heard from half of those I sent messages to and believe that I will before May 11th rolls around. For all you readers and books collectors out there, this would be an excellent opportunity to beef up your bookshelves with autographed books by your favorite horror authors, as well as help a good man and his family make it through a very difficult time.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia;"> I urge you to join us on the week of May 11-17 for this benefit book auction and help the Hoss.</span></strong></div>
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Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-49248833072635716692014-01-30T19:11:00.000-08:002014-01-30T19:14:02.882-08:00Undertaker's Moon Makes the Bestseller Lists: Record Sales at Amazon and Barnes & Noble!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This morning I woke up to see something that I haven't had the priviledge of seeing during my entire writing career... one of my books on not one, but two bestseller lists.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Georgia;">Crossroad Press's 99 cent promotion of <em>Undertaker's Moon</em> has paid off, not only with increased sales, but with an increase in name recognition for Ol' Ron. </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Georgia;"><em>UM</em> is currently on the Amazon Kindle Occult Horror bestseller list at #2 and the Kindle regular Horror list at #8. It is on the Barnes & Nobile Nook Sci Fi & Fantasy Bestseller list at #5 (it reached the #2 spot earlier this morning). Not bragging... just happy that more and more folks are now enjoying a heaping helping of Southern-fried horror in the form of <em>Undertaker's Moon.</em></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The 99 cent promotion will be going on through February 4th, so head on over and pick up your copy, either in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0060OEBG4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0060OEBG4&linkCode=as2&tag=boembo-20">Amazon Kindle</a> format or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/undertakers-moon-ronald-kelly/1107001757?ean=2940013250284">Barnes & Noble Nook</a></span></strong> <strong><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">format. And to all of you who have already purchased UM and helped make this dream come true, many thanks. I really appreciate it and hope you'll come back for more of Ol' Ron's Southern-fried storytelling.</span></strong></div>
Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-50844603034407473462014-01-28T13:28:00.001-08:002014-01-28T13:29:32.351-08:00Undertaker's Moon... Now Only 99 cents!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia;"><em>UNDERTAKER'S MOON, </em>my novel of Irish werewolves wreaking havoc in a rural, Tennessee town, is now only 99 cents!</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia;">That's right, for less than a buck you can get <em>UNDERTAKER'S </em>MOON in either <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Undertakers-Moon-ebook/dp/B0060OEBG4%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJBDF5XQBATGDX4VQ%26tag%3Dspea06-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB0060OEBG4">Amazon Kindle</a> or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/undertakers-moon-ronald-kelly/1107001757?ean=2940013250284">Barnes & Noble Nook</a> ebook formats. It features the original novel, plus a bonus novella "prequel" titled "The Spawn of Arget Bethir". And, of course, you also get Alex McVey's legendary "blue werewolf" cover, painted exclusively for <em>UM.</em></span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia;">This special offer is valid for a limited time, so sharpen your claws and head on over and grab yourself a copy! The Howler lives!</span></strong></div>
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Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-11813430790356551712014-01-27T19:12:00.001-08:002014-01-27T19:12:19.784-08:00Restless Shadows... Now Available!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My latest novel, <em>RESTLESS SHADOWS</em>, is <a href="http://thunderstormbooks.com/thunderstorm/tsb_book/restless-shadows/">now available</a> <span style="color: #6aa84f;">from Thunderstorm Books. </span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Georgia;"><em>RESTLESS SHADOWS</em> is the long-awaited sequel to my first novel, <em>HINDSIGHT. </em>Cindy Ann, the nine-year-old girl with the gift of second sight, returns... this time as an elderly woman who works part-time as a police psychic. When a brutal triple-murder takes place in the old tobacco barn -- a murder almost identical to the one that took place there 78 years ago -- Cindy returns to her hometown of Coleman, Tennessee to investigate the massacre. Accompanying her is her granddaughter, Beth, who also possesses psychic abilities. Together they work to prove a young boy innocent of the crime and track down the true culprit, which the evidence indicates to be the original killer, Bully Hanson... who died violently in the winter of 1936.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Georgia;"><em>RESTLESS SHADOWS </em>has now been published as one of Thunderstorm's Black Voltage titles and is limited to 80 signed and numbered copies. It features an incredibly striking cover by horror artist Alex McVey.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Georgia;">Copies are going fast and Thunderstorm tells me that the print run is close to being sold-out. So head on over and grab your copy fast... before it's too late!</span></strong><br />
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Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-85863343925261600732013-12-10T16:50:00.002-08:002013-12-10T18:07:23.895-08:00Turn Down the Lights: Celebrating Old-Style Horror with New Stories<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Once, a long time ago, the budding horror writer had a special place. A place that nutured his need to be published and to learn his or her craft at the same time... a place that was a fun, literary community, made up of like-minded folks who genuinely loved the genre and did their level best to pen the types of stories that made horror an exciting place to be and an enjoyable thing to read in the 1980s and 90s. It was a place that possessed more positive than negative, more acceptance and mutual admiration among its peers than today's drama and uncertainty.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">That place was the magical (albeit dark and seductive) land of the small press horror magazine. From the mid-80s through the 90s, self-published horror digests and full-sized magazines held a distinctive respect and appeal among genre fans, even in the shadows of horror fiction giants like <em>Night Cry, Midnight Graffiti, </em>and <em>Twilight Zone Magazine. </em>Horror magazines like <em>The Horror Show, Grue, Noctulpa, Deathrealm, After Hours, 2AM, </em>and <em>New Blood</em>, among dozens of others, had a solid readership, offering a multitude of new stories monthly by both big-name horror authors and those who were slowly making a name for themselves. Along with young writers of the macabre like Elizabeth Massie, Bentley Little, Norman Partridge, Wayne Allen Sallee, and others, I, too found myself among the ranks of wet-behind-the-ears storytellers who hungered to open the drafty tombs of their imagination and both raise goosebumps and turn stomachs. Those days were chocked full of fresh ideas and endless adrenalin... long, sleepless nights of typing away until a story was just right and the thrill of seeing your story and your byline on the printed page.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">It was around that time that a new magazine came into being. It would be called <em>Cemetery Dance</em> and was the brainchild of a young college student named Richard Chizmar. I'd been a part of the small press scene for a while then and had seen several good magazines come and go... but there was something about this amiable guy and his dream that was different. Rich had a true love for the genre, not only for the traditional scares-and-screams type of fiction, but for the new and innovative brand of horror that was being generated in the minds of splatterpunks such as Skipp & Spector, David Schow, and Clive Barker. I instantly gravitated to Rich's desire to publish solid, enjoyable horror fiction and we became pals. When the premiere issue of <em>Cemetery Dance</em> was released, one of my most disturbing stories, "Forever Angels" was present. After that, my fiction appeared many times within the pages of <em>CD.</em></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Twenty-five years have passed and alot has happened since then. I've had a number of novels and short story collections published, both in traditional and digital formats, and even had an audio collection nominated for a Grammy Award back in the 90s. And Richard Chizmar has become one of the most respected magazine editors and book publishers in the horror business. So good things come to folks who stick to their guns and remain true to the things they love and cherish.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">A few weeks ago, the folks at Cemetery Dance Publications performed an almost impossible task; they decided to put together an anthology of new short stories in time to celebrate <em>Cemetery Dance's</em> 25th Anniversary. It would be a collection of the type of stories that made -- and still does make -- the magazine one of the best venues of horror fiction being published today. The roster includes some heavy-hitters -- Stephen King, Peter Straub, Jack Ketchum, and Clive Barker -- as well as writers who have proven themselves time and time again in the pages of <em>CD; </em></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Norman Partridge, Brian James Freeman, Bentley Little, Ed Gorman, Steve Rasnic Tem, and yours truly, Ol' Ron.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The anthology is titled <em>Turn Down the Lights</em> and will be offered in several different editions; a trade hardcover, an Artist's edition, and a Special Lettered edition. The Artist edition features artwork by </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Mark Edward Geyer, Steven C. Gilberts, Will Renfro, GAK, Erin S. Wells, Keith Minnion, Jill Bauman, Glenn Chadbourne, Chad Savage, and Alan M. Clark.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">You can order your copy of <a href="http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/chizmar17"><em>Turn Down the Lights</em></a> now directly from Cemetery Dance Publications. If you enjoy the sort of fiction that the horror genre and <em>Cemetery Dance Magazine</em> was founded on, head on over and order yourself a copy now! You won't be disappointed!</span></strong> </span> </span></span></strong><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"></span><br />Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-7329665672231594752013-10-02T18:27:00.002-07:002022-01-07T13:04:52.564-08:00Long Chills: Journeying the Middle Ground of Horror<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When you're a writer, you have choices... many choices. First or third person narrative? What plot to explore? What place in time will the particular piece of fiction take place, the cast of characters, etc., etc. Then there is the selection of fiction length to consider. Does this particular idea merit the bumper-car or Scrambler version of a short story? Or does the mother of all roller coasters -- the full-length novel -- suit your needs? Sometimes the choice comes easy... sometimes it takes a little soul-searching and consideration to make up your mind.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">And sometimes you have no choice but to travel the middle ground. That means penning a long fiction piece or a novella. Unlike short stories, which normally run between 1,500 and 4,000 words, or novels, which stretch between 90,000 and 120,000 words (or even more), the long fiction story runs the gamut between 5,000 and 9,000 words and the novella between 9,000 and 20,000 words. Sometimes an idea warrents a longer treatment than a short story and a shorter one than a novel. Thus, rather than a vignette or an epic journey, you set out to write a substantial adventure through the particular genre you happen to specialize in. I, of course, prefer the kind with with spooks and spiders and things that go bump (and bite) in the night.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Georgia;">My newest e-book release, <em>Long Chills</em>, presents 13 of my most popular novellas and long fiction stories in one beefy collection. Everything from the RK classics "Flesh Welder", "The Winds Within", and "Midnight Grinding", to "A Shiny Can of Whup Ass" and "Evolution Ridge" from <em>After the Burn. </em>It also contains four freshly-penned novellas from the first four volumes of the <em>Essential Ronald Kelly Collection</em>, plus many more from various horror magazines and anthologies over the past 27 years.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><em>Long Chills, </em>which was published by </span><a href="http://store.crossroadpress.com/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=Ronald%20Kelly&inc_subcat=0&sort=20a&page=1"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Crossroad Press</span>,</span></a><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"> is now available at </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Long-Chills-ebook/dp/B00FIOHG8C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1380763085&sr=1-1"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Amazon Kindle,</span></a><span style="color: #9fc5e8;"> </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/long-chills-ronald-kelly/1117001931?ean=2940148812845"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Barnes & Noble Nook</span>,</span></a><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"> and </span><a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/362352"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Smashwords</span>.</span></a><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"> If you like your scares intense and your shadows long and deep, head on over and check out <em>Long Chills!</em></span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><em><span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span></em></strong><br />Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-43211079000125630282013-09-16T17:38:00.003-07:002013-09-16T17:38:56.383-07:00Hindsight: My Mother and her "Shining"<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"People who shine can sometimes see things that are<em> gonna</em> happen, and I think sometimes they can see things that <em>did</em> happen. But they're just like pictures in a book. Did you ever see a picture in a book that scared you, Danny?"</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #b6d7a8;">-- Dick Hallorann to Danny Torrence in <em>The Shining.</em></span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">My mama could shine. Lord have mercy, could she shine.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">I know alot of people don't believe in such things. Some of you might be saying right now "That isn't true, Ron. You're just pulling our legs." Well, writing fiction -- especially <em>horror </em>fiction -- does consist of alot of leg-pulling. But I'm not writing horror stories at the moment. I'm expressing truth through memory. And I have plenty of memories of Mama and her shining... or her "gift" as she called it.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">More country folks than city folks seem to believe in the gift of precognition. It mostly has to do with believing in things that you can't touch or see... like God or the Devil, like heaven or hell. Rural life is built on equal portions of faith and superstition, and every now and then you come across someone who shines. Sometimes it's even someone in your family... like your own mother. And that makes for a strange and sometimes frightening upbringing.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">Mama mostly shined in the <em>forward</em> sense of the term. She could predict disasters that would befall particular people and even their deaths... sometimes day ahead of its happening, sometimes several weeks. I saw this firsthand several times, starting with the age of five. I recall sitting at the kitchen table in our rental house in Nashville one morning, while Mama stood at the stove, cooking breakfast. She had a can of biscuits in her hand and our dog, Chipper, was, as always, precariously underfoot. She dropped the biscuits and it struck Chipper on top of the hand... and at that instant she had a vision of my Uncle John A. being crushed beneath the rolling body of a truck. Of course, I didn't know that she was seeing that at the time... I was only a little boy and she didn't want to burden me with such things that were incomprehensible to my innocent way of thinking. But I remember that startled look on her face and the tears that welled in her eyes. And two weeks later, we were standing in front of my uncle's casket. He had died a couple of days earlier, in a car wreck in which he had been thrown clear of a car and had been crushed beneath the truck that had hit him head-on.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">After that, when I was older, Mama confided with me about her ability to "sense" forthcoming incidents. When she was eighteen, she had gotten such a devestating sense of mounting disaster, that she insisted on taking my grandmother to Nashville for the day. When they returned to their hometown of White Bluff, they discovered that one of my uncles had fatally shot another uncle, after a drunken brawl. But her precognitions didn't always foretell death. Sometimes she was actually instrumental in saving lives. One Sunday morning, she frantically urged my father to pick up a lady they usually gave a ride to church... even though it would be going out of the way to pick her up before picking up my grandmother. He complied and the elderly woman was picked up fifteen minutes before usual. They back-tracked to get my grandmother and, upon passing the first woman's house, found it totally engulfed in flames. If my mother had waited to pick her up in the normal manner, she would have undoubtively perished.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">When I was thirteen years old, I remember Mama standing at our backyard fence as our neighbor, Mr. Green, handed her a watermelon from his garden. When she entered the house, I knew something was wrong. She set the melon in the sink and then, ashen-faced, sat down heavily in a kitchen chair. "What's wrong?" I asked. I knew that look and it frightened me. "Mr. Green is going to die," she said. "The minute he handed me that watermelon, I saw him in his Sunday suit, lying in a casket." And a week later, it came to be. He fell dead of a heart attack, in his own garden, between the tomatoes and the okra.</span></strong><br />
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<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;">When I read Stephen</span></strong><em> </em><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">King's <em>The Shining</em> in 1977 at the age of seventeen, that one revelation about the shining, between Halloran and Danny -- the one at the very beginning of this post -- struck me so strongly that I took the book to my mother and showed her that single passage. She read it, then looked up at me and said "Yes... yes, I know." Since the late 60s, my mother and I had a long-standing tradition of seeing horror movies together when they were first released. <em>The Shining </em>was one of the few movies that she refused to watch with me. I reckon, in alot of ways, it was just too close to home for her.</span></strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">When I was ready to start working on my first horror novel, I remembered something my mother told me about long ago; something that had happened in our family history during the time of the Great Depression. My mother had been nine-years-old then; only a year earlier she had survived a nearly-fatal bout with Typhoid fever. Her teenage cousin was preparing to leave to work in one of the CCC camps in Eastern Tennessee, when she got an overwhelming premonition of doom and disaster. She ran to her cousin and hugged him tightly. "Don't worry, Earline," he told her. "I'll see you in a year and a day." But that was never to be. Later that night, he and two others were brutally murdered in an old barn no more than three miles away.</span></strong><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdW1-ox9XO3KqHTi1buio0fO1-laOHmStkcPgRWvsi6PZ657ABlwzmgoE_7UeigAx77-Jo5qCHnJ8LdlQw_pmDukr8J04N71jPo2gYIGcJGC-R500Akq7jCXyQBhqy7t0QytzOuAg4LvYm/s1600/Hindsight+e-book+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdW1-ox9XO3KqHTi1buio0fO1-laOHmStkcPgRWvsi6PZ657ABlwzmgoE_7UeigAx77-Jo5qCHnJ8LdlQw_pmDukr8J04N71jPo2gYIGcJGC-R500Akq7jCXyQBhqy7t0QytzOuAg4LvYm/s320/Hindsight+e-book+cover.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #b6d7a8;">That experience, as well as the deadly tragedy behind it, prompted me to write my novel </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hindsight-ebook/dp/B00AWRNH3S"><em><span style="color: #d9ead3;">Hindsight</span></em></a><span style="color: #b6d7a8;"> in 1987. It was published in January of 1990, two months after Mama died of cancer at the age of 59. She never got to read it; she had insisted on reading it in book-form after it was released, which never came to be. So the publication of <em>Hindsight</em> has always been a bittersweet part of my professional and personal life. On one hand, I was excited about the publication of my first mass market novel, while on the other, the one person who inspired it and it was written for, never had the opportunity to read it. To this day, <em>Hindsight</em> has a special place in my heart for those very reasons.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">Lately, a couple of things made me think about Mama and her "gift"; finishing <em>Restless Shadows</em>, the long-awaited sequel to <em>Hindsight</em>, for Thunderstorm Books, and re-reading <em>The Shining</em>, in anticipation of King's sequel, <em>Doctor Sleep.</em> When I read Hallorann's explanation of why the Overlook held such horrible after-images of the terrible things that happened within its rooms over the decades, I couldn't help think about Mama and the things she that "glimpsed", from time to time. Mama will be gone 24 years this November. But, every now and then, I get the strongest sensation of her being nearby. Sometimes behind me, watching, sometimes in the books I read or movies I watch, sometimes in the eyes of my nine-year-old daughter, who is the physical and emotional image of my mother... but thankfully without the psychic baggage that her grandmother carried following that long and feverish sickness she suffered at the exact same age.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Georgia;">So, think what you will when it comes to the reality or fallacy of second sight. I know what I know from experience, so I have nothing to prove, to myself or anyone else. Just remember... when you read <em>Hindsight</em> or <em>Restless Shadows</em> and regard it only as fiction... you are gravely mistaken. Both are based not only on the dark and twisted imaginings of your neighborly Southern-fried horror writer... but the true experiences of a pre-teen girl during one of the hardest and most tragic times in American history, and the strange and disturbing things that she <em>saw</em>.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span></strong><br />Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-75121144816869029012013-09-07T11:48:00.002-07:002013-09-07T12:00:18.329-07:00Where are the Children?: The Decline of the Coming-of-Age Novel<div class="yiv0863744063MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1378570585137_1829">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">When my novel </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Hollow-ebook/dp/B0045UABO6"><em><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Hell Hollow</span></em></a><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"> was published in 2009, more than one reviewer (several in fact) said something to this effect: “Kelly’s newest novel, which has a group of four children as the story’s protagonists, is clearly heavily influenced by Stephen King’s <i><span style="font-style: italic;">It.”</span></i></span></strong></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong><i><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></i></strong></span></span></span><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></i></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1378570585137_1836" style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1378570585137_1835" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt;"><strong>Sorry, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I read that. Sure, King has always been an influential author in my eyes, along with Poe, Bradbury, McCammon, and Lansdale. But, despite their assumptions, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Hell Hollow</span></i> was <i><span style="font-style: italic;">not</span></i> influenced by <i><span style="font-style: italic;">It.</span></i> In fact, quite honestly, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">It </span></i>has never been in my top ten list of favorite King books (I found the whole “cosmic turtle” sub-plot to be confusing and the sex-sharing scene between Beverly and the boys in Pennywise’s catacombs to be unnecessary and a bit embarrassing). It was probably the furthest book from my mind when I was writing about the children of Harmony’s encounter – and subsequent battle – with the reincarnated evil of Doctor Augustus Leech, a magic-wielding bounty hunter of souls for Satan and his otherworldly kingdom.</strong></span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1378570585137_1842" style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1378570585137_1841" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">This comparison would have never been made back in 1996, when the book was originally scheduled to see publication. That’s because the classic “coming-of-age” novel was alive and well back then. Almost every author in the genre in the horror hey-day of the 80s and 90s had done at least one. My favorites during that period were King’s “The Body” (brought to film as “Stand By Me), Robert R. McCammon’s <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Boy’s Life, </span></i>Dan Simmon’s <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Summer of Night</span></i>, and Ray Bradbury’s <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Something Wicked this Way Comes. </span></i>Even before then, I had my mainstream favorites; <span style="font-style: italic;">To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, and The Lord of the Flies. </span></span></strong></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span><strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> For those of you out there who are a little hazy about exactly what a "coming-of-age" story is, it is a tale of one (or several) youths taking a bold step toward adulthood due to adventurous or devestating circumstances, as well as a loss of innocence or naivity in the face of conflict or seemingly unsurmountable odds of survival. Once, a horror author naturally gravitated toward the writing of such a novel, simply to explore their own childhood trials and tribulations and, in some cases, to exorcise demons from years past. I, myself, had written two other coming-of-age novels before <em>Hell Hollow</em>. One had been my first novel, </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=hINDSIGHT%20RONALD%20KELLY"><em><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hindsight</span></em></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">, in which Cindy Ann Biggs, a nine-year-old girl during the Great Depression uses her gift of second sight (gained after a long bout of Typhoid Fever) to solve a brutal triple-murder that had taken place in an abandoned tobacco barn and, in turn, protect herself and her family from the wrath of the perpetrators. The second one was </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fear-ebook/dp/B006E9027M"><em><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Fear</span></em></a><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">, which most fans believe my best work to date. In <em>Fear</em>, a young farm boy named Jeb Sweeny discovers that a ravenous snake-critter is on the rampage in his community, slaughtering livestock and abducting small children. His only chance in conquering it is to journey to the neighboring providence of Fear County, a place full of evil and deadly dangers... a place where every childhood nightmare exists as dark reality.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As a reader, I love a good coming-of-age novel. I enjoy reading about children facing a greater, adult evil and eventually conquering it. It wasn't until I returned to the horror genre in 2006, that I discovered that coming-of-age novels weren't as<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> popular as they had been during the first leg of my writing career in</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> the late 80s to mid-90s. In fact, it seemed that my peers had stopped writing them completely. Oh, I was fortunate enough to find a few gems here and there; Joe Lansdale's </span></span></strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bottoms-Vintage-Crime-Lizard-ebook/dp/B003WUYOSE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1378575470&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Bottoms+joe+lansdale"><em><strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Bottoms</span></strong></em></a><strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">, James Newman's </span></strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Rain-ebook/dp/B004Y7514A/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1378575618&sr=1-1&keywords=Midnight+rain+james+newman"><em><strong><span style="color: #9fc5e8; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Midnight Rain</span></strong></em></a><strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">, and much of John R. Little's excellent altered-time fiction, including <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Memory-Tree-ebook/dp/B005FHXZKU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1378580238&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Memory+Tree+john+r+little"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">The Memory</span> <span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Tree</span></a></span></strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Miranda-ebook/dp/B005CM1Q5O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1378580318&sr=1-1&keywords=Miranda+john+r+little"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Miranda</span></a>, and his upcoming</span> offering, <em>Secrets. </em>But for the most part, today's horror writer seems to prefer to deal solely with adult situations and characters. Many believe the use of children as protagonists is passe'. I don't happen to be one of those who hold that opinion, which puts me in the minority these days. More than anything else, that was why <em>Hell Hollow</em></strong><em> </em><strong>was so unfairly compared to <em>It</em>; today's new breed of horror reader/critic/reviewer didn't grow up in the Golden Age of horror fiction and, so, does not hold the same appreciation for the coming-of-age story as some of my past contemporaries and I do. It is probably also the reason why <em>HH </em>was viewed as a "throwback to the days of 90's pulp paperback horror", which essentially it is, since it was written during that time and contains that same flavor of fun, adventure, and fantastical horror.</strong></span></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Will the coming-of-age novel enjoy a resurgence... or will its popularity wane to the point of no return and readers will have nothing but adult-based fiction to enjoy? I very much doubt that the latter will occur. The coming-of-age story has been popular for centuries, from the Bible (the tales of Joseph and his coat of many colors and David and Goliath) to young adult classics like <em>Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, The Yearling,</em> and <em>Treasure Island. </em>Childhood and its joys and triumphs, as well as its trials and tragedies, should be a part of one's intellectual and emotional make-up; a part to be cherished and revisited from time to time. It shouldn't be set on a shelf to gather dust, buried in the back yard, or traded in for the no-nonsense life of an adult, never to be enjoyed or remembered again. That is the great thing about the coming-of-age novel; it returns you to a time when you didn't have to worry about bills, failing health, war, or income taxes. It was a time when a 64-count box of Crayolas opened a world of creativity, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were as flesh-and-blood real as your mother and father, and playing cowboys and Indians, or cops and robbers transported you to a realm of the imagination that was a child's equivalent of living those lives through novels and motion pictures.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> If we are lucky, it won't be long until a new generation of writers look past the hard-core aspects of horror fiction and decide that the coming-of-age novel is, indeed, a viable and worthwhile addition to their collective body of literary works. As for me, I'll certainly do my part to keep that particular sub-genre of child-versus-evil fiction alive and kicking.</span></strong></div>
Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-14163770367087041182013-09-02T18:04:00.002-07:002013-09-02T18:04:24.434-07:00FLESH WELDER... Now Only 99 cents!<br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Got a real bargain for you! The Kindle e-book edition of FLESH WELDER is now only <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Flesh-Welder-ebook/dp/B0037Z6LK8">99 cents</a>! That's right, for less than a buck you get my unabridged novella of post-apocalyptic horror <em>and</em> the best interview I ever did, conducted by Mark Hickerson.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia;">Also, you can buy the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Flesh-Welder/dp/B003X4TCE0">Audible audio book</a> of FW, read by voice talent Wayne June, for only $3.95. This one doesn't include the interview, but Wayne's excellent narration is well worth the price. Head on over and check 'em out!</span></strong>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-8516811510112752042013-08-30T15:33:00.002-07:002013-08-30T16:32:51.202-07:00After the Burn: Having a Blast with Nuclear Armageddon<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>When it comes to apocalyptic fiction these days, it's all about zombies. The Walking Dead, World War Z, zombie novels, zombie comics, zombie video games... zombies, zombies, zombies. Not that I have anything against the flesh-eating undead. I'm an equal-opportunity monster lover. Plus, zombie apocalypse fiction is a very popular and lucrative sub-genre now. It's just not my idea of how the earth is going to kick the bucket, with the dead -- reanimated by a virus or demonic possession -- chasing the survivors around, wanting to turn them into a hot lunch.</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #f1c232;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I reckon I'm just old-school. When I think of the end of the world, it's nuclear armageddon that comes immediately to mind. I grew up during the Cold War era, when the major super-powers -- the United States and the Soviet Union -- were not the best of friends and had nuclear warheads aimed at one another, and itchy fingers poised above the big red button a time or two. I was a child around the time of the Bay of Pigs and "Duck-and-Cover!" and lived with the fear of the Bomb throughout my grade school and high school years. I was twenty-two when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and the Cold War pretty much</span> fizzled <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and went away. But they are still out there... the missiles. They're not as plentiful as they were back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, but they're still nestled in their cozy little silos, slumbering inactively until someone decides to activate them with the flip of a switch and send them skyward. And we have more folks with nuclear capabilities to worry about; China, North Korea, the Middle East, and a half</span> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">dozen terrorist groups. Not trying to scare anyone... just reminding you that the threat is still there.</span></span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Flesh-Welder-ebook/dp/B0037Z6LK8">FLESH WELDER (Kindle Edition)</a></strong></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In 1990, I wrote "Flesh Welder", a cautionary tale about life following a nuclear holocaust and how one man -- Doctor Rourke, a hybrid of surgeon and arc welder -- does his best to repair and sustain life in a hellhole that was once Houston, Texas, while his nemesis, the infamous General, does his best to tear it down. After FW's publication, my interest in apocalyptic fiction remained, but was put on the back-burner in favor of vampires, werewolves, and nasty little critters that go bump (and bite) in the South. When the now-defunct Croatoan Press did a chapbook of the reprint of Flesh Welder in 2007, I began to think about skinny-dipping in the radio-active pool again and exploring how a nuclear holocaust might effect our world and, in particular, my native Southland.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Georgia;">AFTER THE BURN (Thunderstorm Books Edition)</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: Georgia;">It took a few years of turning the germs of a few ideas into full-blown stories, but eventually I ended up with exactly what I was aiming for. In 2011. Thunderstorm Books published AFTER THE BURN, my quirky, ultra-extreme collection of post-apocalyptic horror tales. It contained six short stories and two novellas, all chronicling the aftermath of The Burn, a sudden rash of nuclear detonations around the globe that had no purpose or explanation. As society deteriorates and it becomes every man for himself, the dregs of humanity quickly take over; serial killers, child molesters, the criminally insane, rapists, drug dealers, and cannibals. As radiation alters plant and animal life, horrible mutations begin to take place. Not all of the stories are dark and dismal, however. I took the opportunity to balance drama with black humor through the course of ATB, making it more fun than depressing. Creatively, AFTER THE BURN became my version of good folks versus <em>very</em> bad folks in a post-apocalyptic South.</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.badmoonbooks.com/product.php?productid=3555"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">AFTER THE BURN (Bad Moon Books Edition)</span></strong></a></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Luckily, readers took to the collection and it became a fan favorite among my catalog of books. My peers enjoyed it, too. As horror author Brian Keene said "AFTER THE BURN is one of my all-time favorites. A classic, seminal masterpiece of post-apocalyptic survival horror!" The Thunderstorm hardcover of ATB sold out within a matter of days and became one of the most successful of the publisher's Black Voltage line. The book fell "out of print" for a year or so, then was published in an affordable trade paperback by </span><a href="http://www.badmoonbooks.com/product.php?productid=3555"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><span style="color: #a64d79;">Bad Moon</span> </span><span style="color: #a64d79;">Books</span></a><span style="color: #f1c232;">. ATB is also available as a digital e-book from Crossroad Press and is available in </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/After-the-Burn-ebook/dp/B0058E30SW"><span style="color: #a64d79;">Kindle</span></a><span style="color: #f1c232;"> and </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/after-the-burn-ronald-kelly/1104036280?ean=2940012799845"><span style="color: #a64d79;">Nook</span></a><span style="color: #f1c232;"><span style="color: #a64d79;"> </span>versions.</span></span></strong><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/After-the-Burn-ebook/dp/B0058E30SW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323964264&sr=1-1"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">AFTER THE BURN (Kindle E-Book)</span></strong></a></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of all my projects, since returning to writing in 2006, AFTER THE BURN has been one of the most satisfying and most fun to bring to fruition. It will soon become an unabridged audio book and there has been some interest in turning it into a graphic novel. Also, I'm currently brain-storming on the possibility of doing a second ATB, this time as a full-length novel. Some of your favorite ATB characters would be back -- Waco, Zulu Woman, Dr. Rourke, and Popsicle Man, to name a few -- joining forces against an evil band of mauraders led by the notorious General and his army of Clownies, cannibals, and mutants, as they make a cross-country trek for the mythical, non-radio-active Promised Land.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: Georgia;">If you're looking for something different as far as apocalyptic horror is concerned, you might want to check out AFTER THE BURN. This is Ol' Ron's most extreme work to date and I guarantee that you'll get your fair share of goosebumps and belly laughs. Just sit back in your favorite armchair, turn the page, and wait for the flash and Burn!</span></strong><br />
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<br />Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-30604002063324237962013-08-23T19:39:00.003-07:002013-08-23T19:45:46.343-07:00Spinning Tales: Upcoming Writing Projects<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Georgia;">Last year had its ups and downs, but 2013 seems to be progressing smoothly, particularly from a creative aspect. Here are some upcoming writing projects that I hope to complete by the time the Christmas tree comes down and the party hats and hooters (those little noise-makers you blow, not the <em>other </em>ones!) herald the beginning of 2014.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><em><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">RESTLESS SHADOWS</span>:</em> I just finished the final edit of <em>RESTLESS SHADOWS,</em> the long-awaited sequel to my first novel, </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=hindsight%20ronald%20kelly"><em><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">HINDSIGHT</span></em></a><span style="color: #e69138;"><em>.</em> <em>RS</em> was one of two novels that Zebra Books had scheduled for publication before they decided to pull the plug on their horror line in 1996 (the other one being </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Hollow-ebook/dp/B0045UABO6"><em><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">HELL HOLLOW</span></em></a><span style="color: #e69138;">). This previously unpublished novel will soon be released as an economically-priced hardcover edition from Thunderstorm Books, hopefully sometime this autumn. <em>RESTLESS SHADOWS</em> continues the story of <em>HINDSIGHT</em> seventy-seven years after the Great Depression. Cindy Ann is an elderly woman now and comes out of retirement every now and then to lend her psychic abilities to the local police, solving murder cases. When a triple murder almost identical to the one she revealed back in 1936 takes place in her hometown of Coleman, Cindy must return to the old tobacco barn with her granddaughter, Beth, who also possesses the gift of second sight. Together, they attempt to determine exactly who committed the murders. Is it a copy cat reliving history... or is it the evil spirit of Bully Hanson in action once again?</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><em><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">CEMETERY DANCE PROJECTS</span>:</em> During the next few weeks, I'll be finishing up some projects for Cemetery Dance Publications. One will be a short story for an upcoming Halloween anthology. The other will be a Signature Series book with the tentative title of <em>WHITE LIGHTNING, BLACK MASS! </em>It will be a rip-roaring tale of moonshiners and devil worshippers with the feel of an old grindhouse movie. Some of you have asked about the status of <em>A DARK & BLOODY GROUND, </em>an upcoming novel from CD. Alas, the manuscript -- nearly three-quarters done -- is still floating around in crashed hard-drive limbo. As soon as I find someone with the expertise to liberate <em>AD&BG</em> from its imprisonment, I'll finish that sucker up and send it out to Rich, Brian, and the rest of the folks at CD.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><em><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">ESSENTIAL RONALD KELLY COLLECTION, VOLUMES #5 & 6</span>: </em>In September and October, I'll be doing final revisions and edits on the next two Essentials: <em>PITFALL </em>and <em>TWELVE GAUGE </em>(formerly <em>FATHER'S LITTLE HELPER). </em>I'll also be writing the two companion novellas for the books. <em>PITFALL's</em> will be titled "The Last of the Chupacabra", while the one in <em>TWELVE GAUGE</em> will be titled "Killing Time". I hope to have the finished manuscripts to Thunderstorm Books in time for a late December or early 2014 release.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><em>UNDERTAKER'S MOON </em>& </span><em><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">FEAR</span>:</em> I've turned in the manuscripts to Roy Robbins at </span><a href="http://www.badmoonbooks.com/home.php?cat=89"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Bad Moon Books</span></a><span style="color: #e69138;"> for the softcover trade editions of <em>UNDERTAKER'S MOON </em>& <em>FEAR. </em>These books, with new covers by Keith Minnion, will be similar to what the Essentials have to offer, except without the "Writing of" feature. We're hoping to have both of these out before the end of 2013.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: Georgia;">As I gain momentum with the completion of these projects, I'm hoping for a productive 2014. Among other things, I'll be working on sequels to <em>FEAR</em> and <em>AFTER THE BURN </em>(this time a full-length novel!), short stories for upcoming anthologies, and I'll be finishing up the Essential collection with Volumes #7 & 8: <em>BLOOD KIN </em>and <em>BURNT MAGNOLIA. </em>On the heels of those projects, I'll be writing a five-volume horror-western serial titled <em>DEAD-EYE, </em>followed by <em>DEAD OLD MEN</em>, the first book of the Grandpa Kelly mystery series that I have in the work.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Be sure to check in regularly here at <em><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Southern-Fried & Horrified</span></em> and </span><a href="http://www.ronaldkelly.com/"><em><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">RonaldKelly.com</span></em></a><span style="color: #e69138;"> for updates and news on these and other forthcoming projects!</span></span></strong>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-2311370028112296352013-08-20T14:14:00.002-07:002013-08-20T14:14:38.607-07:00Zombie Bites! Talking Appalachian Undead, Zombie Apocalypse, and More at Apex Books<br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Head on over to Apex Books for <a href="http://www.apexbookcompany.com/2013/08/zombie-bites-ronald-kelly/">Zombie Bites</a> : a feature showcasing the contributors of <em>Appalachian Undead, </em>an anthology of horror tales that take place in the rugged hills and hollows of the Appalachian Mountains. Today it's Ol' Ron's turn. </strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I'll be discussing my story "Company's Coming", my personal zombie apocalypse survival plan (every respectable redneck family should have one!), the proper use of steel-toed boots, and more. While you're there, you might as well pick yourself up a copy of <a href="http://www.apexbookcompany.com/collections/all-books/products/appalachian-undead/">Appalachian Undead</a> ... the best collection of zombie stories to come down the pike in a month of Sundays. (Cortney Skinner's down-home zombie cover is worth the price of the book alone, if you ask me!)</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia;">And if you're still hankering for zombie fiction, check out my story <a href="http://www.ronaldkelly.com/sample-the-storytellers-work/">"The Day UPS Brought Zombies"</a> at Ronald Kelly.com. It's chocked full of dark humor and re-animated flesh: zombies, demonic books, chainsaw-slinging grannies, evil dolls, a Zuni warrior straight out of <em>Trilogy of Terror</em>, and a special cameo appearance by Brian Keene!</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia;">So slip on your steel-toed clod-hoppers and get to kicking those brains... in a literary sense, that is. And, as always... enjoy!</span></strong>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-84291296558580754452013-08-15T17:46:00.000-07:002013-08-15T17:51:05.185-07:00Walking the Fence Rail: Balancing Faith and Horror Writing<br />
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<strong><span style="color: #93c47d; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I was a young boy, I would walk the fence on Grandpa Kelly's farm. On one side there would be green grass and soft clover; on the other, thistle and blackberry bramble, with plenty of sharp rocks hidden underneath. It wouldn't have taken much at all to have lost my balance and fallen one way or the other, but I never did. Mostly it was due to my own youthful balancing act, but sometimes it was because Grandpa held my hand while I walked the rail.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #93c47d; font-family: Georgia;">Sometimes that's how it feels when it comes to my faith and my horror writing career. On one side there is all goodness and light, while on the other there are sharp thorns, dangerous shadows, and the potential for a disastrous fall. You may think it is an unlikely and incompatible combination that was doomed to failure from the beginning. But you would be wrong. There are more Christian horror writers out there than you would think. I've talked to quite a few and, amid our discussions, found that we all hold the same doubts and fears. We definitely have questions about what we're doing from time to time. Some of them are of our own making, while others come from fans or members of our spiritual niche. The following are some issues that we are forced to address -- for ourselves as well as for others -- every now and then.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #93c47d;"><em><span style="color: #d9ead3;">Am I compromising my faith by choosing to write this particular genre of fiction?</span> </em>No, I don't think so. As a Christian, I believe that God has a hand in all aspects of my life, both personal and professional, and that includes my talent and desire to write. I developed a strong interest in monsters and the macabre at an early age (one that my mother shared and reinforced) so you might say that I was "predestined" to write and create this sort of stuff later in life. Believe me, I've tried my best to specialize in other genres over the years; science fiction, mystery, western, children's literature, even inpirational. But horror was the only one I was actually successful (or happy) with. I'm relatively good at it, seem to know how to press readers' emotional buttons, and I have something of a warped and dark sense of humor. I see this as more of a blessing than a fluke or coincidence. People are always referring to someone's "God-given talent" in an off-hand way, but I believe there is more truth to that than folks realize.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #93c47d;"><em><span style="color: #d9ead3;">Is it sinful to write horror fiction?</span> </em>Whenever someone asks me this question, I can't help but think of a hundred cartoons I've seen in my lifetime: the well-meaning guy with an angel perched on one shoulder and a devil on the other, persuading him to do either right or wrong. I don't know about other horror authors, but that isn't how it is with me. For the most part, I don't feel conflicted while writing horror fiction; it seems to flow naturally, with no mental shifting between "good and bad" taking place. Sure, there are some instances when I feel like I've stepped past my comfort zone, but that's what gives horror its edge... the author's willingness to go a step further and take the reader into realms they would, in life, hesitate to tread. As for the horror genre being evil? Only those who don't read it or aren't familiar with it seem to hold that opinion. I've actually had several people -- some of them family members -- call me a "devil worshiper" because I write this stuff. There's a misconception among a small minority of people (mostly radical religious groups) that writers and film directors of horror-related material are actually in league with the Devil. Of course, thinking in such a way is both ignorant and preposterous. I've met hundreds of horror authors since I began writing in the genre in 1986 and 99% of them were some of the nicest and most wholesome people I've ever met. Some have been fellow Christians, some atheists and agnostics, some straight, some gay... which proves what a diverse body of wordsmiths the horror genre boasts compared to, say, the romance and western genres.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #93c47d;"><em><span style="color: #d9ead3;">Do you inject your religious beliefs into your stories and novels?</span></em> No, not consciously. I consider my faith a personal matter and prefer not to inject it into my fiction, lest it be considered as "preachy". Besides, trying to fuse religion with horror (as in "Christian horror", a strange and seemingly contrary sub-genre to be sure) very rarely works. It's like mixing oil with water. Sometimes religious themes, characters, or settings surface in my books, but I'm not sure if I've done it with the intention of actually sharing my faith. <em>After the Burn </em>had a definite undercurrent of religion throughout and, I suppose, the last story in the collection, "The Paradise Pill", even gave the reader a glimpse of a heaven which may or may not be. The mass murder from my novel <em>Father's Little Helper</em> (soon to be re-released as <em>Twelve Gauge</em> in the Essential Collection) took place in a country church at Christmas time, and of course Grandpappy Craven from <em>Blood Kin</em> had been a mountain preacherman before vampirism caused him to trade his Bible and cross for a hankering for blood. So, perhaps, subconsciously, I do let my faith show through a little in plots and characters.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #93c47d;"><em><span style="color: #d9ead3;">Am I expressing a hidden side of myself when I write about evil or ungodly characters?</span> </em>This is where a lot of writers of horror fiction experience the most friction. When family, co-workers, or even members of one's church, discover that they write "those awful horror stories", then perceptions begin to alter and the author is suddenly regarded in a different, less favorable light. Most "regular" folks (and by that I mean those who <em>don't</em> possess a love for the macabre) believe that surely something must be mentally or morally wrong with someone who would write about monsters or serial killers and, in turn, derive pleasure from doing it. Writing horror doesn't make you an unstable person, a devil worshipper (there's <em>that</em> enigma again), a weirdo, or a child molester. As I said before, most of the time it's the <em>normal</em> folks who specialize in the horror, suspense, and mystery fields... and I could add science-fiction and fantasy to that grouping as well. To tell the truth, it would be the full-blown romance writer, especially the ones who fill their books with ultra-explicit sex and wanton debauchery who I would be wondering about. Actually, there are some Christians (and I've been told this myself by fellow believers) who think that is morally wrong to write about vampires, werewolves, demons, zombies, and ghosts because they are of "Satan's dominion" and it is sinful to "glorify" such creatures. I, myself, don't believe that such monsters exist, maybe with the exception of demons, whose presence is apparent every day in countless news stories about terrorists, child murderers, and those who commit crimes too horrible to even comprehend. Writing about evil characters (the antagonist) or terrible, unthinkable situations or plot twists, doesn't mean that your Dr. Jekyll is unleashing its Mr. Hyde. A person can write about both good and evil without actually being one or the other; that's the gift of a good writer... they can wear many hats convincingly. Being a horror writer no more makes you a carbon copy of your most fiendish character than wearing mouse ears makes you Mickey Mouse or sporting a dab of a mustache on your upper lip makes you Adolf Hitler. Prose is a creative action, like painting or playing music. If a writer's story is about an axe murderer, that doesn't mean he or she is going to take up a hatchet and chase you gleefully around your front lawn. It is simply an exercise in imagination that takes a darker path than other genres take.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #93c47d;"><em><span style="color: #d9ead3;">Why would God approve of or even want you to write horror fiction?</span></em> This is the number one question that horror writers of the Christian faith ask themselves from time to time. The very nature of being a person of faith is to question things that do not involve goodness and benevolence. Philippians 4:8 says "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there by any praise, think on these things." Basically, that means almost everything that horror <em>is not</em>. Truthfully, I believe in everything in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelations. But I've always had an aversion to Philippians 4:8, simply because it condemns a person's interest in things dark and mysterious, which is not only a major pastime of mine, but, frankly, my bread and butter. I've actually had fellow Christians throw this scripture in my face when I suggested that they read one of my novels or stories.</span></span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #93c47d; font-family: Georgia;">I had a <em>huge</em> problem with this question following the implosion of the Zebra horror line back in 1996 and the sudden loss of my first career as a novelist. Having recently "found religion", as the old-timers call it, I became convinced that God had taken away my writing career because He didn't want me to write horror. That might sound silly to you, but to a believer, whose faith dictates that God is instrumental in <em>all</em> things, it is practically logical. So I gave it up... for <em>ten</em> years. It was a long journey of self-doubt and denial, and it took a long time for me to realize that I was downright miserable because of my self-imposed hiatus. It was only when I returned to the genre in 2006, that I was truly happy creatively again. I originally intended to tone my tales down considerably, but discovered that you simply couldn't do that with horror fiction. True, I'm not as "in-your-face" as other horror authors, but I do use a little profanity (never the F-bomb or the Lord's name in vain) and include occasional sexual situations; I just don't go overboard for the sake of offending or grossing my readership out.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #93c47d; font-family: Georgia;">If the Lord has a purpose for my writing this stuff, I'd have to say it would be the perpetuation of "good versus evil" storytelling. There was a time in horror literature (<em>any</em> literature, to tell the truth) when the good guys always won and the bad guys got their just dues. These days, fiction isn't as black and white as it once was. More often than not, it is a battle between evil and a lesser or greater evil. I reckon I'm just old-school, because this approach irks me alot. In my way of thinking, if you don't have a clearcut protagonist and antagonist, then it is simply not horror fiction... or at least not the kind that I enjoy and write.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #93c47d; font-family: Georgia;">In the horror genre, there are all kinds. I just happen to be one of the choir boys of the bunch. If you don't agree with what I've said, remember, this is simply my opinion and how I feel concerning these particular questions. You may believe or disbelieve; that's your God-given right. As for me, I definitely believe that there is something more than talent and luck involved in the success of my writing career and I know precisely who to give all the glory to for that. And if I need a Fatherly hand to keep me balanced on the literary fence rail, then I'll gladly hold onto it.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #93c47d; font-family: Georgia;"></span></strong><br />Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-654505582755930569.post-63477027323104798512013-08-05T19:19:00.001-07:002013-08-05T19:22:43.691-07:00Two New Audio Books: The Dark'Un & Unhinged!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLh5_6_ZXrUiJLWaz0OUnGd31HVXLEI6ZkgrHGcXUbokFzOj7VCoBODQGWKsKxLaW-c49xQXBEsPapE5mFMs3-J4Oxt6m6HgoGdl70igAFuM8SIEqrT-WnVj5CqtjUghhAaPlJ2J21NX2y/s1600/Dark'Un+audio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLh5_6_ZXrUiJLWaz0OUnGd31HVXLEI6ZkgrHGcXUbokFzOj7VCoBODQGWKsKxLaW-c49xQXBEsPapE5mFMs3-J4Oxt6m6HgoGdl70igAFuM8SIEqrT-WnVj5CqtjUghhAaPlJ2J21NX2y/s1600/Dark'Un+audio.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #e06666; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>The folks at Crossroads Press have been hard at work bringing my work to audio. Some of the best voice talents in the business have been gathered, each with their own unique performance and genuine Southern twang. As a result, we now have seven full-length, unabridged audio books available for your IPod or MP3 player. They include <i>Dark Dixie: Tales of Southern Horror, Flesh Welder, Cumberland Furnace, Timber Gray, Twilight Hankerings, The Dark’Un, </i>and </strong></span><i><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Unhinged: Tales of Darkness & Depravity</strong></span>.</i> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAXo6WAolc13CV6BfxyQr8qSIgDx6b9teIAYHoFeb55IAebqDjgSxNx720OwaM3wN8rLF9AY1HHdFZiH38-v8SfpYtKmtrR16IKg0zV8XYJ37-E6YfaPTylbd_S0FqIOhq0Nbq_7YCrl_/s1600/Unhinged.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAXo6WAolc13CV6BfxyQr8qSIgDx6b9teIAYHoFeb55IAebqDjgSxNx720OwaM3wN8rLF9AY1HHdFZiH38-v8SfpYtKmtrR16IKg0zV8XYJ37-E6YfaPTylbd_S0FqIOhq0Nbq_7YCrl_/s1600/Unhinged.jpg" /></a></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The two newest offerings are now available directly from <a href="http://www.audible.com/search/ref=mn_anon-h_tseft__galileo?advsearchKeywords=ronald+kelly&x=0&y=0">Audible.com.</a> <em>Unhinged: Tales of Darkness & Depravity </em>is a collection of my serial killer and mass murderer stories gathered from various horror publications and anthologies over the years. It also includes several previously unpublished stories. <em>The Dark'Un </em>is my full-length novel (eleven hours worth of audio in all!) dealing with a Tennessee mountain under seige by a ruthless corporation and the shadowy changling, the Dark'Un, who takes on hired guns and mercanaries, in every shape and form imaginable... and with absolutely no mercy whatsoever.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: Georgia;">Stick a little Southern-fried horror in your ears... at <a href="http://www.audible.com/search/ref=mn_anon-h_tseft__galileo?advsearchKeywords=ronald+kelly&x=0&y=0">Audible!</a></span></strong>Ronald Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205580920360937815noreply@blogger.com0