Where the Hell Did I Go?

It's been a long damned time since my last post.... because a lot has happened since, and it hasn't been good.

My father, who has sarcoidosis and pulmonary hypertension, collapsed at the end of February. The EMTs were able to stabilize and transport him to the hospital, but he will need care for the rest of his life. My mother, who has arthritis of the spine and diabetes, was unable to do this on her own.

Instead of them going to assisted care (more likely a nursing home for my father's needs), Gwen Mayo and I quit our jobs and moved to Tarpon Springs, Florida. Yes, we had a mortgage. Yes, we had years of payments left on the car we purchased in October of last year. Yes, we owe money for other stuff. But move we did. It beat leaving my mother alone and destitute after my father passes (I hope the latter will be delayed with our assistance).

We were fortunate to receive assistance, in the form of both cash and labor, from our coworkers and friends. My stepdaughter has taken over the house so the grandsons will have a place to live when they're ready for college (that day is approaching faster than I thought possible). Dad is out of the hospital and appears to be on the mend, albeit at reduced capability.

I hope to get some type of income soon. It will need to be part-time, at least during this stage of my father's recovery. Will I ever write again? Composing this blog, I hope, is a positive step.

Right now, all my brain wants to do is scream. Even after being here for three weeks.

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My interview with Edin Road on BlogTalkRadio

Paranormal Comedy author Sarah Glenn 02/28 by EdinRoad | Blog Talk Radio

Please tune in to hear an excerpt from my novel and some interview questions. You'll know my voice immediately: I sound like I'm twelve.

I thought it was interesting that Jesse thought that a lesbian vampire was one of the things that makes All This and Family, Too unique: to me, that's a 'normal' trait. There are more lesbians in the world than astronomy professors, and there are probably more lesbians than vampires (although one can never be sure, can one?).

Next Tuesday: Edin Road Radio

A week from today, I will be the featured guest on Edin Road Radio. Jesse Coffey's show puts the spotlight on authors and their work. While part of the program is an interview, the majority of it is simple the author reading their work. I'm trying to decide now what I want to read: portions of All This and Family, Too, or one of my short stories?

If you'd like to hear a sample of the show, check out this recent interview with Bertena Varney.

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Review: Movie by Parnell Hall

Movie by Parnell Hall

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Detective Stanley Hastings finally has his chance to hit The Big Time as a screenwriter. Sidney Garfellow, a documentary director people have actually heard of, has hired him to write the screenplay for his first 'regular' movie. Stanley dreams of leaving his less-than-rewarding career as an investigator for a personal injury lawyer for the Silver Screen. What stands in the way of this? Well, Sidney Garfellow, who keeps changing his mind about what he wants, forcing Stanley to rewrite and rewrite again. Then there's the film's star, who ignores Stanley's golden prose in favor of more 'natural' lines he's written himself. Oh, and there's people getting killed on the set. Just a little problem there...

Hall draws heavily on his own experiences when writing Stanley Hastings: he has worked on the stage, in films, and, at one time, as a detective himself. He writes hilarious songs, often about the foibles of being an author. It is no surprise that he has some experience with screenwriting himself: he wrote the screenplay for C.H.U.D. At least Stanley gets to write a movie with "four hot babes" in it.

I've read several of the Hastings novels, and I always enjoy the verbal humor in them. This novel is no exception. Stanley gives us his unvarnished and aggrieved opinions of the director, the actor, and Murty the sound man. He exchanges marvelous barbs with his boss, who visits the set, and Sergeant McAuliff, a series regular who is hired as a consultant. After the deaths begin, Detective Clark is brought in to investigate. Stanley doesn't like Clark: in a previous novel, Stanley was his prime suspect. The cops are smart, especially Clark, who is far from the closed-minded nabob mystery authors so often employ. The plot is good, and there's enough twists to keep the reader guessing.

The drawback: in some scenes, Stanley and the police detectives spend a lot of time talking about who was where at what times. I tend to speedbump over those sections, but you might want to take the time to read it: the solution just might be hiding in there.



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Every Word

When my wife graduated from college, my parents and I bought her a Kindle. Most of the items on it are hers, but I installed a copy of 'Every Word' on it because I love word games. The game is similar to Scrabble: you're given a group of letters and you form words from them to earn points. Unlike Scrabble, there is at least one word that will use all the letters you've been given, and that word is necessary to advance to the next level.

At lunch today, I discovered that the most obvious word I could form wasn't one approved by the system.

Me: This thing won't take "whipass".
Wife: That's because it should be "whoopass".
Me: I thought maybe they were looking for a Northern spelling.
Wife: "Whoopass" is the only form of the verb. There is no 'whip'.
Me: That's not a verb form, that's a noun. The noun should derive from a present tense form of "whipass". The game won't take "asswhip" either, and it really should.
Wife: There's "asswhippin'".
Me: Exactly! That's the gerund form, which implies that the verb "asswhip" should exist.
Wife: Maybe someone should design a Southern version of the game. You'd have more luck with it.

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Guest Post: Sinister Characters by Lois Winston

Sinister Characters
by Lois Winston

What better place to talk about sinister characters than a blog titled, The Sinister Scribblings of Sarah E. Glenn? Thank you, Sarah, for inviting me to guest blog here today during my month-long blog tour for the release of Death By Killer Mop Doll, the second book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series.

I’ve been told that I write villains readers love to hate. Most readers love heroes and heroines because they yearn to associate with the good guys. They want to see good triumph over evil. They want the vicarious thrill of a happily-ever-ending. Little girls want to grow up to be princesses. Little boys want to grow up to be Luke Skywalker. No one wants to grow up to be Cruella deVille or Darth Vader.

Yet, we remain fascinated by villains. They often drive the story with their complex natures. Why would someone do such evil things? We want to know what drives these madmen and women to commit the crimes they do. Who wasn’t totally intrigued by Voldemort’s back-story? Or Darth Vader’s?

However, too often authors succumb to writing stereotypical villains. Even the most vile of vile villains has to have a reason for his vileness. Snidely Whiplash is one-dimensional. We want to read about 3-dimensional characters, and that’s not limited just to the protagonists of a story. Villains count. They drive plots forward. Without them, we have no conflict.

Who are some of your favorite fictional villains? Post a comment, and you could win one of five signed copies of Death By Killer Mop Doll I’m giving away as part of my January blog tour. The full tour schedule can be found at my website, http://www.loiswinston.com, and the Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers blog, http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. In addition, I’m giving away 3 copies of Death By Killer Mop Doll on Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/15173-death-by-killer-mop-doll

Bio: Lois Winston is the author of the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries published by Midnight Ink. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist and was recently nominated for a Readers Choice Award by the Salt Lake City Library System. The new year brings with it the release of Death By Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series.  

Read an excerpt at http://www.loiswinston.com/excerptap2.html. 

If you're considering starting at the beginning of the series, a good review of Lois' first novel appears on Kevin Tipple's blog.

Visit Lois at her website: http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers blog: http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. You can also follow Lois and Anastasia on Twitter @anasleuth.

Friday: Lois Winston and Important Papers

Friday, January 27th, we’re having a special guest on the blog: Lois Winston, the author of Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun and Death By Killer Mop Doll, will let us know about her favorite sinister characters. She’s also going to be giving away some signed copies of the just-released Death By Killer Mop Doll to people who comment on her posts, so pay extra attention this week! Giveaways are rare in this economy, and even rarer on this blog.

Hmmm… favorite sinister characters. My least favorite sinister characters always seem to be running for office. Lois will only be talking about the fun ones on the 27th. 

For a good review of Lois' first novel, check out Kevin Tipple's review of Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun.

In other news: because my office is under the aegis of UK HealthCare, we have to fulfill the same requirements of all HealthCare employees, even though we don’t see patients and aren’t even located in one of the clinic buildings. This includes annual training on the safe handling of air tanks and recognizing signs of elder abuse. On Friday, I get to have a mandatory interview with Employee Health. I’ve been told to bring my most recent vaccination papers to the appointment. I’m wondering what they’re going to do with me: the last time I needed vaccination papers was when I was in the Fayette County Public Schools, which I graduated from in 1980. They were in the custody of my parents, and after several moves, including one overseas, I doubt that they still have them or even dreamed that they might be needed one day.

What makes me feel even older? My last tetanus shot was received ‘around the turn of the century’, which I associate with 1901, not 2001.

The proper term for the appointment, IMO, is ‘interview’ rather than ‘checkup’ because the co-workers who’ve gone through it tell me that there is no examination involved. If they think I’ll be applying for sick time to cover my time out of the office, they’re in for some kicking; it’s a condition of employment, and planning to be sick is also called malingering.

See everyone on Friday!
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Review: Defending Jacob

Defending Jacob by William Landay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



In this legal thriller, assistant district attorney Andy Barber's comfortable and respectable life comes to a screeching halt when his fourteen-year-old son, Jacob, is charged with murdering one of his classmates. Andy is suspended from his position so he cannot unduly influence or garner information from the people he has worked with for years, cutting him off from the natural resources he needs to defend his son from the charges. Instead, he finds himself on the other side of the courtroom watching his greatest professional rival do what he can to put Jacob away for good. As part of the defense, Andy is forced to confront the dirty secrets of his own past, which he has never revealed to his co-workers, his son, or even his wife.

I normally don't read novels this length (421-page Advance Reader's Edition) unless I already know the author or the story itself grabs and holds my interest. Defending Jacob falls into the latter category. The description I gave above could easily be the trailer of a Lifetime drama, but this novel rises above a maudlin TV drama for several reasons. The disintegration of family trust is not a surprise, nor is it a shock to the reader when friends, neighbors, and co-workers turn against the family. What the reader doesn't get, though, is a reassurance that Jacob is innocent. Too many secrets aspects of the teen's life are revealed during the investigation: we learn that Jacob has a dark side. Bad decisions made by both the boy and his father (who knows better, but cannot help himself) also make proving innocence -or guilt- very difficult.

We also learn that Andy comes from a long line of violent criminals in which he appears to be the (only?) exception. He has spent his entire adult life keeping his heritage a huge blank spot, even to himself. Naturally, his family background comes out during the investigation. When the trial outcome appears darkest, the defense attorney tests Jacob for a specific genetic predisposition to violence that could mitigate his sentence. Andy is forced to visit his own father, Bloody Bill Barber, in prison to beg a DNA sample for corroboration. The relationship they begin to develop isn't pleasant, but it is interesting.

The ending has more than one twist. There is a certain point at which the reader may feel cheated, but stay tuned: the other shoe just hasn't dropped yet. Throughout the book, we read testimony that Andy is giving at a trial. It isn't until the end that we discover whose trial it is.

Spoiler alert:
A great amount of emotional focus revolves around the question of whether the Barber men are born killers or not. My problem with the genetic condition Landay employs (a real one) is that the trait is sex-linked to the X chromosome - the one chromosome men do not pass down to their sons. The novel specifically states that the allele is located on the X chromosome, which immediately jarred me out of the plotline and onto Google. Most people who read this sort of novel have taken enough biology to say "Couldn't Jacob only get that gene from his mother? Why aren't they testing her family, too?" Since my copy of the novel is an ARC, I am hoping some editor has already spotted and solved this problem.

Overall, Defending Jacob is an engrossing read. It is well-written, outside of the genetics issue. Andy's willful belief in his son's innocence and the desperate acts he commits to shield his son drive this story, and kept me turning pages till I reached its open-ended conclusion.



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Review: The Cradle in the Grave

The Cradle in the Grave by Sophie Hannah

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



From my understanding, this is the ARC of A Room Swept White, book 5 of the Spilling CID series. I have not read the 'final' print, so all comments pertain to this version of the novel.

I have noticed that many British authors fall into what I refer to as the Jane Austen Syndrome: it takes about 200+ pages before anything really interesting happens, although when it does it's damned interesting. P.D. James had the same problem in The Private Patient. This doesn't mean it's written badly, just not in the style an impatient American with Aries rising normally appreciates.

Fortunately, this was offset by the 'documentary' presentation of the original crimes and interviews with the women convicted of the child murders. I love true crime and reading the 'paperwork' involved, so this provided me with an early source of satisfaction that carried me until the heroine became interesting, too.

I was not at all sold on the relationship between Fliss and Natrass. Oh, I can believe he was a jerk, but I really don't understand how her ('her' being Fliss) attraction to Natrass particularly enhanced the storyline. I found Simon's dogged determination to hate his boss much more compelling. His outrage and mixed feelings upon finding himself on the same 'side' as his detested supervisor were very human and understandable.

Each of the bodies is found with a list of sixteen digits - four rows by four columns. When the solution to that clue came, I found it surprising and satisfactory.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but think it might have been better without the viewpoint of Fliss Benson at all. Perhaps, if they had revealed certain aspects of her background earlier, I would not feel that way. I have read that the final version was a superior manuscript. I hope so.



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Horror for the Holidays

I had a very pleasant surprise yesterday: a story I expected to come out in 2012 is available now! Horror Carnival is a collection of several vile stories by experienced horror and pulp authors. Some of the notables include Matt Kurtz (who was also in The Big Book of New Short Horror), David James Keaton (of Plots with Guns fame), and, of course, prolific editor and author Anthony Giangregorio.

I need to update my Web page and my store on Second Life with this and other items. By the way, my wife, Gwen Mayo, has a store on Amazon. All of our stories are on there, plus others by people like Marian Allen, Bertena Varney, Amy Mah, Lori Lake, Patty Henderson, and Jeanine Hoffman. The music section is an eclectic mix of things from the Rat Pack to Ke$ha. Just a little nepotism for the holidays, folks...

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Decompression

The 2011 book tour is over, and NaNoWriMo is over as well. Finally, I get to come out of crazy writer mode - just in time to make the shift into crazy holiday mode. If I find the time between now and January, I might be able to do some book reviews. The great thing about attending Bouchercon is the number of free books and review copies the attendees receive. I have several interesting ARCs in the island of paper products surrounding my end of the couch.

Oh, yeah, I might want to sort that pile out. Right now, our living room looks like a ransacked library. Let's not discuss what the kitchen looks like.

But the first fun thing I'm getting to read is from my wife, Gwen Mayo. She's almost finished with the sequel to Circle of Dishonor. Guess who has the first 55K words of that sequel on a memory stick jacked into her laptop? You got it. I'm the person who sees her stuff before the beta readers. I guess that makes me the alpha reader.

Anyhoo: Sorry for the breaks between posts. I have been waaaayyy too active this year.

Oh, the Places I Went...

Gwen Mayo and I at Magna cum Murder. As always, it was a blast!

It's been a loooong time since I posted here. Honestly? Between traveling every weekend and trying to get regular and special errands done during the week, it's been hard to find the time.

What are 'special' errands, you ask? The most special one dealt with my late grandmother's Toyota. The cost of repairs finally outweighed the cost of replacing it, so we replaced it. I hated giving the Corolla up - it was Granny's, after all - but it was a twenty-year-old car.

On my father's recommendation, we bought a used Scion. This vehicle resembles a small milk truck and would definitely fit into the list of ugly cars the Reverend W. Robert Merrimon drove in All This and Family,Too. It carries lots of books, though, has a working defroster for the back window, and, most importantly, has brakes.

Bess the Bookmobile.

October is best defined as Before Granny's Car Died and After Granny's Car Died.

BGCD: We spent the first weekend delivering political yard signs. The second weekend, we traveled to Louisville to join our Sisters in Crime for a Ghost Tour of Old Louisville. A lovely trip, but it was on the way home that the brake light first came on. Sunday was spent delivering more yard signs and pouring brake fluid into the car.

AGCD: We did a signing at That Book Place, located in Madison, IN, on the 15th. Marian Allen did a lovely interview with us as part of promotion. The following weekend was the Halloween Expo at National College in Lexington. We didn't attend the masquerade ball after the Expo because we ran off to hear Cris Williamson sing at Natasha's. The final weekend of the month was spent in Muncie, Indiana at Magna cum Murder. Overall, we've been giving the new vehicle a baptism by car trips.

The final event before the holidays strike -er- arrive is the Kentucky Book Fair. That'll be in Frankfort on November 12th. Please drop by and say hello!

Halloween Releases

Gotta love the Cthulhu on the cover!

I have two new short stories out in time for Halloween, both in Pill Hill Press anthologies. The Big Book of New Short Horror has 58 (!) horror stories, many of them by excellent authors like Mark Souza and Deb Eskie.

My own story in the collection, "Patch Test", involves a horrific application of nanomedicine. It is one of the unfunniest stories I've ever written and is possibly (due to subject matter) the most controversial one as well. 

Nothing cutesy about these stories!

Halloween Frights, Volume I, is Pill Hill's offering for the holiday. It contains thirteen scary stories, including another one by Mark Souza and one by my spouse, Gwen Mayo.

My own story, "Fire Insurance, Inc." takes place in a Hell House. For the uninitiated, this is a house of horrors set up by fundamentalist Christians to show teenagers where they could wind up if they make the 'wrong' choices. My question: what happens if Hell horns in on the action?

Both collections are very reasonably priced for Kindle, and, naturally, I encourage you to check them out. Print versions should be available soon.

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Second Life: Odd Women's Bookstore

The ground floor of our store.

If you've been following me on FaceBook or Twitter, you know that I've been on Second Life since I was introduced to it at AuthorFest in April. Gwen Mayo and I took the plunge shortly thereafter and opened a virtual store on Book Island. We learned how to form posters of our books and link them to Amazon so people could read more and (we hoped) purchase them.

Gwen and I as SL shopkeepers.

At first, we just carried our own novels and the anthologies our stories appear in. We also linked to a couple of singleton short stories that you can download directly to Kindle. Even so, we hoped to carry works by other people, preferably authors we knew personally.

The first new author we added was Marian Allen. She is a member of the Southern Indiana Writers' Group and her stories defy categorization. Her newest novel, on display at our store, is Force of Habit.

The second author we added was Bertena Varney. Her book, Lure of the Vampire, is a nonfiction look at the vampire in folklore and popular culture.

Our newest author is T. Lee Harris. She also belongs to the Southern Indiana Writers' Group, and is both author and editor. We have two of her crime stories on display now.

At the rate we're going, we'll fill up that second floor soon enough.

Review: SNAP: The World Unfolds

SNAP: The World Unfolds by Michele Drier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



SNAP: The World Unfolds
by Michele Drier

Maxmillia Gwenoch, aka Maxie, is the new managing editor of SNAP. After years of working in women's magazines, she's finally reached the top. SNAP is the name of a conglomeration of print magazine (with editions in five languages), blog, and television publications dedicated to celebrities. Maxie works out of the office in LA, but makes regular trips to Miami, Rio, and other glam locations to rub shoulders with The Beautiful People. She's being paid a remarkable amount of money for the job, more than she ever thought she'd make. She has a condo and a chauffeur. Finally: she has an assistant, Jazz, whom I would kill to have on my payroll (if I could afford her rate). The woman is wonderful: she arranges for Maxie’s furniture to be unpacked while she’s on the road, and dispatches personal shoppers to acquire suitable clothing in her boss’ size when Maxie is invited to the castle of SNAP’s owner. Did I mention that SNAP was owned by a Hungarian baron?

Then there’s Jean-Louis, the art director. He’s frightfully handsome, and interested in Maxie, but our heroine’s mother always advised her never to get involved with someone prettier than she was. Still...

With these blessings come problems. There’s the blood on the bathroom floor. There’s the unexplained quasi-hospital setup on one of the floors in her office building. Then, there’s the sudden attacks on Maxie. Someone is trying to kidnap her!

She discovers that the Baron Kandesky and his family are vampires, and Carlos the Chauffeur is a demon who’s been engaged to protect her. That part is really cool, except for the Huszars, the vampires next door. They’ve been feuding with the Kandeskys for centuries, and they’ve teamed up with the local werewolves and wild boars. Yes, as in feral pigs.

The Huszars would like to replace the Kandeskys as the vampire source of celebrity gossip. Along with smashing them into the dirt, of course. And they want Maxie… because good help is hard to find.

This novella is a fast, fun read. I usually find the ‘life of the celebrity’ a turn-off, but it was very enjoyable here, seen through the eyes of a reporter who has to live part of what she’s been writing about all these years. Maxie is a go-getter who doesn’t give up when faced with challenges she has no preparation for. Plus, the notion that the Huszars want her for her skills is a twist I rarely see in romantic suspense. My only complaint is that the story is too short: it’s an origin story for a series character. Good news, though: the sequel is due out in 2012.




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This Friday: North Carolina!

This Friday, I will be joining four Sisters in Crime in North Carolina to promote Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology. Karen Pullen, Patricia Winton, Heidi Saunders and I will team up with the legendary Chris Roerden (author of the classic Don't Murder Your Mystery) to do readings and sign the anthology.

We will be at McIntyre's Books at 2 PM. The store is located at Fearrington Village in Pittsboro.

At 7:30, we will be signing at Quail Ridge Books and Music in Raleigh.

Heidi Saunders and I will be driving down together, since we are both from Kentucky and belong to the same chapter of Sisters in Crime. Considering how many submissions Fish Tales had, I consider it a coup for our group that two of us were selected.

If you're in the Raleigh area, we'd love to have you drop by!

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Giveaway: Fish Tales

Looking to win a free copy of Fish Tales? Check out the giveaway on Goodreads! Hurry, though: the giveaway ends on August 14th.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Fish Tales

by Ramona DeFelice Long

Giveaway ends August 14, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Review: The Hunt by Linell Jeppsen

This novel is described on Amazon as a story where two vampire factions clash in the Washington State woods during the height of deer season. When I read this, I thought: "Lunchtime!" Ancient creatures meet tourists? It worked for Jurassic Park...

If you are hoping for a major bloodbath, however, you will be disappointed. Two ancient foes do meet in a final conflict that has consequences for the humans who are unfortunate enough to be in the way. Outside of a few well-described deaths, though, the main focus is on the life and relationships of Raphael Goldhawk, half-breed and eventual king of the high vampire council.

In the world Jeppsen creates, vampires are a different, older species than humans. They resemble angels in many ways: they're winged, they have an alien beauty, and most of them have Biblical names (Gabriel, David, Lael). The race has become infertile over the centuries, so their hope of continuation rests with Raphael and his offspring. Raul (non-Biblical name) is the villain of the piece. To Raul and his followers, humans are food and Raphael has no business hanging around with real vampires. This leads to a series of conflicts that resulted in the death of Raphael's wife and a duel between the two vampires two hundred years ago. Raphael spares Raul's life, to his regret.

Jeppsen writes reasonably well, but the novel has serious structural problems. The story begins with the viewpoint of the humans, set in the here and now, but the overwhelming majority of the book is background, telling us the saga of Raphael Goldhawk. I found myself wondering when we were going to return to the present time and rejoin the main storyline. To me, it seems that the story of Raphael was the main storyline and should have been presented as such.

That said, I think that Linell Jeppsen is, overall, a promising writer. She went to the trouble of researching the things she could research for her story and sought out input from others (whom she acknowledges in her introduction). Her human characters are markedly different from her vampires in the way they think, speak, and their background descriptions. The joining of Raphael and Melissa, for example, is much more mythic and dramatic than the 'real folks' relationship of Holly and Brian. The characters of Raphael and his family are compelling enough to follow, despite my comments on the overall novel structure.

About the Author
Linell Jeppsen is a retired grocery store checker and high school custodian. She has been writing her entire life, but was recently chosen by Phyllis Scott Publishing for her novel, The Hunt.
She had previously won third place in a science fiction short story contest for "The Gag Gift", which is featured in Mixed Blessing and other Short Stories and The Last Astronaut.
Linell is now hard at work on her second novel, titled Story Time. It is a science-fiction, post-apocalyptic novel, which is due to be released this fall.
For more information about Linell and her work, please visit:
•    www.linelljeppsen.com

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The Vrykolakas: Another Type of Vampire

Vampire Awareness Month (mostly being hosted by Amy Mah) is a good time to talk about an often-overlooked Greek variant of the species: the vrykolakas.

One of the traditional Greek curses was "May the earth not receive you!" This was the case with the vrykolakas (plural vrykolakes). Instead of decaying in the grave, the flesh swells up and take on a 'drum-like' texture (this is the term all my references use).

The vrykolakas is a little different from the 'regular' vampire in that you rarely read about one drinking blood. They prefer milk, lots of it, fresh from the goat. Although the vrykolakas is classified as a vampire, I could see where a comparisons to the zombie could also be made. Vrykolakes are fairly ugly, and property damage, disease spreading, and rending people seem to be their preferred activities.

A person can become a vrykolakas after death by being very wicked in life or by being excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox Church (according to John Cuthbert Lawson, the Church alternately boasted and disavowed this claim). Eating meat previously gnawed on by a wolf/werewolf put you at risk (the werewolf in life/vampire in death trope). Violating various taboos or being cursed by a parent were also potential causes, as was having your baptism screwed up (back to the priests again).

Lawson claimed that Greeks could tell which way a vrykolakas came into being by a using handy color-code system from the Church of St. Sophia at Thessalonica, reproduced here:

He who has left a command of his parents unfulfilled or is under their curse has only the front portions of his body preserved.
He who is under an anathema looks yellow and his fingers are wrinkled.
He who looks white has been excommunicated by divine laws.
He who looks black has been excommunicated by a bishop.
(Lawson, 370)

Wouldn't that make a good flash card for a monster-hunter?

Another part of the vrykolakas legend: if a vrykolakas knocked on the door and called your name, you must not answer. To answer meant that you would be dead within days (by sometimes unspecified means, although sitting on the chest of a sleeping victim was one method) and become one of the creatures yourself. However, unlike the postman, the vrykolakas would only call once, so it was a custom for Greeks to wait till they heard their name a second time before answering.

The island of Santorini, also known as Thera, was specifically known as a hotbed for vrykolakes. Simply Santorini's Greek Superstitions page claims that it was "known as the 'Island of the Vampires'", but no one seemed to know about them the one time I was privileged to visit the island. Both Lawson and the Superstitions page agree that Greeks on surrounding islands would bring the bodies of suspected vrykolakes to Santorini because experts in destroying the creatures resided there.

When I decided to write a story with a "Greek vampire", I set it on Santorini and introduced one such expert. Check it out on Amazon if you're interested.

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Celebrity Roast

I think this is the best term for this past weekend. Memorabilia dealers, film professionals, gaming stores, and authors (mostly better known than me) set up shop during FandomFest Weekend in Louisville. Many celebrities, including John Carpenter, were featured guests of the convention. The program was great, but the hotel hosting the event shot itself in the foot. Their AC wasn't working during a time when the temperature outside was hitting 100 degrees.

Gwen and I were there representing Pill Hill Press, and dutifully baked away. Fortunately, we'd packed a cooler with water and Code Red, which was drained of all fluids by the end of the con. I suppose we could have sold drinks to the attendees and made a small fortune, but we selfishly valued our health above our bottom line. The first day was really the worst: we'd come directly from work and still had our work clothes on. The next two days, we wore shorts and tees. We'd packed nice clothes, but nice clothes were too hot. And hey, my Sandman tee was a big hit!

We weren't staying onsite, which was a splendid decision. We kept our room at the Holiday Inn set to 69 degrees and flopped on the bed every evening, feeling the heat leave us in waves.

The good part: the other writers. Gwen and I both attended - and sat in on - some wonderful panels. Gwen led a workshop on writing historical fiction, and she was also featured on panels for shopping your first novel and the mistakes beginning novelists make. I sat on the panels for paranormal novels and fan fiction, where I discovered that my first fanfic efforts probably began with The Black Stallion. I'd only traced my roots back to Betty and Veronica because I was thinking of human fanfic. Gwen and I both sat on the mystery panel, which was also great fun.

The other good part: the books. We were surrounded by book dealers. Oh, how I love books... I spent more money than we made, I assure you. The best selling items we had were our chapbooks of Gwen's Civil War short story and my horror story set in the Greek Isles. Overwhelmingly, however, the item passersby were most interested in was the postcard for zombie anthology Gone With The Dirt. I seriously think PHP might want to consider selling the cover design as posters or on T-shirts.

Many thanks must go to Stephen Zimmer for creating such an enjoyable literary track. He also spent most of his time trying to make life easier on us, rather than peddling his own books. I recommend that you go to Seventh Star Press and buy some of them to make up for his sacrifice.