For the book that became The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti, I kept a kind of running diary of the writing of it, The Camopede Files. Was fun. It made me kind of look at my process in a new way, a helpful way. So, when I started Mapping the Interior, I figured I’d try […]
This must by my first post about food, ever. Anyway, was just commenting on a friend’s pic of a some pie on Facebook—can’t link to it, but the Instagram’d version’s here—and realized that the reason I have yet to try keylime pie (that’s what the pie in question was), even though I promised myself to
This is from Murder by the Book—which shuttered up as soon as I was done, as the rain was coming down, and Houston’s understandably pretty water-shy this summer, and where we were was evidently a place that goes lake just when the humidity gets high enough. That’s the with-specs shot. Here’s the without,where I suspect
Me in my office, playing with all things werewolf related. At least those I could reach without getting out of the camera’s eye. Also some talking, some reading, some injudicious swaying from side to side, like I just spilled koolaid on the couch but nobody knows about it, and I really-really need to get outside, like
Do people say that, “IN” the ABQ, the same way people will identify with a certain area code? Really, I kind of doubt I’m the proper age to try it out, even if it is a thing. But the three-digit rhythm feels right, anyway. As did Mongrels at Bookworks: And, what was cool? They broke
mix Buzzfeed‘s “23 Things that Prove Society is Doomed” with Salon‘s “War & Peace on the Subway: How Your iPhone is Saving Literature,” then angle it through my publicists’ rose-colored glasses, and you end up with something a lot like: 1. Sitting together and reading still counts as socializing: ↳ Via quoteinvestigator.com, once upon a time. 2. It’s
Back in the late nineties, I’d see Stephen Dixon stories all over and flip back to his author bio at the end of the journal or whatever not because I didn’t already know it, but for the rush: it always said he had some three hundred stories published. I had maybe six at the time?
I keep thinking about these two kids who left the theater early. Say, ten minutes shy of the end, right when things were at their goriest, most sacrilegious frenzy. I mean, first and of course, eight- and ten-year-old girls shouldn’t be seeing The Conjuring. Boys either. I’m not even sure I was old enough to
[ this is the script of the pre- and post-words I gave for a charity event Cabin-screening Friday night, down in Manitou Springs ] wolf kisses and bear traps The slasher. We can all make a list of our ten favorite, yes? Which of course we consider the ten best. So . . . that list starts
Man, where to start. How about with John Mellencamp: When I was five I walked the fence while grandpa held my hand “Rain on the Scarecrow” came out in 1985, the year Growing Up Dead in Texas happens. Or, that’s when the events happen. Right around that time I remember walking the fence with my
I tried so hard to make a YouTube playlist for Growing Up Dead in Texas. Songs that are in the book and songs that kind of encompass the book. But it wasn’t meant to be; the songs I needed can’t be included in playlists. So, in lieu, I’ll put them all here, in the order that
A while back I was part of the cattle call for what became this article, and just found myself looking this email up as a student was coming to my office to talk about ghosts. So I figured it’d be good if I could see again what I think about them (I know nothing until
by the guys over at Booked. I think we were supposed to go in the area of thirty, not more than forty minutes, so, you know, fifty two, that’s us just completely exercising control, I think. but, I mean, we were talking about zombie and slashers and werewolves (a bit), about horror and hospitals, about
Back in 2005 or so, I was under contract to write a sequel to All the Beautiful Sinners for Rugged Land — they’re gone now, but they were hot for a while, and produced some gorgeous books, and, as far as I know, did the first ever serious book trailer, too (For Henry’s List of
Some of you’ll remember a bit ago, before the hack, the crash, the switch to another host, I posted a cool excerpt by Pablo D’Stair (which the hack/crash ate, refused to spit back up, and I couldn’t figure how to get a remade version back in-line with the rest, which sucks, but that’s not why
Just a rough list of the e-book issues I can think of. And, I should say up top here that I’m pretty much addicted to my Kindle. So this isn’t an attack on e-books (which — a lot of of those are taking the form of nostalgia, right? like when we went from cassettes to CDs?).
Jones: PEN OR PENCIL? SGJ: I can’t really handle how loud pencils are. Jones: HOW FAST CAN YOU TYPE? SGJ: Can’t quite hit the 220wpm Philip K Dick was supposed to. But I plan on living longer, too. Jones: WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE X-FILES EPISODE? SGJ: “Jose Chung’s Little Green Men” Jones: WHY WRITE? SGJ: Because
The Fast Red Road—A Plainsong is a gleeful, two-fisted plundering of the myth and pop- culture surrounding the American Indian. It is a novel fueled on pot fumes and blues, a surreal pseudo-Western, in which imitation is the sincerest form of subversion. Indians, cowboys, and outlaws are as changeable as their outfits; horses are traded
[ rigged this together forever and a day ago, but it mostly still holds ] born in 72, grew up on Elvis, even have some memories of being four years old and my mother holding me up above the crowd at one of his concerts, how there was just a sea of popping flashbulbs, this
from the back of the book : These thirteen stories are our own lives, inside out. A boy’s summer romance doesn’t end in that good kind of heartbreak, but in blood. A girl on a fishing trip makes a friend in the woods who’s exactly what she needs, except then that friend follows her back
Because it’s been three years, right? The last one was IM, I think. This one’s phone. And, many thanks to Joshua Chaplinsky for, on the transcribe, pulling out all my “ums” and “errs” and “[unintelligible]s,” of which there had to be legion. He even made me sound like a person who occasionally remembers he’s in
this originally posted over at the now-dead Depraved Press back in February 2008. Had completely forgotten about it, but Jesse Lawrence, the “JL” here — you’ll also find him in various acknowledgements and thanks in my books — hadn’t forgot, still had it saved in email. However, all the formatting’s gone, with this paste-across, so,
