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New Anthology Release: BAH HUMBUG!

11/28/2016

Just in time for Christmas, Matt Shaw has called upon some of the biggest names in horror to put together an anthology of Christmas horror! This anthology, the proceeds of which will go to a different charity each month, includes work from:

Terry M. West (poem)
Daniel Marc Chant
Mark West
Kit Power
Wrath James White (poem)
David Owain Hughes
Lisa Lane
Kealan Patrick Burke
Billie Sue Mosiman
Jaime Johnesee
J.R Park
Duncan Ralston
Gary McMahon
Michael Bray
Duncan P. Bradshaw
Mark Cassell
Jack Rollins
Mason Sabre
Matt Hickman
Jim GoForth
Charlotte Bond
Sam West
Andrew Freudenberg
Matt Shaw

Over 100,000 words, more than 400 pages, and only 99c/99p! Grab a bargain, support charity and get to know new and familiar authors! Available now at Amazon.

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Giving Thanks

11/24/2016

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I’d like to wish all my American friends and family a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you have a wonderful day, filled with laughter and good company.

While Thanksgiving stems from the historic feast in November of 1621, when the Wampanoag Indians joined the Pilgrims at Plymouth for a goodwill feast*, our holiday traditions—the Holiday Season that spans from late Fall through the end of the year—stems from times when fall harvests were the last times of plenty and winter stores were finite. Holidays are also designed to bring cheer during the darkest days of the year, when the moods of many tend to reflect the reduced sunlight. Celebrations lift us up. Gathering with loved ones lifts us up. Comfort foods lift us up.

First Thanksgiving - public domain picture

I have to wonder, however, if a piece of our traditions might be in need of a facelift. This piece would be the gluttony. I know everyone says, “But it’s the holidays,” but what does that even mean? That it’s okay to waste food just because it’s a depressing time of the year?

Yes, I’m saying it: wasting food.

We say Thanksgiving is about being thankful, and yet we show that thanks by overindulging. That doesn’t seem like very thankful behavior to me—especially when a good portion of our population is already obese. I say it’s time we celebrate Thanksgiving not by making feasts for ourselves, but as an opportunity to be to the poor what the Wampanoag Indians were to the Pilgrims: by giving to those in need.

Showing thanks by giving.

We can still gather with loved ones, celebrate our appreciation for one another, but with normal-sized meals. By giving instead of wasting food, we can spread good cheer beyond our small circles. Really, isn’t that what this holiday truly is about?

*A&E Networks. History.com. 2011. http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/first-thanksgiving-meal
(accessed November 24, 2016).

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Update: Vampire Books for Blood

11/16/2016

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I want to thank those of you who participated in this year's Vampire Books for Blood fundraiser, the benefits of which have gone to the American Red Cross and Canadian Blood Services. Here's a short note from event organizer Scott Burtness:

Well, that’s it! The 3rd Annual Vampire Books for Blood is done and done....

As of today, ~75% of participants have confirmed with me that they fulfilled their pledge to donate to the American Red Cross and/or Canadian Blood Services.

Together, we donated $3,396!!!

I think we can all agree that’s pretty awesome.

Thank you all for participating! I had a blast, and I hope you had fun too.

Thanks again!

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Lori Safranek: FREAKED OUT

11/4/2016

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As the tents go up and another side show prepares to open, images of the strange and exotic swirl through our minds. Posters give us a preview of a man swallowing sharp swords, throwing knives at a woman tied on a spinning wheel! A woman charming snakes to do as she commands! Watch the world’s fattest woman strut the stage, showing off her gorgeous 500-pound body with pride. Catch a glimpse of a hypnotist who wants to invade your brain and take over your life! And look over there! A tattooed man, whose tattoos fade away, and then randomly reappear somewhere else on his body! And last but not least, there’s a contortionist whose body twists and turns and ultimately fits inside a small box!

Keep walking forward, past all the posters and take your seat in the tents. You now have a front-row seat for the famous Steiner’s Freak Show, one of the finest in the land. Steiner moves his show from town to town and has proved to be a genius at finding true freaks, no fakes in his little freak family!

But lately, strange things have been happening at the Freak Show. Things no one understands. Dangerous things, things that will freak you out!

The six stories collected in Freakshow: The Complete Freaked Out Series relate the exciting experiences of the fascinating characters in Steiner’s Freak Show. So step right up, the show is ready to begin!

You can find the complete series box set on Amazon.

About the author:

Lori Safranek's Freaked Out series takes a creepy look at life in the circus sideshow. Marie, the tale of the Fat Lady in the sideshow, was the first book in the series, followed up with Mesmer, a hypnotist gone bad. Lily Dean explores the life of a snake charmer with special skills. Smudge is about a tattooed man whose tattoos have a mind of their own! More twisted tales of freaks on the sideshow coming soon.

Lori spent several years as a newspaper reporter in Nebraska before deciding to try her hand at fiction writing. In addition to her Freaked Out series, she contributed to the Fifty Shades of Decay: Zombie Erotica anthology; Dead Harvest anthology; Cellar Door II; Slaughter House: Serial Killer Edition; and had a story published in Tim Baker's novel Unfinished Business.

Lori lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband and two dogs. She can be found on Facebook at Author Lori Safranek.

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Brandon Zenner: The After War

11/2/2016

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Today, I have the pleasure of hosting author Brendon Zenner, who is promoting his dystopian novel, The After War. He'll be giving away a $20 Amazon or B&N gift card to one random reader, so be sure to enter using the Rafflecopter box below.

Zenner: In the back matter of all of my books, I like to share with my readers a bit of the background information on the novel they had just read, and I like to include small things, like any alternate titles I might have been working on. I would like to share with you now a section from my Acknowledgments, where I explain some of the inspiration behind The After War.

Back when I was sixteen, and some of my older friends were getting their driver’s licenses, we used to drive out to a nearby park to spend our afternoons walking miles of trails and gazing at the large, calm reservoir smack in the center of the woods. Perhaps my teenage mind still clung to a portion of childhood creativity, but I soon began to envision the creations of a story that would take over a decade to develop into this novel. The distant hills were swarming with soldiers and the open fields were places of war. I knew back then that I wanted to be a writer, with much thanks to authors like Kurt Vonnegut, who showed me at a young age that fiction could truly be anything that the writer wanted it to be.

A year later, when I was seventeen and had a driver’s license of my own, I went to the park by myself day after day, walking the same trails and plotting out the story and characters. Originally, this novel was titled Chaos, but that name didn’t seem to fit as the years went by. I did try to sit and write the novel in my early twenties, but two things happened: 1) I wasn’t a good enough writer at twenty years of age. 2) The story wasn’t there yet. Years passed, and when I was twenty-eight, I forced myself to hammer out the words. I didn’t care how they came out; I just couldn’t put it off any longer. So I finished the manuscript, and low and behold … it stunk. It was hard for me to swallow that it would have to be rewritten from scratch. To ease my mind, I started writing longhand, an idea that had only come to me a few days previous.

That idea would develop into my first novel, The Experiment of Dreams. Months passed, and when I had sent The Experiment of Dreams out to be edited, I decided to sit and give The After War another shot. I had dreaded the thought of having to start the novel all over again, thinking the task would be impossible. But once I began to type, and the words started flowing, I realized how much I missed the characters, and wanted to live in their shoes once more. I wanted to get Simon out of the cabin safely, and I wanted to witness again the struggle between Brian and Steven as it developed. I also included a new main character, and it seemed impossible that he wasn’t there from the beginning: Winston. This time, the manuscript came out the way I had intended, and my writing was much more polished. It still took years to finish, and in the interim, as the manuscript was being edited and proofread, I finished another shorter novel, Whiskey Devils. It is strange to still be working on my first novel, despite having published two others. It brings me immense happiness to be done with The After War, but I’m also terribly sad to see these characters go. They came to be when I was sixteen, and now, twenty years later, it is like losing my best friends. I grew up and aged with them, and their characters developed much as my adolescent mind matured into adulthood. Goodbye Simon and Brian, you will always be with me. Winston, you’re such a good boy.

-Brandon Zenner

About the novel:

Two years have passed since mankind faced extinction. Brian Rhodes and his cousin, Steven, are leaving the protection of their underground bunker for the first time, after a cataclysmic war and unrelenting disease ravaged the earth.

On the other side of the North American continent, young Simon Kalispell is leaving the safety and seclusion of his cabin deep in the woods, traveling with his aging canine companion, Winston.

For individual reasons, these men are traveling east, where the fragmented lives of a small number of survivors will soon be decided by the choices of a corrupt few.

Simon Kalispell and Brian Rhodes are not yet aware, but the strength that resides inside them will soon be tested, and destiny will call for their fates to be forever intertwined.

Excerpt:

A procession was heading down the main street of town. Two columns of savages marched in near unison. But these men were no soldiers. They were ragged and filthy, and carried with them a wide array of weaponry—rifles, machine guns, pistols. Many held sledgehammers, machetes, various swords, and large and small pry-bars, some the size of walking sticks. These improvised weapons were scoured at the ends to reveal the steel of which they were made, gleaming like silver, and were muddied with earth and gore. The men looked as if they had marched out of some dismal pit of hell that had vomited them forth, seeming to defile the very earth of which they trod. They wore a vast array of military clothing of no particular origin and had adorned themselves and their weapons with torn pieces of red cloth, like flags, along with garnished trophies of war—what looked like dried, brown human ears and tanned hides. They cast about them a red and brown hue, as if they wore these shades as part of a collective uniform.

About the author:

Brandon Zenner is an American fiction writer and an Amazon bestselling author. His short fiction has been published in both print and online publications, the first being submitted when he was 19 years old. The Experiment of Dreams, his debut eBook thriller, has reached Amazon's best seller list many times. His second novel, Whiskey Devils, was released in early 2016. The After War, a dystopian thriller, is available now as a pre-order, at 80% off the final sale price. You can follow the author on his Amazon page, or through his email list on his website. All email subscribers will receive his futuristic short story, "Helix Illuminated," for free as a thank you. His genres of choice are thrillers, crime, dystopian, and science fiction.

You can find Brandon on Facebook and Twitter. The After War will remain $0.99 throughout the blog tour. You can pre-order your copy now on Amazon.

RAFFLECOPTER CODE: a Rafflecopter giveaway

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New Anthology Release: BAH HUMBUG!

Giving Thanks

Update: Vampire Books for Blood

Lori Safranek: FREAKED OUT

Brandon Zenner: The After War

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