Recent Cons & Photos

 I thought I would do another one of those blog posts where I present some recent photos. I have been making a few appearances at various cons to sell books and sign people up the Horror Writers Association. I thought I'd throw in a few photos from last Halloween for good measure, so here goes.

Here is the table I set up at Monster Fest at the Chesapeake Central Library in Chesapeake, Virginia in October of last year.

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of my friend Paul Knight, who was sometimes known as Pauzilla. He always remembered me and my family on Halloween.

Here is another attendee from Monster Fest, who was working a puppet on that day.

I entered the costume contest at Monster Fest as a famous movie murderer from a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock and a book penned by Robert Bloch. I also moderated a panel on how to write scary scenes in horror which featured Red Lagoe, Pam Kinney, and Justin Cristelli.

Here are last year's yard decorations for Halloween.

The wife and I went out dressed as Jason Voorhees and Ahsoka Tano.

Here was the band for that night, Everafter, at Big Woody's in Chesapeake. I loved their costumes.

There's Laurie Camp as Ahsoka again at Big Woody's.

My daughter, Delaney, also got into the spirit of Halloween and dressed as Pearl from the movie of the same name.

Delaney always challenges me to do a difficult jack-o-lantern. This year, she challenged me to make a Frankenstein Monster. Of course that's Laurie dressed as a ghost in our driveway where we handed out candy.

An now we're up to January where I ran a table at Mars Con in Virginia Beach. This was a rather elaborate costume that I felt was photo-worthy.

A few other authors at Mars Con included, from back to front, Pam Kinney, Sidney Williams, yours truly, and Bryn Grover. It was fun meeting up with the other HWA members and talking with them.

And finally, Laurie entered the costume contest at Mars Con, again as Ahsoka, but don't call her a jedi.

Last year's Monster Fest

Let's take a look at a few photos from last year's Monster Fest, which took place on October 1, 2022, in Chesapeake, Virginia at the Chesapeake Central Library.

I worked the table for the Horror Writers Association where I signed up a few prospective members for the organization. The table was positioned between other HWA members, authors Red Lagoe and Pam Kinney. Author Brad Center also worked the table during the day.

I watched the costume contest, which is always fun. These are this past year's winners. I always consider the costume contest to be the main event of Monster Fest each year.

 Here is me displaying the line-up of events for the day. The HWA Virginia Chapter ran a panel / presentation on the importance of joining writing organizations. Overall, it was another fun event put on by Rob and Phyllis Floyd.

Photos from last October

It occurred to me that I never posted my photos from last October where I participated in several Halloween / horror events and activities. First I participated in a presentation on the history of mummy tropes in horror stories at Monster Fest.

Also at Monster Fest, I met up with my friend Mr. Lobo, who is a horror movie host, much like those of the olden days, and boy do I miss those days. Thankfully, the internet exists and that seems to be where Mr. Lobo and many other horror movie hosts have gone.

That poster hung from a video store in downtown Norfolk, until the video store, The Naro, closed.😥😭

Then I decorated my lawn for Halloween.

And began dressing into my costume for Halloween.

And finally went out for big night, but met up with the Wolfman.

See you all later.

I'm Baaack! And Welcome to the Roaring 20s

It's been a while since I made a blog post, and a few things have happened since then. In fact, one could say I have not written a blog since last decade. Hyperbole? A tad, but technically true. We have entered a new decade, so welcome to the new roaring twenties! (Dig the photo above.)

Anyway, I was very busy teaching classes last semester. I began at a new school, which will pay me a bit more, but it's a longer drive, and the classes are full, so it takes up more of my time. The other good news is that I will be teaching a literature class at my new school, if enough students sign up. Fingers crossed.Unfortunately, lately that means less time for writing, but I'm still slugging away, and writing whenever I get the chance. 

I've also found time to do two more public presentations since my last blog. One was at this year's Monster Fest in Chesapeake, VA, where I presented on the history of mummy stories in film and books. The other was a presentation on the six degrees of separation from Smithfield, VA to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at the Isle of Wight Museum. For those presentations, I put together some Power Point files, and that kind of counts as writing, right?

Last year, I broke my all time record of the most submissions I have ever made in one year. I found a blog recently that claims you should aim for at least 100 submissions per year to get published, and my record is not quite half of that, but I'm going to work toward breaking my current record again this year. It has not quite turned into numerous publications yet, but I am getting published more often than I used to. I also have a few ideas for some nonfiction articles, which I would like to work on this year as well as my usual fiction.

Anyway, I just thought I would bring everyone up to date on what I've been up to. I will try to make a few more frequent blog posts in the future, and I will make them a little bit more useful to you the reader. In the meantime, here is a music video on my return, "Back in the Saddle" by one of my all time favorite bands, Aerosmith.

Photos from Monster Fest 2018

Here are some photos of my presentation, Franksploitation, Frankenstein exploitation films from the 1950s to the 1970s, at this year's Monster Fest. I'll provide more information on this even soon.

About That Scholarship

Last blog post I talked about some recent successes I've had as a writer. It's been a while, but I finally have a few. On the other hand, I also had another rejection letter in my inbox the other day too. Anyway, the biggest of those success was winning the Horror Writers Association Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-Fiction Writing. This has led to some interesting developments so far. One of the schools I work for, Paul D Camp Community College, set me up to be interviewed by the local newspaper, the Suffolk New Herald,  for an article. I also notified my alma mater magazines. We'll see if they choose to cover this or not.

This is not some ego burst, but an attempt to draw up some interest in the project to hopefully sell books whenever I can finish it and get it to an agent and/or publisher. I'm also working on a presentation for Monster Fest next week on this very project.

I actually applied to both the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship and the regular HWA Scholarship. Sometimes you have to throw your hat into many rings before one decides to take you in, just like my last blog post, "Throwing Shit Against the Wall." After they reviewed all applicants for several weeks, I received an email asking if I could be more specific about what I will do with their funds. So I did several things to accomplish this. The easiest was to create a wish list on Amazon.com.

I also knew I might need money for photos for the book, but I had no idea about the legalities of even using photos for books. I did know one thing, however, I knew David J. Skal wrote what I consider the best horror book I've ever read (and I've read a few), with The Monster Show. I friended Skal on Facebook, and interacted with him enough. This was not enough for me to say I "knew him" but enough to know he seems very approachable about this topic. So I Googled his name and found his author page, which provided me with his email, and I asked him about how to get photos. He proved to be as approachable as I previously thought as he replied to my email within 2 hours. I added this to my budget.

The third part of my budget was to purchase research articles. I work for two different higher education facilities, which allow me access to their article databases. These databases are enormous, and can provide a large amount of the information I'll need to write the book for free. However, while the majority of these articles are free, sometimes you have get an inter-library loan to get some of the articles. And these inter-library loan articles are often not free. I searched for some articles I knew I would have to pay for to get an idea of how much to budget for this. I found two articles that I felt were exemplary, one cost $6 and the other $36. So I budgeted as though these were the higher end and lower end of the articles I'd need.

They reviewed this for about another week or so, and then sent me an email telling me I won the scholarship. Now some of my colleagues at Paul D Camp are asking if I can do a presentation on my progress as I go. And I still need to contact someone to help me with the methodology, but that's a topic for another blog post.

Researching the Research

It's been a while since I posted here, partially because it's getting to be the end of the semester, and I'm up to my elbows in papers to grade. This will continue until the end of the semester when all grades have to be turned in on May 8. Therefore, my posts here may be a little sparse until then.

Anyway, since it looks like I need to try and bulk up my nonfiction credits to get into a terminal degree program (which I sometimes refer to lovingly as a terminal illness), I've decided to start looking over a few items I wrote during my previous two master's programs (yes, I have two master's degrees). I'm updating a few items, including links, as some of them are now dead. Even some of the citation styles have changed slightly since then.

In other words, I've been researching the research. I have several items I feel may be good enough to publish, if I can find the right market for them. It takes a bit of a brain shift to move from fiction to nonfiction writing, especially nonfiction writing that requires research. I've also been making lists of new articles I want to write this summer. As adjunct faculty, I have a lighter schedule over the summer, so I will have more time to write.

The hard part was coming to the conclusion that to get into a PhD program you have to have already published research, even though avenues to publish are fewer and farther between when not in a graduate program. It's that age-old question, how do you research outside of a PhD program, and how do you get into a PhD program without having conducted research.

Meanwhile, I've also been researching not only other PhD programs, so I don't make the same mistake of only applying to one, and being screwed if I don't get in, but I'm also researching MFA programs. It was my original plan when I graduated with my bachelor's and moved out of my parents' house to get a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. Like a PhD, it is also considered a terminal illness, er, I mean terminal degree. I settled on a regular master's degree in English instead. I'd like to say I should have gone for the MFA all along, but looking back, I'm not so sure I would have gotten in then anyway.

Wish me luck on publishing and getting back into school, and I'll wish you luck in all you do too. Meanwhile, here's shot of me presenting my (in)famous Ed Wood paper I wrote in my master's program at last year's Monster Fest.

Monster Fest photos

Some time ago, I promised to post a few photos of Monster Fest 2017, so here they are:

The first one is of me doing my presentation on Ed Wood, titled "Your Stupid, Stupid Minds," the second is of me in front of the schedule of my presentation, the third is me and a statue of The Fly, fourth is Dr. Madblood, the horror movie host of Hampton Roads, fifth is the winner of the costume contest, and last is the other winners and runners up of the costume contest. Can't wait 'til next year!

Monster Fest past

Monster Fest has come and gone. I had a great time and made only one purchase, a Bride of Frankenstein action figure. I saw a King Kong action figure I was interested in, but when I returned to purchase it was already gone. Such is the way things work out for collectors. It was only $5 too. It had very few points of articulation though, but I still liked the way it looked.

Mr. Lobo returned to Monster Fest this year. That's me with Mr. Lobo in the picture above, although that picture is from a few Monster Fests ago. I'll try and get a few current Monster Fest pics up soon.

Anyway, I did a presentation on Ed Wood, and that went pretty well. You can read more about this whole event when I write a complete story about it in Wormwood Chronicles. Their website is here.

Oh yes, and I got three short stories published! Whoo hoo! Before anyone gets too congratulatory, it is self published. At some point I'll post my opinions on the whole self-publishing vs. traditional publishing thing. If anyone it is an anthology of several science fiction and horror short stories from a variety of authors, and it can be purchased here.

That's all for now. If you like what you see here, please friend me here on Google+. I promise I won't bite, unless you're into that sort of thing. 😈

Monster Fest

Now that I finally got around to posting about Fantasci, it's time for Monster Fest already! This year, I will be presenting a paper I once wrote about Ed Wood, titled "Your Stupid, Stupid Minds." It should be a lot of fun. I spent all last night watching Ed Wood films in preparation to refresh my memory on those films. The paper takes somewhat of a scholarly look at Ed Wood's life and career. It is very timely with transgender issues being all over the news these days. Ed Wood was not transgender, but he was sympathetic to their rights.

I come on right after Dillzilla is large main room. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. If you live in the Chesapeake, Virginia area feel free to come join us, not just to see me, but to see the whole spectacle of Monster Fest. Many horror hosts will be on hand, including Dr. Madblood, Mr. Lobo, and Karlos Borloff. Here's the link, and be sure to check out the schedule. Wish me luck.

Monster Fest