A Public Service Announcement

Chaos the Cat thinks you should snuggle up with your favorite book tonight.

FACIAL For The Collectors!

Hey, collectors! Some copies of the mini-hardcover limited edition of FACIAL are available right HERE.

Macabre Faire Film Festival

Haven’t seen Gave Up The Ghost yet? Well, by golly, the full anthology Creepers is playing this very weekend in Long Island, New York, at the Macabre Faire Film Festival, which is part of the New York Horror Show!

It’s playing Saturday, January 17th, at 1:15 PM. Check out the full schedule right HERE!

A Cruel Taunting

Today I finished “Bad Bratwurst,” which is too short to be a novella but is my longest short story ever. It’s about a bratwurst shop owner and his moral struggle to not sell sausages made from human flesh, even though opportunities to do so keep presenting themselves.

It’s going to be translated into German for a magazine which I won’t name until I know that the editor’s reaction isn’t “Dude, WTF was that?!?” There may not be an English-language publication until a future short story collection, but my next short story collection will probably be a book of all never-before-published stuff later this year, so “Bad Bratwurst” likely won’t appear until late 2016.

You’ll get over it. See? You’re over it already.

Introducing Chaos!

This is Chaos, the newest source of evil in the Strand household. He’s smart, snuggly, and eats about 850 times his body weight in cat food each day, so I need those book royalties more than ever…

A Fun Joke For The Kids

Hi, kids! This blog post is for you. Sometimes you want to tell a joke, but your intention is not to amuse, but to annoy. Here’s one just for you!

YOU: What’s worse than finding a worm in an apple?

OTHER PERSON: What?

YOU: Finding half a worm!

OTHER PERSON: Ha ha!

YOU: What’s worse than finding half a worm in an apple?

OTHER PERSON: What?

YOU: Finding a quarter of a worm!

OTHER PERSON: Hmm.

YOU: What’s worse than finding a quarter of a worm in an apple?

OTHER PERSON: I don’t know.

YOU: Finding an eighth of a worm!

This joke goes on for as long as you can stretch it out. There is no final punchline. No reward for the listener’s patience. How far can you take it? A sixty-fourth of a worm? A two-hundred-and-and-fifty-sixth of a worm? Report back!

Why I Don’t Play Video Games

Because I don’t have time.

Do I have time to play video games for, say, twenty minutes before bed?

Sure!

Do I have time to play video games for seventy-nine hours straight, skipping work and abandoning personal hygiene, surviving on Mountain Dew and potato chips, eyes bloodshot, a thick line of drool dangling from the left side of my face, communicating only in grunts?

No.

Unfortunately, only one of those scenarios in a possibility.

So I don’t play video games.

Interstellar

Last night I saw Interstellar and loved it. It further cements Christopher Nolan’s reputation as one of our finest filmmakers.

There was one weird creative decision that I didn’t understand. Why, through so much of the movie, was there a three-year-old child screaming in the background? In the early scenes, I guess it made sense: there could have simply been a screaming three-year-old somewhere in their house. But later in the film, they’re out in space, and the film still had that bratty little kid in the background! Why? What was Nolan trying to say? Will it be addressed in the deleted scenes on the Blu-Ray?

Again, it was an excellent movie. I just don’t get why filmmakers would add the sounds of a horribly behaved child to scenes where, logistically, it made no sense. Maybe it was just too deep for me.

EDIT: Some readers have suggested that the kid was, in fact, in the movie theater and not part of the actual film. C’mon, readers…really? Do you really think that parents would bring a three-year-old child to a late-night showing of Interstellar and just let the kid wail away? Let’s be realistic.

Welcome to 2015!

We made it! It’s 2015!

2014 was my most prolific publishing year ever, although it’s really because a couple of books had very long timeframes between being written and being published, and some had very short timeframes, so they all kind of bunched up in one year, making it look like I was some crazed whirlwind of productivity even though I really wasn’t.

Still, the year brought my young adult comedy I Have A Bad Feeling About This, my romantic road trip comedy Kumquat, my werewolf sequel Wolf Hunt 2, my really weird novella Facial, and even a mini-collection, the Dead Clown Barbecue Expansion Pack, which I published because I wanted to make sure my story “Gave Up The Ghost” came out in time for the movie.

Yes, there was a movie! Gregory Lamberson directed a 20-minute short film from my screenplay for the anthology film Creepers. I’ve seen it several times on the big screen and various film festivals and I love the crap out of it.

What’s in store for the new year?

Well, I know that I’m writing another young adult comedy novel for Sourcebooks, called The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever, but that won’t be published until early 2016.

Beyond that? I don’t know. I’d like to be one of those authors who is able to nail down their schedule for the next five years, but I’m a “multiple project juggler” kind of guy, and at least half of the stuff I’d announce would be inaccurate.

This morning I sent out a proposal for an action/adventure comedy novel. Will anything happen with it? Maybe…

I’ve got almost enough material for a new book-length collection of short story reprints…but several of them haven’t even been published in their original homes yet. So that’s another 2016 project. But I’m also toying with the idea of a collection entirely comprised of brand-new material…

Kumquat was a tough sell for somebody who is primarily marketed as a “horror writer,” but it got the best reader reactions of any book I’ve ever written. I can’t imagine that there won’t be another romantic comedy in my future…

There’s gotta be another horror/comedy novel in there somewhere, right? Yep! What’s it about? Dunno.

Will there be a fifth Andrew Mayhem book? Wolf Hunt 3? Yes. Will I write them this year? Maybe…

I came up with a great idea for a novel about a week ago. I tend to write short books, but this one would be 500-600 pages. I haven’t written a single word of it. Will it be a 2015 project? Maybe…

Stay tuned to this website for the answers. Happy New Year, everybody!