Ellen Datlow's Blog, page 14

Saturday 2pm Pacific 2/3: The Year in Fantasy

Ellen Datlow, Jo Fletcher, Paula Guran, David Hartwell (M), Jonathan F. Strahan

I'm assuming this is about 2011 (I hope it is because I've forgotten 2010 already).

And I'll be at the mass autographing.

A new interview with me about Blood and Other Cravings

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts

Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel

present:

Jack Womack, the author of seven novels including Random Acts of Senseless Violence, is currently working on his new novel Ashland: A Kentucky Murder Ballad, from which he'll be reading tonight.
&


Claude Lalumière is the author of the collection Objects of Worship and the recently published novella
The Door to Lost Pages, both from CZP. He has edited nine anthologies, including the Aurora Award nominee
Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction.

Books will be for sale by Bluestockings

Wednesday November 16th, 7pm at
KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)
www.kgbfantasticfiction.org
Subscribe to our mailing list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kgbfantasticfiction/
Readings are free
Forward to friends at your own discretion.

Sponsored in part by Cemetery Dance Publications

Eastern Europe, that is. I returned from the cruise down the Danube last night. I don't have time for many details right now but have taken lots of photos (on my two cameras) that I will eventually upload, edit, and post.

Food on the cruise was great. The cruise itself was fun but the shore tours were way too short and superficial. A lot depending on our tour guides on shore. We had very good ones in Serbia and Bulgaria, (two of them ex pat Brits living in Bulgaria for the past 4-5 years). The cruise ended a day early in Serbia because the Danube was too low for our boat to continue. The Viking Primadora was, in fact, the last boat of the season to even get to Kostolac Serbia. Instead we were bused 12 yours (with multiple stops) through northern Bulgaria and were put up in a lovely hotel in Rousse overnight, all meals enroute paid for by the cruise line.

We spent the most time in Bucharest, my sister, brother in law, and I staying on for an extra three days. We visited several museums (something I'm not as much into as my traveling companions), tried different restaurants, and did some shopping. We bought icons at the several gorgeous churches we encountered throughout the trip. I'll likely give most away as gifts.

The one big negative was the continuous, toxic cigarette smoking which is totally out of control throughout the region. We mostly experienced it in Bucharest of course, where we spent the most time. Romania was supposed to be regulating smoking as per the European Union rules but there was such an uproar from the populace that even the least stringent laws (keeping a non-smoking section in restaurants) are ignored. Which makes it pretty unbearable for non-smokers. I'll not return until their smoking laws are enforced. Aside from the reek one carries with them after leaving a smoke filled restaurant/bar (the place we ate the last night) the smoke made my cough worse. No wonder Bulgaria and Romania have such relatively short life expectancies compared to the west.

The Hilton Athenee Bucharest, where we stayed, is one of the best hotels in the city and there was very little smoking in the general areas and there were non-smoking rooms (I was in one), although one evening a couple of men were lighting up cigars in the lounge. First night, my sister and I went to the casino downstairs. At the entrance it said "no smoking" and I commented on it -the receptionist told us yes, you can smoke (thinking I'd want to-ugh).

The drive through Bulgaria was fascinating because we could see the contrast so vividly of decrepit, falling down unrepaired houses/barns right next to brand new, well-cared for beautiful houses. Almost everyone has little garden plots in their front or back yards for growing their own vegetables.

I tried to take photos of the different kinds of architecture (from very old, through baroque looking French influenced ones (in Bucharest), through the still-standing ugly blocklike housing of the Soviet era to modern buildings). I do think pictures can save me many words.

Well, at least I'll be on a river-the Danube. I'm leaving today for a cruise down the Danube from Budapest to Bucharest, with stops in between. I will have email but I doubt I'll have much time or that the connection will be good enough to check anything but email.

I hope you all miss me. And while I'm away -read (and/or write) stories and books.

Back late the 19th.
I'll post photos when I return.

I'm posting this early as I will be out of the country (Family Cruise down the Danube) for the next two weeks and by the time I return, it'll be too late to start publicizing the event.

I hope if anyone's in the area (NJ) you'll drop by. They'll be selling and we'll be signing copies of the book.


Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow
Readings/discussion/signing

At the Pequannock Township Public Library Monday 477 Newark Pompton Turnpike
Pompton Plains, NJ 07444
Telephone (973) 835-7460


Monday October 24, 2011
7pm

With the participation of the following contributors:


Jeffrey Ford

Jeffrey Ford is the author of the novels The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, and The Shadow Year. His short fiction has been published in three collections. His fiction has won The World Fantasy Award, The Nebula Award, The Edgar Allan Poe Award, and Gran Prix de l'Imaginaire.

Richard Bowes

Richard Bowes has written five novels, two short fiction collections and fifty short stories. He has won two World Fantasy Awards and the Lambda, International Horror Guild, and Million Writers Awards. His novel-in-progress is Dust Devil: My Life in Speculative Fiction


John Langan

John Langan is the author of the novel House of Windows and the collection of stories Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters. His stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Poe: 19 Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe.

Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo and Sturgeon Award winning author of--most recently—The Tempering of Men (with Sarah Monette), Grail, and The Sea Thy Mistress.

In honor of horror's favorite month, the Horror Writers Association has launched a special month-long blog schedule featuring work by many of its members



We have a terrific line-up of posts, art, and some great prizes to run the entire month of October. Throughout the month, we'll be giving away books and e-books, and on Halloween, we'll be giving away a Nook e-reader preloaded with novels by HWA authors, courtesy of Christopher C. Payne and Journalstone Publishing.

HWA Dark Whispers

If you'd like to know what the book is about, you can read my introduction on Erin Underwood's blog: Underwords--you can read excerpts from a bunch of books and scroll down to find my entry.

And all were good. This evening I watched Mysterious Skin (2004) by director Gregg Araki, based on the novel by Scott Heim. It takes place in 1974 and is about two boys from a small town in Kansas who were both traumatized when they were eight year's old. One lost 5 hours of his life and comes to believe he was abducted by aliens and becomes obsessed with finding out the truth. The other was abused by his baseball coach and ends up a hustler. The cast is great--from the child actors to the actors playing the teenagers that the boys grow up be: Brady Corbet and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn in Buffy) plays Gordon-Levitt's best friend. I found the movie fascinating--in its treatment of the abuser, who is utterly charming and almost seems like a child himself. It's an amazing seduction of the innocent.

An Education which garnered Carey Mulligan a well-deserved Oscar nomination as a girl on the cusp of womanhood who is being pushed by her father into attending Oxford but is seduced--figuratively and literally by another charmer (Peter Sarsgaard) who is worldly and attractive and shows her possibilities outside the narrow life that seems to await her in 1961 England. Jenny is smart and is not a pushover. Very satisfying.

</i>Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse</i> is the bloody sequel to the French policier with Jean Reno that I watched a couple of weeks ago. Not as good as the first but still damned good.

The Stars at Noonday September 28, 2011
Brendan Moody's blog The Stars at Noonday
Best quote:
"In fact, the stories in this latest volume are so diverse, and the theme of vampirism such a general one, that it feels more like a non-theme anthology of the first order. Ranging from psychological horror to ghost stories to dark fantasy to Lovecraftian cosmicism, Blood and Other Cravings has a first-rate story for readers of every taste."

and
Stella Matutina blog:Stella Matutina
Best quote:
"I truly enjoyed this. These stories are the literary equivalent of the gentleman killer who butchers you without splashing so much as a drop of blood on his perfectly tailored suit. They're brutal and beautiful; thoughtful and nightmare-inducing."

available here