Major Personal News
= The ForeWarner =
The Matthew Warner Newsletter
June 9, 2003
Contents:
1. Major Personal News
2. Major Professional News
3. Contest Winners Announced
4. Featured ForeWarner Reader: Christopher Teague
5. Recommended Reading
Opt-out instructions are at the bottom.
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MAJOR PERSONAL NEWS
Family should always come before work, so this issue begins with some major personal news. I'm happy to announce that I've asked my girlfriend, horror illustrator extraordinaire Deena Holland, to marry me. And I'm relieved to report that she's accepted.
We haven't set a firm date yet or registered anywhere, but the knot-tying will happen sometime before January. Our priority right now is to sell her house in Stone Mountain, Georgia, so that she can move in with me. Although Stone Mountain is an attractive suburb of Atlanta, its real estate market is depressed (some houses on her street have been listed for over six months), so I'm asking people to pass on the word to anyone looking for an affordable single-family home in that area. A link to Deena's listing is at the top of my Links page at www.MatthewWarner.com. Feel free to place it onto your own website and to e-mail it around. If you are the procuring cause of the sale, I will send you an autographed copy of every book of mine that's ever published, for life, starting with THE ORGAN DONOR. Additionally, Deena will send you an autographed copy of everything she ever illustrates, for life, starting with GRAVEYARD PEOPLE by Gary Braunbeck.
If you'd like to learn more about Deena and her work, visit www.DeenaHolland.com.
She's a wonderful, intelligent, talented person and one hell of a beautiful
woman, and has made me very happy.
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MAJOR PROFESSIONAL NEWS
The paperback edition of THE ORGAN DONOR will ship July 4, 2003. If you pre-ordered, your books will first be sent to me so that I can inscribe them to you, so expect to receive them the second or third week of July. The last day to pre-order a copy that's personalized is this Sunday, June 15. Purchase links to the paperback and e-book editions are at www.MatthewWarner.com. Next month, you'll also be able to order it through Amazon and your local bookstore.
Deron Douglas of Double Dragon Publishing has done an outstanding job redesigning the cover. It now features a Chinese divination coin that symbolizes yin and yang. You can see it on my website. The e-book edition has been re-released with the new art as well.
The Media page of my website features book reviews by Ebook Reviews, Feo Amante, Savage Night E-Zine, and an enthusiastic fan review. There's also a new interview of me by PopMatters Books. I'm expecting reviews shortly from several other places, including Cemetery Dance magazine and Hellnotes newsletter.
On the Publications page, you'll see two new listings for upcoming releases: "The Forgiving Type," a short story in the 3FPublications anthology THE DECAY WITHIN, and "Demon's Fee," a short story that will be reprinted in The BansheePress: The Official Publication of the Home Haunters of America. New subscribers to this newsletter will also be interested in my article in the Piper Rudnick Pro Bono Bulletin (linked in the non-fiction bibliography), where I chronicled my encounter with Dr. Wang Guoqi, the Chinese organ-transplant surgeon whose Congressional testimony inspired THE ORGAN DONOR.
While you're there, check out the other website changes. Since Authorsden has discontinued its free services, this newsletter is now being managed directly from the matthewwarner.com domain, and the message board has temporarily gone bye-bye. There's also pictures from the World Horror Convention in Kansas City, where I was one of the talking heads of a panel discussion, and where I gave a reading of one of my most popular stories. (Oh, that reminds me, see next article. . . .)
My next appearance will be at the Horrorfind Weekend on August 15-17 in Hunt Valley, Maryland. Garrett Peck and I will be sharing a live (dead?) reading and autographing session on August 17 at 1:15 p.m. You can buy tickets to this gigantic horror convention at www.HorrorfindWeekend.com.
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CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED
In the last issue of The ForeWarner, I announced that anyone who correctly guessed which story I would read April 19 at the World Horror Convention would receive an autographed copy of it.
Your clue was a link to a March 31 news article, "Hotel quality is in question," by Ginger D. Richardson of the Star Telegram of Fort Worth, Texas. The article began, "It sounds like a bad joke, but the folks at City Hall aren't laughing. / Plumbers attending a convention were staying in downtown Fort Worth in October when a hotel-room toilet exploded, contaminating the bathroom and the clothing of a convention-goer and his wife."
The short story I performed at WHC was "And That's When the Bathroom Exploded," first published by Horrorfind Fiction in October 2001, and reprinted by Gothic.net in September 2002. The contest winners were:
Wayne Duncan (Woodsboro, Maryland)
Ron Breznay (Hanover Township, Pennsylvania)
Deena Holland (Stone Mountain, Georgia)
Mina Tobin (Falls Church, Virginia)
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FEATURED FOREWARNER READER: CHRISTOPHER TEAGUE
We now skip across the pond to Maesteg, a town in South Wales, England, to explore the world of horror writer Christopher Teague.
Readers of my story in TOURNIQUET HEART (Prime, 2002) will recognize him as the editor of that anthology, which features work from the likes of Ramsey Campbell and Steve Rasnic Tem. As "Teago" writes in his introduction, TH is a collection of love stories depicting the "darker, twisted, nastier side of affection." Joules Taylor of SFCrowsNest.com called the book "really nauseating." (We in the horror industry covet these types of reviews.)
By his own admission, Chris is a purveyor of "awful jokes, which renders anyone within a five kilometre radius too [sic] just spontaneously combust . . . like a cabbage in a microwave." But when I met him in person at WHC01 in Chicago, I found this six-foot-four 29-year-old to be an intelligent, friendly guy who's serious about his craft. He's the founder of Pendragon Press (www.PendragonPress.co.uk), a four-year-old independent publisher of horror, science fiction and fantasy paperbacks. Its titles include the anthology NASTY SNIPS and Noel Hannan's collection SHENANIGANS.
Chris says Pendragon Press is "resting"--that is, presently not publishing new books--although it continues to sell its inventory online. Chris, however, is not resting: he's landing short story sales at places like Charnel House magazine and Terror Tales e-zine, and is marketing a portfolio of screenplays. His style ranges from gross-out tales such as "Tasteless" (House-of-Pain.com, 2003) to more restrained psychological crime. He produced one of his screenplays, "Answer Me," into a five-minute film that you can watch on his website. His first sale was in 1998 to The Big Issue, a UK newspaper that splits its revenues with the homeless people who sell it.
"I did rather abysmally at school, despite my best intention (you can probably tell by my lack of understanding when it comes to using "has" and "as"!)" Chris says. (Not to mention "too" and "to," Chris. [GRIN]) "I did, though, manage to scrape into University, where I completed an IT diploma which was also where I found the writing bug." Other bugs he has are photography and music. There are some really beautiful--and haunting--pictures posted on the Images page of his website. When he's not doing any of the above, he can be found walking his dog or "sitting on my arse in a cosy office . . . middling with boring spreadsheets."
Here's hoping that everyone gets bitten by the Christopher Teague bug. Check out his website at www.ChristopherTeague.co.uk.
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RECOMMENDED READING
Contact me if you need help locating these fine works:
--> BLOOD TIES, a novel by Karen E. Taylor
Part 3 of the Vampire Legacy Series, the ultimate synthesis of the horror and romance genres.
--> THE ORGAN GRINDERS, a novel by Bill Fitzhugh
A dark comedy about eco-terrorism, evil venture capitalists, and the xenotransplantation of baboon organs.
--> BAAL, a novel by Robert R. McCammon
The demon prince of chaos and sacrifice is reborn into the modern world. A riveting specimen of the Rosemary's Baby subgenre of horror.
--> THE BIG BOOK OF THE UNEXPLAINED, a coffee table book by Doug Moench
"Allegedly true tales of paranormal phenomena" illustrated in comic book format by 40 different artists, including Gahan Wilson. Each engrossing article is narrated by the original reporter of the Fortean world, Charles Fort (1874-1932).
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"We judged that the genre isn't appropriate for review in the UNOS Update."
--The United Network for Organ Sharing, when refusing to review THE ORGAN DONOR in its newsletter.
Matthew Warner
Falls Church, VA
www.MatthewWarner.com
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