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Fierce and Fey: An Interview with Artist Lauren K. Cannon

Fierce and Fey: An Interview with Artist Lauren K. Cannon

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Baalhu_by_navateI think I first saw Lauren K. Cannon’s art at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, 2011. John O’Neill and I were brainstorming about cover art for Mike Allen’s book and the moment I saw Cannon’s work, I was riveted.

I took home one of her postcards. It’s still pinned up by my writing desk, where I can watch the woman in her bird-skull headdress, kneeling by a bone-embedded riverbed and feeding her creepy little bird friends from bowls of blood.

I love that bird woman. I’d love to write about her, this Baalhu of the Ancients. But even when I didn’t know her name, I adored the bones of her. That’s what Cannon’s art does to me: catapults me from the quotidian into INSTANT STORYBRAIN.

By and by, John bought “Black Bride” to be the cover art for Mike Allen’s Black Fire Concerto. You should have heard the squeals of ecstatic (and perhaps mildly terrified) joy coming from my corner of Rhode Island. John didn’t even need a cell phone, probably. He could’ve just stepped out into his driveway somewhere in Suburbia, Illinois and heard the echoes. I couldn’t have been happier.

And then, as I began this series of Fantasy and the Arts Interviews (1 and 2 here and here), I knew immediately I wanted to interview her.

Cannon very graciously agreed to answer my questions in an email, and here I have them for you, dear Black Gate readers.

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Richard Kadrey Talks with Black Gate About Dead Set

Richard Kadrey Talks with Black Gate About Dead Set

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Richard Kadrey author photoRichard Kadrey is the kinda guy you see at the all night diner who looks like a degenerate even when he’s sitting there eating a burger. Dark hair. Dark glasses. Dark tattoos. Except the knuckle ink, that’s white. He’s the kinda guy that when he looks up from his coffee and smiles at you, you can’t tell if that grin means he’s going to steal your car on the way out or say hello.

Either way, he’s ridiculously charming and… cool. Like James Dean, Nick Cave, Wild One, cool. You can tell, lookin’ at the rough bastard that he’s got good stories. Like maybe he was a teenage werewolf or used to live with a burlesque troupe in Berlin or he and Tom Waits went on benders in adult theaters in New Orleans — but before you get the nerve to say hey, he picks up his yellow legal pad, tosses the waitress a tip and he’s off into the night.

Now take all that nonchalant badassery and put it on the page because Richard Kadrey’s books are as hella cool as he is.*

Kadrey’s upcoming young adult novel, Dead Set, is about Zoe, a high school kid dealing with the loss of her dad. Zoe and her mom moved to the city. Money’s tight, the insurance company isn’t paying, and starting over sucks for both of them. While her mom non-stop job searches, Zoe is left mostly alone to deal with her grief.

Zoe stumbles on a record store that might be the answer to her problems. The records sold therein don’t hold music in the grooves… they hold souls – including Zoe’s dad… and it’s only a short jaunt from the shop to the underworld.

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Something Wicked This Way Comes: Michael D. Langois and Flock Theatre’s Halloween ’13 Macbeth

Something Wicked This Way Comes: Michael D. Langois and Flock Theatre’s Halloween ’13 Macbeth

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BGMacBanWitDear Black Gate Readers,

I must confess.

I confess that I’m not sure I believe in confession, despite a semi-confessional blog style.

I confess that I don’t even really believe in Full Disclosure on blogs. I mean, they’re BLOGS. Whaddya need disclosure for? Come on!

But here I am, about to disclose.

Supposedly there is a chance I might feel guilty if I let you read this entirely fabulous interview all the way through and didn’t tell you that WAY BEFORE (like two whole weeks before) I ever interviewed Michael D. Langois, director of this year’s production of Flock Theatre‘s Macbeth, I also auditioned for the man.

Yea, even auditioned for THIS VERY PRODUCTION! GASP!

So what aren’t you going to get in this interview, dear Black Gaters?

You aren’t going to get a cool, calm, collected, impartial, disinterested, “Oh, so you’re doing Macbeth? How nice! Tell me about the play and its DARK MAGIC!” sort of interview-blog-article-thing.

(In fact, such an attitude would go against my aesthetic intentions for this “Fantasy and the Arts” series of interviews I’m doing.)

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Black Gate Speaks with G. Winston Hyatt of Primeval: A Journal of the Uncanny

Black Gate Speaks with G. Winston Hyatt of Primeval: A Journal of the Uncanny

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Primeval A Journal of the Uncanny, Issue 1G. Winston Hyatt is a busy man. He agreed to talk to Black Gate only if we could come to one of his many work places. We nodded vigorously at the black carrier pigeon that had brought the message and asked it when and where. It returned ten minutes thereafter with directions from the good man Hyatt, saying to meet him outside of a certain window outside of a certain brownstone on a lonely street at 12:12 in the a.m. We were to have a lantern – candle or gas, it did not matter – just not a flashlight. Any fool with a smart phone could accidentally mimic a flashlight signal, and yes, dear readers, we had to learn a long high sign that included a mighty number of flourishes, turns and flashes. As all Black Gate staff members are well versed in flourishing, turning, and flashing windows at night, this was not a problem.

When G. Winston Hyatt was satisfied that we were who we were, a rope ladder was dropped from the ledge of the thick-curtained window and Black Gate was afforded entry into a certain museum. This museum is unknown to the general public, as it contains nefarious, occult objects with high opinions of themselves that would not do well being constantly selfied in front of by tweens and stickied up by jam-fingered toddlers.

It was amongst this collection of the unnatural and fantastic that G. Winston Hyatt led Black Gate to two chairs, a small table, and two coffee mugs to talk about his latest project, Primeval: A Journal of the Uncanny.

Primeval being a semiannual journal of the eerie and exceptional, searching to examine “…the convergence of contemporary anxiety and ancient impulse. Each issue feature[ing] fiction and essays exploring horror, the macabre, and that which should not be – yet is.” Issue #1 features work by Harlan Ellison and Laird Baron, plus an interview with Jack Ketchum.*

That’s right, comrades, we have found for you a new horror publication in both print and digital formats.

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A Conversation with Mike Allen

A Conversation with Mike Allen

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Mike Allen author photoDo I really need to sell you on an adventure tale that has a riverboat, zombies, fox-men, music as magic, and epic mayhem? No. I don’t. That story sells itself. But to further your interest in Mike Allen’s first novel, The Black Fire Concerto, have an earful…

Erzelle plays harp on a riverboat full of ghouls…and people who eat ghouls because they think it will make them immortal. Idiots. Her parents were murdered and Erzelle’s being fattened up for feasting on. But Olyssa changes all that. Olyssa becomes the Roland-Yoda-Mother-Master that young Erzelle needs.

The relationship is mutually beneficial. Olyssa and Erzelle play music together that can murder you. If you deserve it. So don’t deserve it, eh? Add in Olyssa’s epic familial quest and you have Mike Allen’s dark fantasy, The Black Fire Concerto.

If you didn’t know of Mike Allen before, GD shame on you. He is the editor of the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies and of the recently webified magazine, Mythic Delirium. He publishes (and writes) mad crazy good poetry and fiction.

Black Gate loves talking to people. Yep. We do.

*waves to all you nice people in the interwebs*

We especially love talking to wild writer poet metalhead types who wear highly visible hats and spend equal time inking their own work as publicizing the work of others.

As such, Black Gate grabbed Mike Allen for a GChat. Yes, a GCHAT! Isn’t technology fabulous? We admit, it’s hard to get steady wi-fi, as Black Gate’s summer headquarters is at Camp Arawak (cheap rent due to some unfortunate murders)…but GChat it was.*

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Goth Chick News: New Indy Horror 36 Saints and Interview with Star Frank Gonzalez — Plus Free Swag

Goth Chick News: New Indy Horror 36 Saints and Interview with Star Frank Gonzalez — Plus Free Swag

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image002As always, this year’s Chicago Comic Con had no shortage of material and believe me, it was difficult to know where to look first. But the best discovery is when I meet up with the creators of indy films – twice as nice when the films are in my favorite genre.

Indy film folks are hungry and passionate without all the Hollywood jadedness that eventually comes with one or two big box office hits. They put love into every detail of their creations and their enthusiasm is infectious, so I was particularly excited to meet Joey Dedio; actor and producer of the soon-to-be-released horror thriller 36 Saints.

As he explains the premise, you can tell Dedio is psyched about every aspect of this film and his excitement is palpable.

According to the kabbalah teaching, at any given time there are at least 36 holy persons in the world. These holy people are hidden; nobody knows who they are and they themselves are not aware of their role. For the sake of these 36 hidden saints, God preserves the world even if the rest of humanity has degenerated to the level of total barbarism.

36 Saints is like if the movie Seven met The Da Vinci Code. New York’s Police Headquarters is confronted with the horror of a serial murderer whose targets appear to be group of students. Weaving myth, legend and Biblical stories together, this film is filled with suspense while officials try to find the killer before it is too late and more people are killed.

As enthusiastic as Dedio is about the film, he’s clearly thrilled with one of the film’s stars, Frank Gonzales (aka “Franky G”). So when it came time to find out more about 36 Saints, Dedio deferred to Gonzales, which was fine with me considering Gonzales’s horror cred was pretty substantial.

So everyone, meet Franky G – Franky G, this is everyone.

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Gallowglas, Hester, Wagner & Coe: Four Authors Sound Off on the Writing Life of a Midlister

Gallowglas, Hester, Wagner & Coe: Four Authors Sound Off on the Writing Life of a Midlister

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Children of Amarid-smallJuly 2013 was a month of firsts for me. A book of mine went out of print. A Kickstarter project I launched to fund an interactive e-book died a miserable, unnoticed death. I received my first ever fan art. And on the practical side, the sales numbers for my fantasy novel Dreamwielder got a great boost thanks to its selection as a Barnes & Noble Nook First Look pick, leading to my first ever proper royalty check — not a huge chunk of change, but enough to turn down freelance work and focus solely on my own writing for a few weeks. (Although I still ended up paying my health insurance bill late!)

It’s not exactly the glamorous lifestyle most people think of when they think of a published writer, even an “emerging” author like myself; but it’s one I’ve worked hard for, and one I’m proud of because I know I’ve finally joined the ranks of the SFF author community.

While authors like George R.R. Martin and Neil Gaiman dominate the fantasy bestsellers list and rake in the riches of TV and movie adaptations, the truth is most fantasy authors live a life closer to mine, a life of small successes, financial uncertainty, and near anonymity.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that writers — all successful, published writers — are rich,” says David B. Coe, a fantasy author who has published over a dozen novels, including two new historical urban fantasy novels under the pseudonym D. B. Jackson. “For most of us, success in today’s market means continuing to be published by a reputable house.”

Coe broke into the fantasy world with his first novel, Children of Amarid, back in 1997, right when the publishing world was about to be turned on its head. “When I started out, I would get oohs and ahhs from people when I mentioned that I had a webpage,” Coe recalls. “Now there are domestic cats with better webpages than mine.”

Since then, the Internet and new technology like e-readers and print-on-demand have irreversibly changed the publishing landscape. Ebook sales skyrocketed. Self-publishing became an accepted alternative for authors to reach a mass audience. In order to adapt and stay competitive, big publishing houses merged with one another and tightened their belts. The days of big advances and promotional budgets for midlister authors is long gone.

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Finding the Best: An Interview with Year’s Best Editors Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Rich Horton and Gardner Dozois

Finding the Best: An Interview with Year’s Best Editors Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Rich Horton and Gardner Dozois

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The Year's Best Science Fiction Thirtieth Annual CollectionThe following is a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat (SFFWRTCHT) special for Black Gate.

For the first time, I was able to gather four of the Year’s Best editors to chat about genre, how they do what they do, why and more. So here are Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, and Gardner Dozois.

SFFWRTCHT: Where’d your interest in SFF come from?

Ellen Datlow: I was reading everything in my parents’ apartment from a very young age. I encountered Bullfinch’s Mythology, The Odyssey, the stories of Guy de Maupassant and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I read all the comic books in my father’s luncheonette, including the ones with ichor on the covers.

Paula Guran: I devoured books of all kinds growing up. Loved mythology and fairy tales. Probably encountered supernatural tales first from an old treasury of American folktales of my father’s and science fiction specifically with Podkayne Of Mars. Although I still read all sorts of material, SF/F became a portion of my reading thanks to my older cousin. She made up SF stories and illustrated them herself — sort of an oral graphic novel – and told them to her younger sister and me.

She also handed me a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars books with really cool covers and an Andre Norton Witch World book. Double wowzers.

I also read comic books: Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Justice League were some of my favorites.

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An Interview with Lonesome Wyatt of Those Poor Bastards

An Interview with Lonesome Wyatt of Those Poor Bastards

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Lonesome WyattI came across Lonesome Wyatt as I nosed about a funnel cake shack in an abandoned amusement park built on a prairie settler boneyard. He had a rotted sack of popcorn in one hand and he dragged a crowbar in the other. Twilight filtered in through a roof hole. Something skittered across his hat. He hummed an old-time dirge.

This being Lonesome Wyatt of Those Poor Bastards. This being the man behind Lonesome Wyatt and the Holy Spooks. This being the author of the pulp horror novel The Terrible Tale of Edgar Switchblade and the composer of its companion album, Behold the Abyss. Which, really, if you’re in the mood for a cloven-hoofed, knife-wielding bounty hunter with step-daddy issues chasing an albino werewolf with supplementary gothic country tunes, there is no better pairing than that which Lonesome Wyatt has provided.

Under normal circumstances…well, you try to avoid talking to mad-eyed men on decrepit fair grounds; but I – being the steadfast and fearsome Black Gate minion I am – AHEMed. Stood my ground. Waited for him to turn around. I am not one to be intimidated. A man can’t hex you by humming. Usually. And this was a man I wanted to talk to.

Lonesome Wyatt turned and sneered, or possibly he smiled; these things are hard to tell. He agreed to do an interview before I had the words out of my mouth to ask. He is a mysterious revelator of mayhem and wonder, and quite possibly he is psychic.*

For your perusal, here lies the exchange Black Gate had with Lonesome Wyatt in that shadowy funnel cake shack…

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HEROIC: An Interview with Andrew Collas

HEROIC: An Interview with Andrew Collas

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HEROIC #1There’s been much discussion lately on Black Gate about Kickstarter: about projects that have reached fruition thanks to crowdsourced funding and projects that have failed to deliver on their promises. Kickstarter’s a way to get stories out that might not otherwise exist and from the outside looks like an interesting way to make one’s passion real. As it happens, I know someone working through that process right now. Andrew Collas is a longtime friend who’s brought plans for his first comic, HEROIC, to Kickstarter. He’s got a copy of the first script online: a mix of super-hero story and spy thriller, beginning with the mysterious death of a hero — and a young woman’s escape from a secret base. I know he feels strongly about the material he’s working with and I thought it’d be interesting to discuss his plans and experiences so far. What follows is an e-mail interview I did with him about heroes, comics, and Kickstarter, all subjects that seemed of interest to this blog.

An Interview with Andrew Collas

Conducted by Matthew David Surridge

What is Zenith Comics, and what is Heroic? What are your plans for the company, the project, and the story?

Zenith Comics is the brainchild of my fever dreams and childhood fantasies. I took the words of Superman to heart when he said [in the Geoff Johns-written Justice Society #1, 2006], “The world needs better good guys,” and Zenith Comics represents my attempt to answer that challenge. HEROIC is the manifestation of that. HEROIC is my story, that starts us in the darkness of today’s comics and (hopefully) moves us through the actions of the protagonists to a brighter future where heroes are once again the ideal and have feet of marble, not clay!

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