I’d intended to make daily reports during my week-long trip to the UK as I usually do while traveling, filling you in on my doings at the World Horror Con and the Stokers in Brighton, plus my few days in London after, but this time I failed. Oh, you could have found short bursts of news if you were following me on Twitter or at Facebook, but there were none of my usual meaty write-ups.

Was it that I was having more fun than I normally do? Or that the time difference exhausted me more than usual, leaving nothing left over for blogging? We’ll never know, since now that I’m back in the real world once more there’s no way I’ll be able to catch up here. But I should at least take a moment to say …

Nope, I didn’t win a Stoker this year, my fifth such loss. (I did take the stage to accept Gene O’Neill’s Stoker for Best Collection, though.) But how could I feel sad when the weekend also handed me a prize more important than any award—the publication of What Will Come After, my zombie collection from PS Publishing?

Here I am in the WHC art show, coming face to rotting face with Les Edwards’ original drawing for the cover.

You can find other photos from the weekend over at flickr. I hope that each of those pictures is worth the proverbial thousand words, because now that I’m in the thick of things, that’s all I have the time to share.

I guess the organizers of the upcoming World Horror Convention (which this year incorporates the Stoker Awards ceremony) never rest, because I received an e-mail from them this morning laying out my programming for the weekend of March 25-28. And since they’re sending me con info on New Year’s Day, then I guess I’d better blog about it on New Year’s Day, too. We wouldn’t want those Brits to think the members of the U.S. horror contingent were lazy, would we?

So—if you make it to Brighton, here’s where you’ll be able to find me. (Well, officially find me, anyway, as I’m never too hard to find whether I’m on a panel or not.)

The Walking Dead vs. The Undead: Are Zombies the New Vampires?
Thursday, March 25
3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m., Russell
Once upon a time bloodsuckers proliferated, but now the walking dead are the “hot” monsters in books and movies. Is it just a passing fad, or is the zombie revival here to stay? (I’ll be moderating this one.)

Who Cares What You Think? Do Reviews and Blogging Really Matter?
Thursday, March 25
9:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m., Russell
Now that anybody can post a personal “review” on Amazon, or have their own blog where they can pontificate about anything they want, have we lost the critical acumen when it comes to reviewing books and movies?

PS Publishing Launch Party
Friday, March 26
5:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m., Bar Rogue
Peter Crowther’s PS Publishing launches new collections by David Case and Basil Copper (both edited by Stephen Jones) and Scott Edelman, with illustrators Randy Broecker, Dave Carson, Les Edwards, Bob Eggleton and Allen Koszowski.

That’s the the cover to my collection below, with art by the incomparable Les Edwards.

Should you feel in the mood, you can preorder it here.

Like many of you, I’m planning to attend next year’s World Horror Convention in Brighton. I’m sure I’ll have fun, especially since my zombie collection from PS Publishing will launch there. But for extra insurance to make sure the trip goes well, I pulled out my favorite guidebook so I could brush up on the ways of those mysterious Brits.

Let’s flip through its pages together and see what sort of useful advice we can find!

Uh-oh! I see a problem right away. It seems that the convention, scheduled to run from March 25-28, won’t be held during the most fashionable time of year for a visit:

The ‘London Season’ is chiefly comprised within the months of May, June, and July, when Parliament is sitting, the aristocracy are at their town residences, the greatest artistes in the world are performing at the Opera, and the Picture Exhibitions open.

Ah, well. I’m sure I’ll manage to have a good time anyway. So what else do I need to know?

Passport: These documents are not necessary in England, though occasionally useful in procuring delivery of registered and poste restante letters. A visa is quite needless.

I’m glad to hear that England is such an open country! Anything more? (more…)

I have been dithering for months about whether or not I had both the time and the money to make it to this year’s World Fantasy Convention in Calgary, and after much wavering, I finally decided that I will not attend. I just canceled my hotel reservation.

So those of you who thought you might see me there … well … won’t.

My first original short story of 2008, “Petrified,” was published last weekend in Desolate Souls, the souvenir program book for this year’s World Horror Convention.

Since the convention took place in Utah, the editors were looking for desert-themed horror stories, so I set mine in Petrified Forest National Park. The book includes a mix of original and reprint stories, with a list of contributors that includes F. Paul Wilson, Orson Scott Card, Dennis Etchison, Yvonne Navarro, Linda Addison, and others.

As I was flying home from Salt Lake City, however, I discovered that due to a publishing glitch, the story didn’t appear entirely as I’d intended it. Because of that, I’d rather “Petrified” not be judged by how it appeared in Desolate Souls.

So if there’s anyone out there who would like to receive a PDF of the story as it was meant to appear, please e-mail me and I’ll send one along.

Unless there’s a shake-up to my publishing schedule, my next story to come out will be “A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum” in the Worldcon 2008 Special Issue of Postscripts magazine.

The Dead Dog party is dead and gone, and all that remains of World Horror 2008 (besides a few hours to squeeze in enough sightseeing to claim that I’ve seen more of Salt Lake City than the inside of the Radisson and then the mad dash for the airport) are the memories. Here are the things I’ll remember most from this year’s WHC:

At the top of the list has to be any time spent with Gene O’Neill, my Clarion classmate from 1979. Looking back at my Stoker loss to that talented rat bastard Gary Braunbeck, it turns out that what I missed most wasn’t the loss of the trophy, but the fact that I could have been handed that trophy by Gene as the presenter in my category. It would have meant a lot to have shared the stage with him for a few moments, and besides, I’d planned to use my time to deliver payback for three decades of friendship. I enjoyed our chances to break bread together and catch up on our lives face to face this weekend, instead of via phone call or e-mail. When I look ahead to next year’s World Horror Convention in Winnipeg, one of the things I’m most looking forward to is more time with Gene. (more…)

Before the Stoker Awards banquet began, the attending nominees in the Long Fiction category came together in an attempt to decide the winner like gentlemen. Here you can see Gary Braunbeck, Lee Thomas, Nicholas Kaufmann, and me attempting to calmly discuss who should walk away with the trophy.

Unfortunately, instead of letting us decide the result in the time-honored manner, through the use of fisticuffs, long knives, and tactical nuclear weapons, the administrators of the Stokers wussed out and let the voters have their say.

I say “Bah, Humbug” to the democratic process! When has listening to the will of the people ever worked out? Which meant that Gary Braunbeck took home the haunted house for “Afterward, There Will Be a Hallway.”

But seriously—it was an honor to have been on the ballot with such talented writers. It truly was an honor to have been nominated.

And you know something? Being a three-time loser doesn’t feel so bad after all.

Con is short for convention, but it can also be short for conversation, for that’s what conventions are—one long flowing conversation as I bounce from one attendee to another. (The bouncing is purely metaphorical, I assure you, though if things get too tense with the nominees competing for the Stoker in my category, you never know what might happen.) When I think of Friday at the 2008 World Horror Con, that’s what I remember, endless conversations with friends old and new.

Discussing professional wrestling with Dennis Etchison, the pros and cons (there’s yet a third con!) of writing collaborations with Wilum Pugmire (with whom I sat at the mass autographing session, as you can see at right), the many forgotten 1980s’ small-press horror magazines with Gary Braunbeck, what a nice guy Pete Crowther is with Roy Robbins, the slowness of some publishers to bring out their promised books with GAK, hot new writers such as Paolo Bacigalupi and Benjamin Rosenbaum with Jeremy Lassen, revenge as a means of literary inspiration with Gene O’Neill, the magic of Italo Calvino and Julio Cortázar with Maria Alexander, methods of dealing with rejection with Whitney Lakin, pissing off editors with Adam Niswander, the changing face of the San Diego ComicCon with Eunice Magill, his upcoming first novel The Jigsaw Man with Gord Rollo, suicidal authors with Norm Prentiss, and many dozens of other conversations that swirl in my memory.

And then there’s also the chance to pull out and dust off old stories to tell all over again, as when I shared with Ann Laymon and others over dinner how I’d once chased a pickpocket through the New York City subway system only to end up having to go to the hospital, and when I told Beth Gwinn and Ed Bryant about my private tours of the Manhattan morgue given by then Chief Medical Examiner Michael Baden. So far I’ve managed to avoid telling my flying cow story, but we’re only halfway through the convention, so who knows what’s still to come?

Convention throat—always a danger when I just won’t shut up for days at a time—is starting to set in, and I’m scheduled to do a reading in a just a few hours. I’d better keep my mouth shut for awhile so I don’t sound like a cross between Broderick Crawford and Harvey Fierstein!

Take a look at the three men below. Note the hope in their eyes and the smiles on their faces. Approximately 30 hours from now, the smiles and hope will be stricken from two of those goofy mugs.

These three competing nominees in the Stoker Awards category of Long Fiction are, from left to right, Lee Thomas, author of “An Apiary of White Bees,” you know who, the author of “Almost the Last Story from Almost the Last Man,” and Nicholas Kaufmann, author of “General Slocum’s Gold.”

(Check here for further Flickr photos.) (more…)

I faced some true horror yesterday evening when I arrived at the World Horror Convention—because though I had made it all the way to Salt Lake City, my suit had not. And unfortunately, I couldn’t blame the airline, only myself.

As I emptied my suitcase, I discovered that though I had packed my suit pants, the matching jacket that went with them was still at home. I have no idea how I managed to do that, but that initial discovery upon arrival didn’t seem like a good omen to me for Saturday night’s banquet, at which I’d hoped to look spiffy whether I won a Stoker Award or not.

So my question for the blogosphere this morning is—do I just try to pass in black slacks, my black leather jacket, and my skeletal Nightmare Before Christmas tie? Or do I run out this morning to the local Men’s Warehouse and buy myself a new suit? Suggestions, please! Oh, the horror!

Other than that, I had fun Thursday night. That’s Gene O’Neill, old pal and Clarion comrade from the class of 1979 in the photo above. (I’ve started loading other photos to my Flickr account here.) Since we live on opposite coasts, Gene and I don’t get to see each other as often as we’d like, so we’ll have a lot of catching up to do this weekend. (more…)