{"id":278,"date":"2011-02-13T22:23:54","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T03:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/"},"modified":"2011-02-21T14:55:15","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T19:55:15","slug":"a-plague-on-both-your-houses","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/writing\/short-fiction\/a-plague-on-both-your-houses\/","title":{"rendered":"A Plague on Both Your Houses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I normally don&#8217;t recommend that writers self-publish, as the results are very rarely taken seriously, but this is one case in which it worked out. Back in 1992, I had written a story in the form of a five-act Shakespearean play, sort of a cross between <em>Romeo and Juliet<\/em> and <em>Night of the Living Dead<\/em>. The play opens with a prologue in which a gravedigger, who now spends his days unburying newly born zombies rather than burying the dead, sets the scene:<\/p>\n<p><em>Diseased New York, the setting for our play<br \/>\nHas lost its glitter, trading it for grue.<br \/>\nCold dead come back, in graves they will not stay.<br \/>\nThe living bear no young, and dwindle few.<br \/>\nI am an old man. I&#8217;ve seen many things:<br \/>\nA walked-on Moon, democracy again,<br \/>\nThe death of tyrants, privilege, nations, kings.<br \/>\nNow hope is weak. I fear the end of men.<br \/>\nI plant them deep, yet somehow they thrust up,<br \/>\nAs if Spring&#8217;s breath has touched their wint&#8217;ry souls,<br \/>\nEnticing them to once more grasp life&#8217;s cup,<br \/>\nand mount the stage, demanding their lost roles.<br \/>\nIs this a fate mankind deserved to earn?<br \/>\nWatch, and listen, and perhaps you&#8217;ll learn.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>After four years of being unable to place this story (one editor even rejected the piece not because he didn&#8217;t like it, but because he said he didn&#8217;t care for Shakespeare!), and wanting it out in the world, I printed it up as a Halloween pamphlet that I circulated to friends and colleagues. Editor Stephen Jones liked it so much that it ended up being published in <em>The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror<\/em>, his 1997 collection of the best horror of 1996, and the piece was also nominated for a Stoker Award.<\/p>\n<p>So it turns out that self-publication sometimes pays off after all &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I normally don&#8217;t recommend that writers self-publish, as the results are very rarely taken seriously, but this is one case in which it worked out. Back in 1992, I had written a story in the form of a five-act Shakespearean play, sort of a cross between Romeo and Juliet and Night of the Living Dead. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279,"parent":13,"menu_order":34,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-278","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}