Saturday, March 23, 2019

ALEXANDER HAMILTON AND HIS SCHOLARSHIP FROM HELL

I have Hamilton buzzing in my head, beating in my heart, running through my veins. I feel this urge to write these thoughts out of my chest before they burst. Forgive everything that comes next, for it is the result of a maelstrom of Hamilton stimulus.


In the span of three days I saw Hamilton twice, first time 3rd row after winning the 'Ham4Ham' lottery, second time with previously purchased tickets, and it just happened to be the performance when LIn-Manuel Miranda appeared on stage at curtain call to the delight of the crowd.

I saw the musical first time in Chicago last summer, and fell in love, for multiple reasons, and could speak at length on each character's arc.  I would see it again, tonight. I just like how I feel when I am watching it.

What the hell does that have to do with Horror writing?

Well, I'm declaring our country's foundation was built upon a work of Hamilton Horror. Yep, a work of Horror.

Um, what?

First off, the story of Hamilton is the story of a writer. Someone obsessed with its power, and who could wield it like a wizard. Hamilton's"skill with the quill is undeniable" and his opponents knew that "as long as he can hold a pen, he’s a threat."

His words were part of what made Eliza fall in love with him, as she states:

"You and your words flooded my senses. Your sentences left me defenseless. You built me palaces out of paragraphs... You built cathedrals..."

But his obsession with writing starts to confound her as she asks:

"How do you write like tomorrow won’t arrive? How do you write like you need it to survive? How do you write every second you’re alive?"


If it weren't for his writing skills, he would have never made it to America, and what a different country we may have become. After the devastation of a hurricane rained down upon his West Indies island, he documented the horrors, and the world took notice.

"Put a pencil to his temple, connected it to his brain, he wrote his first refrain, a testament to his pain - Well, the word got around, 'hey, this kid is insane? lets take up a collection and send him to the mainland.'"


In other words, he got his own scholarship from hell when the community, astounded by his talent, financed his move to the states, without which he might not ever have set foot in the country. 

The passage that set him free, found here,  screams of Cosmic Horror with its references to a supernatural forces, as if the hurricane was a creature, and the mortal humans powerless below. Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft would be impressed. I am taking an expansive view of horror, for sure, but if you define horror is an unflinching stare down at the pain of being human, the ever-present spector of death with its "unrelenting scythe, pointed, and ready for the stroke" and when facing down this darkness, we are forced to look inward at the 'deformity of our lives' - well, then, I'm saying it qualifies. 


Here's just a brief glimpse:

"Good God! what horror and destruction. Its impossible for me to describe or you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind, fiery meteors flying about it in the air, the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning, the crash of the falling houses, and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels"

..and...

"Look around thee and shudder at the view. See desolation and ruin where’er thou turnest thine eye! See thy fellow-creatures pale and lifeless; their bodies mangled, their souls snatched into eternity, unexpecting. Alas! perhaps unprepared! Hark the bitter groans of distress. See sickness and infirmities exposed to the inclemencies of wind and water! See tender infancy pinched with hunger and hanging on the mothers knee for food! See the unhappy mothers anxiety. Her poverty denies relief, her breast heaves with pangs of maternal pity, her heart is bursting, the tears gush down her cheeks. Oh sights of woe! Oh distress unspeakable! My heart bleeds, but I have no power to solace! "



Alexander lived through plenty of horrors; abandoned by his dad, his mom died of the same sickness that afflicted both of them, but Alex survived then "moved in with his cousin, but his cousin committed suicide." One can see how he "imagined death so much it felt like a memory." 

"I wrote my way out of hell," he explains, as his pride swelled and inflated to greek tragedy proportion, proclaiming in a howl: "When my prayers to God were met with indifference, I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance."

Well, Icarus flew too close to the sun, and when he tried to write his way out again with blunt honesty after caught in a sex scandal, the community wasn't ready to rejoice in the same manner. His opponents danced with glee "Never gonna be president now."

*I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other elements that make the musical so special. 

Hamilton rewrites the narrative of our history to reflect the kind of country we live in today, with its inclusiveness and representation of minorities and people of color. It shows the founding fathers with all of their noble intentions, fatal flaws and foibles, delivered in a hip-hoppy music, with wit and wisdom. So often the lyrics cite actual, historical quotes mixed in with its colloquialism. It rewrites the narrative to include those who currently live within its unfinished symphony, and allows so many to feel part of our country who before only saw a bunch of white dudes. (and lets not forget, Woman in the sequel! 'Work'

Its delivery has reached an audience and taught our history in ways no other medium could. My daughter is in 6th grade and has President Washington's farewell speech memorized. She can describe the significance and unique precedence of transitions of power when he stepped down. These are concepts usually reserved for High School AP history. 

All of this is explained in numerous essays written with much more eloquence than I've managed here, but no time to rewrite. I'm off to play the Hamilton lottery looking for tickets to tomorrow's performance. There are a million things I haven't done, but just you wait, just you wait.

Nothing excites an obsessed man as much as a play about an obsessed man.



Friday, March 22, 2019

That Which Grows Wild, by Eric J. Guignard


Happy to have Eric Guignard on the blog today.

Eric is one of the nicest humans you will ever meet. He has this fantastic aura that bleeds kindness, and to spend a few moments with him, you can't avoid getting caught up inside. You also can't avoid noticing his intense appreciation for books. Their content, their presence. their power. I've seen him tending to his collection of signed paperbacks (can I share this? I hope so) as if each one was an ancient artifact, a rare gem. This appreciation is why he creates such fantastic books himself, including the groundbreaking anthology, A World Of Horror, and the fiction collection featured below, That Which Grows Wild.

If you don't believe me, believe this - BOTH of them were nominated for Bram Stoker awards in their respective categories. 




What was the inspiration for this collection?

The book is a collection (my first!) of previously published works, the stories having first appeared in various anthologies, magazines, etc. Each story in itself had its own inspiration or aim, so the collection is more about which stories would work well together in a grouping. I worked with editor Norman Prentiss at Cemetery Dance to select ones that showed a range, but at the same time weren’t too far “out of the box”. Originally I had some other choices that were more “weird” or satire or dark, and Norm suggested switching out those to ones a bit more in the same mood, so voilĂ , the finished product, which I’m happy with!

Story ideas and inspirations come, literally and figuratively, from everywhere: Dreams (both night and day), global news and current affairs, conversations with people, personal observations of the world, and playing the “What If?” game.

General inspirations for my creative works also stem from The Twilight Zone television show, comic books, and authors such as Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell, Dan Simmons, Seanan McGuire, Joe R. Lansdale, Neil Gaiman, and many, many others.



What are you working on and what can we expect from you in the future?

My most recent writing work is my debut collection, That Which Grows Wild: 16 Tales of Dark Fiction (Cemetery Dance Publications; July, 2018)

Quick synopsis: Equal parts of whimsy and weird, horror and heartbreak, That Which Grows Wild, by award-winning author Eric J. Guignard, collects sixteen short stories that traverses the darker side of the fantastic.



How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing fiction driven by the goal of publication since February, 2011. However, I’ve been writing and drawing stories ever since I was a child. I just did it then for my own interest, or for friends. I stopped in college, in order to pursue business and serious-minded life necessities... which, of course, I now regret. I don’t regret the pursuit of those things, but rather having given up writing for so many years. I only jumped into as a potential career after the realization struck me that I was missing out on something I was passionate about!




Tuesday, March 5, 2019

"GARDEN OF FIENDS" Is Two Years Old - Get It Free on Amazon.

Two years ago this week, GARDEN OF FIENDS: TALES OF ADDICTION HORROR went up for presale.

To honor the anniversary, the book is free on Amazon. One click of the button and a Garden Grows on your kindle.



FREE today and tomorrow. Check it out here:



If you're a Bookbub subscriber, you'll see it show up in your inbox today. 

Garden of Fiends was the culmination of a series of books that feature addiction horror, including Milk-Blood, The Damage Done, All Smoke Rises, and to a lesser extent, On the Lips of Children. It's a topic very personal to me, and as I wrote from the wound, words just kept bleeding. I created Garden to see what other authors would do with the topic, since to truly capture the insidious nature of addiction, it takes a work of horror. I'm so incredibly thrilled at the list of writers on the table of contents.

Kealan Patrick Burke 
Jessica McHugh 
Max Booth III 
Johann Thorsson 
John FD Taff 
Glen Krisch 
Mark Matthews
Jack Ketchum

It's been two years, but seeing those names is still a thrill, and there is some sad literary irony to have Jack's story conclude the anthology. His story showcases his love of pets and is about a spirit who returns after death to find his partner destroying herself with alcoholism and neglecting his beloved cat. I hope Jack's soul is less distraught. 



"Garden of Fiends is scary in the realest of ways. What fertile ground for horror. Every story comes from a dark, personal place."
-JOSH MALERMAN, New York Times best-selling author of BIRD BOX

"There's something here to scare anyone and everyone. Garden of Fiends pushes all the wrong buttons in all the right ways!" 
-JONATHAN MABERRY, New York Times best-selling author of Dogs of War




*But wait, there's more*

Two titles also go on a .99 cent Kindle countdown deal:

MILK-BLOOD: "An urban legend in the making."

ON THE LIPS OF CHILDREN  "Dark fiction at its visceral, chilling best.


*You still here? Well, guess what. The Garden is going to get a follow up anthology. Stay tuned!*

Met My Old Lover in the Grocery Store—A Dark Backstory to the Christmas Song, Same Old Lang Syne

   Met My Old Lover in the Grocery Store A dark backstory to the Christmas song,  Same Old Lang Syne , by Dan Fogelberg Acid burns in my sto...