Apex Publications at Crypticon 2010 – HauntedNight.com
Check out this video of Jennifer Brozek, editor of Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, at Crypticon representing Apex with pride!
A year ago I conducted my first interview. At first I had no idea how to begin. I checked out other interviews online, but they all seemed the same. I searched the internet for additional help and found a series of boilerplate interview questions, which explained the sameness I noticed. However, the author I chose to interview informed me he wanted questions that applied to him only, not ones I could ask anybody. How did I go about pleasing him and publishing the interview? I’ll tell you. Read the rest of this entry »
Click on the Apex mini logo to transport to the interview!
Apex Book Company’s fearless leader (managing editor/owner) has been interrogated at Hellnotes.com!!!!
Check out Nick Cato’s Dark Faith review.
“At times surprising, scary, humorous and almost always thought provoking, DARK FAITH is a must read for fans of religious horror and those seeking some chills of a deeper nature.”
Also, slide on over to Fantasy Magazine to read T.J. McIntyre’s Editing Dark Faith interview with editors Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon.
For more information, check out www.darkfaithanthology.com
Catherynne M. Valente discusses the new submission guidelines and what she is looking for in a story with horror author D.L. Snell. Get The Scoop.
Cover art by Edith Walter
Linda’s poem is titled “The Story of Belief-Non.”
Who are you?
I used to be a skinny kid from Philly who daydreamed in school and imagined I had wings, now I’m Linda Addison, with a dragon tattoo on my arm. Who woulda thunk?
What is your poem about?
It’s a back and forth explanation of creation between a believer and non-believer.
Where is your poem set?
I imagined it being between two opposites with the last stanza being in the voice of an objective observer.
What inspired you to write the poem?
I was at Mo*Con when Maurice Broaddus and Wrath James White presented opposing sermons on Believing in God. It was fascinating to listen to because they are both amazing speakers, keen thinkers and presented fascinating arguments.
Why do you think Maurice Broaddus throws a convention in honor of himself (Mo*Con)?
Because he’s just the coolest Christian Horror Writer I know and he and his wife are mighty fine cooks. I was a guest at Mo*Con 2009 and it was the most relaxing, inspiring, fun, good eats and drinks convention I’ve been to. It’s small and personal, you get to talk to other writers, fans and generally people who love writing and art.
This is sponsored by the Indiana Horror Writers which is an awesome group of folks. They did more than just take great care of us, they engaged in creating excellent work.
It was my first time going to Mo*Con but it won’t be my last.
RAIN GRAVES has been writing fiction and poetry professionally since 1997 and is the 2002 Bram Stoker Award recipient for her poetry in The Gossamer Eye, with David N. Wilson and Mark McLaughlin. Her latest book, Barfodder: Poetry Written In Dark Bars and Questionable Cafes, was hailed as “Bukowski meets Lovecraft” by Publisher’s Weekly in 2009.
Rain’s poem is titled “Lilith.”
Who are you?
Nyarlathotep, naturally. But you can call me Rainy.
What is your poem about?
My poem is based on the feelings of Lilith after her rejection by God, as she tries to explain herself to man.
Where is your poem set?
It’s set in the mind of a woman scorned by her God and her faith in that God–a place no man ever likes to be.
When does your poem take place?
It takes place as Lilith speaks to her lover, (as she considers it, all mankind).
Why do you think Maurice Broaddus throws a convention in honor of himself(Mo*Con)?
Maurice, like many men, still thinks the Deep Ones are sleeping…but they could rise at any time. It’s important to him to gather his friends close, in the event of spiritual war (or sacrifice–I hear one jumps out the window each time he cooks something at Mo*Con).
How does your story tie into the concept of faith?
Lilith was considered the first vampire, and whether you believe in vampires or God, or that she quite possibly was the original God, or Eve, or any number of theological assumptions…She remains scorned from the love and acceptance of that higher power, and thus, wreaks havoc among mankind. So many of us today, in our lack of faith, feel like Lilith–for want of the love of our fathers, our chosen mates, or our Gods. We walk through life branded by this loss, as one of our many holes in faith by definition. Our faith and our loathing is laid to rest in our fellow man, because that’s all we’ve got left. Lilith, in this poem, seeks to show you that part of yourself that made that “handshake” with God, in good faith when you were in its springtime, and was abandoned by it in the cold of winter. But Lilith still loves and wants you, as you must love and want yourself.
Want to pre-order DARK FAITH? Then click this handy link.
Tomorrow we make a devotion to DARK FAITH contributor Ekaterina Sedia.
Missed our earlier devotions?
Richard Dansky
Lucy A. Snyder
Nick Mamatas
Jennifer Pelland
Wrath James White
Tom Piccirilli
D.T. Friedman
Mary Robinette Kowal
Alethea Kontis
Filed under:
Blog
Cover art by Edith Walter
ALETHEA KONTIS is a geek, a princess, and a fairy-godmotherin-training—not necessarily in that order. She is a big fan of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and believes that everyone has the right to be awesome. (Yes, everyone.) Princess Alethea recently escaped her own life of tyranny being held captive in an Ivory Tower. She now lives Somewhere Over the Rainbow, in the land of butterflies and fairies. She is still searching for the perfect magic wand, and she writes better than your grandma.
Alethea co-wrote the Dark Hunter Compendium with Sherrilyn Kenyon, released a children’s picture book (AlphaOops published by Candlewick), and has appeared in professional short fiction venues such as Realms of Fantasy, IGMS, and Apex Magazine. For more information visit AletheaKontis.com.
Who are you?
In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions: I am The Princess. (I used to be The Brain. I traded it in.)
What is your story about?
Max — my most unlikeable main character to date — receives a message from his dead mother in the form of a hair necklace. It triggers within him the ability to relive people’s last moments if he touches something they had on their person when they died. Each experience draws him closer and closer to divinity.
Where is your story set?
Any House in Any Town, though when Max and Rose take the winding road into the hills at the end I imagine something like Mulholland Drive.
When does your story take place?
Oh, sometime around nowish.
Why does Maurice Broaddus throw a convention in honor of himself(Mo*Con)?
As an excuse to show off his mad cooking skillz.
How does your story tie into the concept of faith?
I believe that faith starts from within — what kind of people are we really, deep down inside? “The God of Last Moments” is about angels and demons — not ones that might already exist, but ones created from souls on this mortal plane.
Excerpt from “The God of Last Moments”:
“Yay! I’m glad you got home before the storm. Did you pick up rags and polish? You did, you wonderful man.” Rose often posed and answered such rhetorical questions. She had adopted this style of soliloquy so that the passengers on her train of thought would always know which station they were approaching, and which they had just left.
Max was not a wonderful man. But he didn’t mind donning the clothes of the fairytale prince Rose decided he was, so he
squeezed into those shoes every morning.
Be sure to check back tomorrow for our next devotion with Mary Robinette Kowal!
Want to pre-order DARK FAITH? Then click this handy link.
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Blog
For your convenience, we have collected links on one page to many of the interviews Apex has conducted over the past few years.
Movie & Television Stars:
Michael Shanks — Co-star of Stargate: SG1 and Stargate Universe.
Magda Apanowicz — Co-star of Battlestar Caprica and Kyle XY.
Musicians:
Amanda Palmer – Solo artist and lead vocalist of The Dresden Dolls.
Authors:
Mary Doria Russell – author of The Sparrow
T.M. Wright – author of A Manhattan Ghost Story
Ekaterina Sedia – author of The Alchemist Stone and The Secret History of Moscow
F. Paul Wilson - author of the world-famous Repairman Jack series
M.M. Buckner – author of Watermind and War Surf
Adrienne Jones – author of Brine and Gypsies Stole My Tequila
Louise Bohmer – author of The Black Act
D.L. Snell – author of Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines
Jeremy Shipp – author of Vacation
David Wong – author of John Dies at the End
Fran Friel – author of Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales
Paul Jessup – author of Open Your Eyes and Glass Coffin Girls
Sara M. Harvey – author of The Convent of the Pure and A Year and a Day
R. Thomas Riley – author of The Monster Within Idea and Through the Glass Darkly
Michael A. Burstein – author of I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein
Lavie Tidhar – author of HebrewPunk and The Tel Aviv Dossier
Jennifer Pelland - Author of Unwelcome Bodies
Wrath James White & Maurice Broaddus – authors of Orgy of Souls
Maurice Broaddus – co-author of Orgy of Souls
Interview with Jeremy C. Shipp
interviewed by Jodi Lee
Author Jeremy C. Shipp has been published in ChiZine, The Harrow, Flesh and Blood, and many other publications. While preparing for the forthcoming collapse of civilization, he enjoys living in a moderately haunted Victorian farmhouse in Southern California. His first novel, Vacation, was recently added to the Stoker Preliminary Nomination list and was ranked third before voting closed in the Preditors & Editors Reader’s Choice Poll. Results for both awards are forthcoming.
I recently had the opportunity to ask Jeremy some questions. I’m quite sure it was Jeremy, and not the gnome, who answered. He is definitely one of the funniest new writers I’ve had the pleasure to speak with.
Jodi Lee: For a first published novel, how has the success of Vacation affected your views of the publishing world?
Jeremy C. Shipp: Back when I was a schoolboy-wearing sailor suits and eating giant lollipops-I thought the publishing world was a magical place, where writers, readers, publishers, editors, and all the rest danced together in the Mystical Forest of Literary Ecstasy. Eventually, this romanticized ideal shattered, as romanticized ideals tend to do.
So before my novel was published, I feared that there wasn’t room for a book like mine in the world. I wasn’t sure it would ever get published. And if it was, I wasn’t sure if anyone would connect with it.
Thankfully, that fear-based reality wasn’t the one that engulfed me. Instead, I learned about the Bizarro literary movement. And I’ve received much support and feedback from readers, reviewers, writers who I’ve respected for years, and many other slinkster cool folks. What this all boils down to, I suppose, is that I discovered it’s OK to be myself after all. Sorry if that’s too after school specialesque…
JL: In 9 years of speaking with authors, interviewing authors and reading promotional materials, I have to say you are one of the most approachable – if not *the* most approachable I’ve spoken to. How do you think this has helped with Vacation? Has it hindered the success at all – i.e.: has anyone given you grief over promotional tactics?
JCS: Before my book was published, I dreaded the idea of promoting my work. Then I realized I could have fun with it. So I spend a few hours every day having (usually strange) conversations with people, coming up with silly contests, writing weird interviews with insane grocery bags, etc.
And most people seem to really enjoy the weirdness and the fun. The only problem I’ve had is that some people just don’t get my brand of strangeness. But I’m OK with that.
JL: I enjoyed Vacation immensely, although I was warned it was sometimes a bit hard to follow. I was one of ‘those’ teenagers though, so the acid flashback-weirdness was relatively easy to navigate; what influenced you to write such a bizarre, yet oddly believable novel?
JCS: You know, it’s interesting how some read the book and say, “This isn’t so weird that I didn’t understand it,” and others says, “Whaaaa?”
This book spawned from a passionate place inside me; my love for life; my disgust toward various social systems. My goal with this novel was to maintain certain boundaries-like psychological and emotional feasibility. At the same time, in regard to other aspects of the book, I gave my imagination as much freedom as possible.
JL: How much research went into the novel?
JCS: Lots. I researched more for Vacation than any other book I’ve ever written. And I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the researching. I recently graduated from college when I started Vacation, so “research” was still a slightly traumatic word. I’d never researched for myself before. So it was a nice change. I definitely started learning a lot more after I finished school than when I was in the system.
JL: Tell me your reactions to all the fantastic blurbing Vacation has received – have you secretly been bribing anyone? Have any of your literary heroes come out to give nod to Vacation?
JCS: No bribing-although I did wish on a few shooting stars (which may have been planes…I wasn’t wearing my glasses). I’m extremely honored by the blurbage that my novel has been blessed with. Piers Anthony, Jack Ketchum, and many others. I never thought they’d read my novel, let alone like it. I’m as giddy as a schoolboy. I even put on the sailor suit every once in a while, for old times’ sake.
JL: You’re not just a novel author, you have several shorts out in the world as well. After a fairly lengthy search in our submissions area, I could only find one submission (which you had to pull due to acceptance elsewhere) for our wonderful magazine. Can we expect anything from you, soon?
JCS: Definitely, yes. I love Apex. I’ve been focusing on my new novel “Cursed” for a while, but I’ll write some more shorts soon, and Apex will be the next publication I submit to.
JL: Any way all this success is going to go to your head?
JCS: I had a layer of parsnip implanted in my head to protect me from that. Parsnips, of course, repel ego (and also powdered tang, for some reason).
JL: Any whispers or nudges in the direction of a film based on Vacation? I mean, that would be the absolute in bizarreality. Can we hope?
JCS: The only whispers I’ve heard lately are from the yard gnome who lives under my bed. He likes to freak me out when I’m trying to fall asleep. But if Vacation were made into a film someday, that’d be awesome. I do have a short film I wrote in production right now, called EGG. And I have a few other screenplays in the works. Maybe one day, there’ll be a movie called Vacation. Well…besides the one that already exists…
JL: And of course, I must ask – after the year you’ve had with Vacation, do you have any in-depth advice for those of us still waiting in the wings?
JCS: Oh no, I feel my After School Special-ness acting up again. This probably isn’t very in depth, but I think it’s important to have as much fun as possible, whatever you’re doing.
JL: For my last question, I have to ask the question that’s been on my mind for months – when does Jeremy C. Shipp get to take a vacation? I swear it seems like you’ve been promoting in one form or another since early last year. Are you tired of it all yet?
JCS: Maybe I will take a vacation one of these days, but for now, I’m having a blast. This promotion stuff is really just another excuse for me to be silly. Now I gotta go feed the gnome under my bed some powdered tang. I can’t really drink it anymore.
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Apex Magazine
Featured Interview with Sara King
interviewed by Jodi Lee
Sara King was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1982, when the temperature was 40 degrees below zero. Since then, living with the snow, hail, freezing rain, fog, floods, black ice, and Chinooks her home state hasn’t seemed too bad. Sara was four when she discovered writing for the first time. Since then, her world’s never been the same.
While clapping my hands in glee – no, really – after hearing Sara would be the featured writer for February, I immediately began formulating questions that I thought would best suit this truly forthright personality. I can’t be more pleased with the responses… Ms. King is definitely an asset to our Global Domination plans.
Jodi Lee: First off, I want to thank you for “The Moldy Dead” (Apex Digest issue 11). It was an absolute pleasure to read with just the right mixture of aliens and horror…particularly at the end. What was your inspiration for the story?
Sara King: A badass antagonist from my 4-book After Earth sci-fi series. I have this Geuji mastermind, Forgotten, take the stage in Books 2 and 4 to slap the other aliens around. At that point in the timeline, Forgotten is the only Geuji not imprisoned on bullshit charges-charges levied because the other aliens were afraid that if a Geuji got free, it would slap them all around. I usually do my world building backwards, so once I had the fact that he was a sentient mold with a real grudge against the rest of the world, I decided to go deeper. “The Moldy Dead” was a story about how his people have been screwed over by Congress since very first contact, when they deliberately almost annihilated the Geuji’s entire race. As I learned from Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Intensive Workshop, you’ve gotta make every character sympathetic…even the bad guys.
JL: I know this is probably a redundant question by now, however – what did you think of the cover of issue #11, being representative of your story?
SK: It’s perfect. However a reader pictures a character in their head, that’s exactly how I want it. On that same vein, I don’t give a damn how a reader pronounces Geuji, Ooreiki, Huouyt, Jahul, or any of the other alien terms in any of my works. People think I care, but I don’t. However they pronounce it is the way it was meant to be, because reading is an individual experience and doesn’t need to be uniform or even similar.
JL: I for one was floored when Jason informed us it was your first sale. Things seem to have moved pretty fast for you in the last year or so – how excited are you?
SK: I’m actually impatient. Things aren’t going as fast as I’d like. I mean, I’m 25. A third of my life might be gone already. It’d be nice if we could speed things up, people. (Claps hands.) But really, I’ve got to say I’m thrilled that my cover-letter went from “Hi, I’m a new writer…” to “Hey, you may remember me from such publications as…” I’m also tickled about the editorship with Aberrant Dreams. Who woulda thought that lil’ ole me, with no copyediting experience and only a high cchool diploma under her belt, could beat out 50 other authors in an editing test? Oh, and yeah. There’s that agent thing. That got my little heart pounding. I think they probably heard the squeal in space.
JL: For those that haven’t read your work outside of “The Moldy Dead”, you have a story in the last issue of Blood, Blade and Thruster (alongside our own Jason Sizemore), titled “Fairy.” Is this story set in the same universe as gave birth to the Ooreiki, Jahul and Huouyt?
SK: Absolutely not. “Fairy” is a Millennium Potion short story, along with “Parasite”, which won Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest and is available on my website (www.kingfiction.com). The two universes are vastly different, with Millennium Potion having only two alien species, both nearly extinct due to human encroachment, and the After Earth series having, literally, thousands. (Though, thank God, I’ve only had to detail a dozen or so over the course of four books…)
JL: Your Apex Online story “Twelve-A” is rather heavy, emotionally; on one hand, Marie fears for her life, but on the other, she seems to have maternal feelings for the one that could kill her. How hard is it for you to work the emotions through the stories to wrench the hearts of the readers?
SK: I’ve been chewing my cud on this one for three hours and I still don’t have a good answer, so instead of continuing to give my computer a bovine stare, I’ll just do my best. I’m a little bass-ackwards in my writing methods. For me, emotion’s always the easiest part. It’s the first thing I try to define in a story. Once I have the overriding emotion, I can get a feel for the characters. Once I have the characters, I work on their wants and desires. World building always comes last, and Twelve-A is another example of world building backwards, using the characters and their actions in the novel to determine their histories in the short stories. Tension-which is mostly emotion anyway-is pretty easy for me in general. World building-the setting, the history, the details-is my biggest struggle as an author. If you noticed in “Twelve-A” (I’m gonna poke holes in my own story now), the lab was barely described, the corridors and rooms vaguely labeled, the characters little more than their actions. I find this, not emotion, the most difficult part of writing, and it’s incredibly hard for me to work those kinds of details into a story without leaving it clunky. I truly admire writers who can, and I’ve asked several of them how they do it, and they always give me a look like I’m some sort of poor, crippled lizard-for them, scene comes before emotion, which gets worked in later. I can’t picture myself ever writing that way, so that’s the biggest thing I hope to overcome with six weeks at Clarion. That, and my Cheetos addiction.
JL: Your bio says you’ve written 11 novels, and are now working on the 12th. Are they in a series, and if so, can you tell us a bit about them?
SK: Heh, I’ve got a very dark and scary closet where I keep about five of those, a couple of which I wrote before starting high school. Still, I count them because damn it, I did write them, and damn it, even though they sucked, they had a beginning, middle, and an end, and they were over 120k words. Of the six that remain, the ones I believe are publishable are the four After Earth novels (which spawned “Moldy Dead”) where aliens discover Earth and forcibly induct it into a universal Congress, Millennium Potion (“Fairy”) where space pirates seek out the cure for immortality, and Gamers, where activists fight a gaming company’s stranglehold on society and end up fighting addictions of their own. My current project, a fantasy called The Rockfarmer’s War, is my first attempt at making a true multi-POV storyline that (big surprise here) details a society devolving into war, a la George R.R. Martin. It’s been a real breeze…now I’ve just gotta find a way to reign in my 6 POV characters, keep the conflict between the 11 different factions from spiraling out of control, and at the same time pull an ending out of my ass that won’t leave my readers wanting to kill me in my sleep.
JL: Congratulations on securing representation with the Donald Maass Agency. What will you be tempting readers with until we get our hands on your novels?
SK: Actually, you can get your hands on one of my novels right now. Millennium Potion has been put on the back-burner while I work on my fantasy and I’ve been sending the current draft out to anyone who asks to read it. Just email me at thundress@hotmail.com. It serves a dual purpose: I get some great feedback for the next draft, and readers get a fun romp through space. Other than that, I’m still cranking out short stories, one of which will soon appear in Cemetery Dance Magazine, and another that will be in Aberrant Dreams. And, for those of you who are really daring, I’ll be launching a free program in February where I’ll be writing a new sci-fi adventure novel exclusively for readers on my mailing list. If you’re interested, the sign-up email is kingnovel@gmail.com.
JL: Sara, as I recall, you’re working towards acceptance to the Clarion Writing Workshop. How has that been going, and what would it be like for you to attend the next session?
SK: Omanomanoman. It would be fantastic. Then I could actually go up to the program administrator and ask (I actually plan on doing this) what he/she was thinking when they passed me over last year. I mean, (scoff), can’t they recognize true genius when it bites them in the ass? It would be the Great Alaskan Nose-Thumbing, and it would take place sometime near the end of the workshop, after I’ve fantastically wowed them all with my fabulous works and there’s very little chance of being kicked out.
JL: Imagine you’ve just made your first big sale to a well known and well respected publishing house. How would you celebrate, given your location?
SK: Ummm. There’s not much to do in Alaska in the winter except drink and fu– Whoops. Umm… Yeah. I’d snowshoe around the house, indulge in a few snowball fights, go sledding in the snow, make snow angels, watch the Northern Lights reflect off the snow, and check the weather to see if it forecasts more snow. Then I’d probably go absolutely mad with joy and call everyone I know and babble about how they’re gonna tromp through the snow to their cars right now and go buy their copies, and no, I don’t care that it’s snowing.
JL: In my poking around while prepping for the interview, I came across… your blog! Hehehe. Do you find yourself (really, truly, seriously) worrying if other editors or writers stumble across it? For what it’s worth, I had a good chuckle.
SK: No, I don’t care what they think. If people can’t take a joke, they have self-esteem issues and I laugh in their general direction.
JL: As a writing editor, do you find yourself sympathizing with the writers of rejected stories more often than not? With the editors?
SK: Aw, man, you had to bring that up. Being an editor is horrible in two ways. First, I hate rejecting people. Second, I hate reading bad stories. I’m the tear-it-in-half-and-throw-it-in-the-fire-if-the-ending-doesn’t-please-me type of person. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work too well with a computer. But it’s got its good moments, too. I actually like going through the slush, in a crazy sort of way. I read each story all the way through (gasp!) and every once in awhile I find a real honest-to-goodness gem. Further, I learned how important it is to make a story just as good as it can be before you submit. I found there’s lots of stories out there that are really close, right on the cusp, but it seems like when you ask for a rewrite, they have no clue what you’re talking about. So, with reluctance, I stopped asking for rewrites. I’m sure a lot of other editors have had that same experience.
JL: At the end now – can we hope to see more from you between the covers of Apex Digest?
SK: Depends on whether or not you recognize genius when it bites you on the ass.
Read Sara’s work in Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest issue 11.
Sara King is a 24-year-old Alaskan sci-fi writer who wrote her first full-length novel at the age of 12. She’s written 10 novels and 26 short stories since, and her story “The Moldy Dead” appeared in issue 11 of Apex Digest (her first sale!). It takes place in the same world as the sci-fi series Donald Maass is representing for her in NY. Sara King has sold stories to Cemetery Dance, Blood, Blade, and Thruster Magazine and Aberrant Dreams. Check out her website at www.kingfiction.com.
Read Twelve-A by Sara King
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Apex Magazine
APEXOLOGY: Horror