Dark Arts Books has released the cover of When the Night Comes Down and is now taking pre-orders for the book, which will launch during World Horror in a few weeks (10 p.m. to midnight on Friday). Here’s what they have to say about my contributions: “Bev Vincent, already renowned for his non-fiction, shows off some impressive range in his fiction — from hard-edged horror (”Silvery Moon”) to Bradbury-esque whimsical (”Something in Store”) to knowing humor (”Knock ‘em Dead”).” The other story of mine in the book is called “Purgatory Noir.”
I’ll also be involved in the Evolve launch at World Horror. I’ll be reading from and talking about my story “A Murder of Vampires” from 3:20 to 3:30 on Thursday afternoon, and attending the launch and signing at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
I made a difficult decision about another story that had been accepted for an anthology. The publisher for the book closed up shop, leaving the book in limbo. Though the editor said he’d start beating the bushes to find another publisher, my feeling is that it would keep the story tied up without much prospect of seeing print for far too long. So this morning I withdrew the submission. I feel bad about doing so, but on the other hand I had been invited to submit a story to another anthology that does have a publisher and this one seemed like a good match. Call me mercenary, but there you have it. Of course, the joke will be on me if the editor of the new anthology decides to pass on this submission, but those are the risks you take in this business.
I had actually thought I’d write something brand new in response to this invitation and I got down over 1200 words of a new story yesterday, but the deadline is too close at hand for me to do the story justice. Besides, I’m not sure the new story is going to be overtly horror. It’s more of a “Shatterday” kind of story. I mapped a lot of it out in my head in the waking hours yesterday morning and managed to get most of that down on the page during the day. However, it will take me at least a week to finish it off and I do have other things with close deadlines so I may have to put this new one on the back burner for a couple of weeks.
I watched the final ends of both the bronze and gold medal curling matches yesterday. The Swedes put up a valiant battle but ultimately one rock thrown a tad too hard in the final end gave the Swiss team the victory. The Canada/Norway match was fun to watch–not just because of Norway’s gaudy pants which, according to the NY Times, have half a million fans on Facebook. The Canadian team is so much fun to watch, with their mix of older, mature self assurance and skill and the rock star sensibilities of someone like Johnny Mo. Good on them for finally getting the gold they so richly deserved. I felt a little bad for Cheryl Bernard–her team did so well all through the Olympics and fell short by a single point for the gold in the 11th end. I hope she’s proud of what the team accomplished all the same.
I wonder how much it cost CNN to run near-continuous coverage of empty beaches and normal tides on Hawaii yesterday. I also wonder how that surfer made out–if the swells were anything out of the ordinary for him or her. There’s gutsy and then there’s foolhardy.
Just a couple of hours until the big hockey game. I know quite a few other Canadians in the community and it’s like we’re a little enclave at the moment, cheering our team on in the midst of all these fans for the other side!
We watched The Time Traveler’s Wife the other night. I’ve become a big fan of Rachel McAdam’s work (another Canadian!) lately. She is so earnest and delightful and involved in her scenes. This is a difficult film, though. I can only imagine how hard it was to plot out for continuity. Like season five of Lost, in a way. You really have to pay attention to catch all the little signs that tell you how old the time traveler is during each of his appearances. I wouldn’t have noticed, for example, the grey in his hair during the wedding unless someone else commented on it. I thought they gave short shrift to their lives after they were married–if things were complicated for them while they were still “dating” how hard must it have been once they were a family to have him go zipping off unpredictably? And I also had to check my skepticism at the door when it comes to him vanishing so often without anyone else noticing. They could have had fun with that–scenes where he vanished in the grocery store, or while driving a car, or while having sex, or any number of other circumstances where suddenly not being there any more could have posed some interesting questions.
