ANTHOCON 2015

Portsmouth, NH 

June 4th-8th

Typing my blog with Tony Tremblay's computer

We came from all ends of the continent. Some from Colorado, others California, Oregon, Vermont and Maine. There were even Canadians, such as myself, descending from the north and taking New England by storm. My flight left Edmonton in the early hours of the morning and rather than fly straight as an arrow east to Boston, I was southbound to Dallas Fort Worth where I caught a connecting flight some hours later. I landed in Boston at around 7:30 PM and found the car rental agency after jumping into or rather, putting on, a Kia Forte, I braved the crazed Boston commuters and headed north to Portsmouth, NH.

     An hour later, I arrived to meet author Gord Rollo in the lobby. I shook his hand, said, “Hi.” —and checked into my room where I sent Philip Perron a message.

“Where are you?” I texted.

“In the lobby,” he replied.

“Shit, I must have walked right passed you.”

I gave him my room number and got out of the elevator and that’s where I met Kristi Peterson Schoonover. I don’t think she recognized me at first, I was wearing a hat. No bald head giveaway. I called down the hall to her. “Schoonover?”

“MJ?”

“In the flesh.” We hugged.

Kristi and I have conversed over the web for a number of years

Contract negotiations with Great Old Ones: Phil Perron

and share a love of the Dark Discussions Podcast. I have always considered Kristi a friend and was looking forward to meeting her in person. She is a great writer and has a bubbly personality that is infectious to a group. Besides that, she had promised to by me a martini and also had brought up a banner for me from Connecticut.

So, after hooking up with Phil and Kristi, I made way down stairs for a drink where I met Sydney Leigh, Ron Dickie, Andrew Wolter (who I mistook for Syd’s guy) and of course Tony Tremblay, who I will forever think of as Mr. New England. I was settling in for the prelude to Anthocon, because we were just the first bunch.

Later, I heard my name called once again down the hall. “Hey! MJ Preston!” I turned, did not recognize the lady until she introduced herself.

“I’m Alex Scully.”

Next thing you know I am in the Scully’s room, with Gord Rollo, Gene ONeil and a bunch of other folks. First thing I hear is: “MJ Preston! I’m so glad to meet you.” Up walks this muscular tanned dude and sticks out his hand. “Jon Kelley.”

“Holy shit!” I say and shake vigorously thinking. How the hell do all these people know me?

The nucleus of this gather is B.E. Scully (Bobbi to her friends) addressing the group of perhaps twenty while holding up a cellophane wrapped piece of cheese. “It’s a little earthy,” she says as she unwraps the wedge producing what she says is a local blue cheese. Being the last to enter the room she turns to me and asks, “M.J. would you like to try it.”

At which I reply, “Thanks, but I generally don’t eat anything with mold in it.”

She turns to Gord Rollo, and he stands in cowardly allegiance. “Me either.”

I do agree to give it a sniff and my nasal passages deliver the most disgusting— foul—vomit inducing fragrance to the synapses

It was, what I think of when I hear environmentalists talk about how farting cows are cause the earth to warm. I rub my nose, drink my beer, trying to un-smell this putrid stench. Through the haze, I can hear Alex Scully laughing uncontrollably. Before I can warn the others, Fan Boys and Fools alike, line up like sheep to take communion. She breaks of a piece at a time and they declare how wonderful the cheese tastes. Patronizing fools, the lot of them.

This is madness, I think.

When the lambs have sacrificed their senses and engaged in this unholiest of communions, I lean over to Bobbi and say. “Be honest, you got that out of the dumpster behind the Cheese Store. Didn’t you?”

F. Paul Wilson schools me on semicolons.

“Oh no, I bought it locally and paid a fair penny for it,” she insists.

“Well, aren’t you going to have a piece,” I ask.

She grins sardonically. “Are you kidding? This stuff is disgusting.”

I almost squirted beer out my nose.

Sydney Leigh, Frank Raymond Michaels, Kristi Petersen Schoonover, April Hawks, Rena Mason, Gord Rollo,  Gene O'Neill, James Chambers, Diana Catt Alex Scully, Phil Perron, MJ Preston.

I have so much to say about Anthocon, but I am limited to what I can say on this blog and about who I connected with, so I will toss you some of the highlights. I managed to talk Monty Python's Flying Circus with F. Paul Wilson and traded stories with Gord Rollo. I talked with Gene O’Neil extensively about writing who is the coolest, down to earth writer. Gene and Gord actually bought a copy of my novel Acadia Event, although it was tough getting them passed all the well-wishers in the vendors room. of my frontal lobe.

The next three days involved meeting and greeting, but also exchanging ideas and of course pushing one’s own work. I was set up next to the Great Old Ones Publishing table where I did signings and interacted with authors and fans of the horror genre alike. I got to meet the Dent sisters, Roxanne and Karen, who were both so charming. I also met my editor, Sara Kelly, face to face and she posed for a pic with me. It was such a treat. Hours passed without thought and Acadia found its way into the hands of readers. And of course I acquired a pile of books as well. To name a few, Bad Apple, by Kristi Peterson Schoonover. Three editions of: Enter at Your own Risk, edited by Dr. Alex Scully, including works by too many writers to name, but including a variation of the old Masters like Mary Shelley and modern day greats like Jonathan Mayberry. I have the Robot Graveyard which is a collection of shorts by the Sci-Fi juggernaut Gregory L. Norris and Thom Erb’s Heaven, Hell or Houston. I have a pile more, from Gene O’Neil’s Lazy K, to Michael Bailey’s Chiral Mad 2. I even picked up two F Paul Wilson books: Soft and Aftershock. Man, I’m just scratching the surface. Along with getting these books signed by all of the authors, I had a chance to talk about writing, about the industry and just plain shooting the breeze.

While rocking to the Anthocon ‘classic rock delight’ Four Horseman I was enthralled by the guitar work of T.G. Arsenault and pleasantly surprised to hear the Scully’s do their rendition of Mama don’t let your baby’s grow up to be writers. I think Willy Nelson had a similar song? Plagiarism? I think not. Likely homage.

Congrats to Roxanne Dent and Patrick Lacey who won the Ice Road Draw.

The weekend concluded with a number of readings. I can’t list them all, but I have to say that my only complaint would be that we did not slot enough time for the writers to strut their stuff. Five minutes is but a pittance, and I hope that next year a good deal more time will be afforded. Among the readings: Patrick Lacey, Thom Erb, Schoonover, Dent, Scully, Sydney Leigh, and the list goes on. All the readings were impressive, a few standouts: Patrick Lacey’s: Operation Parasite, Roxanne Dent’s: Bug Boy, B.E. Scully’s: Metamorphosis, not Metaphors, and April Hawk’s: Organically Grown. There were many others, equally impressive, but I fear this blog will morph into a novella, which by the way, I should be working on now.

Sunday came far too quickly, I skipped out on another night of festivities as I had to be on the road by 3 AM for Boston, but I got to take off into Portsmouth with my pal Philip Perron who really was responsible for inducting me into this wonderful group. Philip Perron of Dark Discussions Fame. We hit a pub and had a pint and a meal as we talked casually, about the con, about writing, about our passion for horror. He truly is the gentleman, liked by everyone, a great guy and a true friend. Thank you, Phil.

In closing, I can’t forget to mention Tony Tremblay whom I thought of as: Mr. New England. Tony was relentless with his camera, documenting the con, but doing so with a gentleman’s petition, also polite to ask, never a paparazzi. One other credit goes out to: Ogmios the Artist, who has been illustrating a short story I wrote called: SKIN: End of the Line. This guy has an amazing eye and he was also a great buddy.  Wow, this is starting to sound like the Academy Awards, so I will wrap it up here. Thanks, to everyone, sorry if I missed your name, but be assured that I was impacted by all of you and never felt so welcome.  I hope to see you next year, but now I must sign off, grab some cough medicine and get down to work.

Catch you next time...

M

Author note: Many of the photos on this blog were courtesy Tony Tremblay, Marianne Halbert, and Philip Perron. My thanks to them for sharing.

THE NIGHT IT ALL CAME DOWN

On a Writer's Forum I visit someone asked if it is perseverance and discipline that makes a good writer. I, being the arrogant writer penned this response.

When I was 17, I wrote the first (synopsis I suppose you would call it) for what I thought was going to be my breakout book. It was autobiographical in nature, based on my use of psychedelic drugs. 

Back then, I was into everything. Lsd, shrooms MDA, pot, hash and of course booze. I was a teenager and I was experimenting, freeing my mind.
Anyway, one night in the summer of 82, I, along with another guy, took 2 1/2 heaping tablespoons of powdered magic mushrooms and washed it down with a glass of vodka and orange juice. We then went to a party and proceeded to drink copious bottles of beer and smoke hash oil.
 

Within an hour of arriving at the house reality went out the door and I fell into a horrific hallucinatory state of paranoia. It was terrifying and the bad trip lasted all evening. My friends put me in a room to ride it out, because they were too afraid to call an ambulance. I slipped in and out of states of consciousness and honestly could not differentiate reality from fantasy.

Many hours later, after my body had processed enough of the drug so that I was able to regain consciousness, I left the house and walked five miles home. When I got there, I woke my mother and told her that I had just escaped a Satanic Cult. My mother, a strong Catholic, was convinced that my story was true. I was that convincing. After this confession I slept with my mother and passed out.

When I awoke the next day my mind was blank.

Over the next three months, I detoxed. I gave up everything, even pot. I went through horrible flashbacks of that night. I experienced terrible panic attacks and the only good thing to come from that night was that it scared me straight and changed my attitude. Up to that point, I had low self esteem, I lied like the sidewalk, I stole, and I had no loyalty. Throughout the flashbacks, I grappled with my sanity, I approached both the church, thinking there were demons in my midst and the mental health community thinking I was going insane. The Catholic padre who met with me was kind enough to take a psychologists stance and blamed the drug use. The therapist I saw, accused me of pandering for anti-depressants (which I was on until that moment).

I left his office, turfed the prescription into the garbage and came to the realization that i was on my own. The next few months would cost me a job and for the next year I slept with my light on. After that, I went back to school and I would eventually meet my wife at the local college. She is sleeping in the other room as I write this. 

That year, I penned a rough manuscript, titled: THE NIGHT IT ALL CAME DOWN. I never published it. It slipped into oblivion along with a bunch of other stuff I wrote and that was 33 years ago.

Well, maybe that book was never meant to be written. Maybe that thumbnail sketch of my life was what got me here today and the memory is enough. I have written two full length novels, the first a straight up horror, and the second a thriller sci-fi horror. Both of these novels came from within, every character and event had something to do with what has happened over the course of my life. I believe, that to be a good writer you must be able to observe what is around you and process it.

So, is it a matter of perseverance? Absolutely, but time and experience are the best weapons in a storytellers arsenal.

A little luck doesn't hurt either.

THE WOES OF THE INDEPENDANT WRITER

Alright, first let me preface this blog post by telling you that I am not going to spend the next 1,500 or so words whining about how tough it is to be an indie writer. 
     Still here? Awesome, then let's get this started.
      In 2010, I finished a manuscript and was trying to decide what I was going to do with it. I had agonized over this book, it was, after all, my first kick at the cat and I started writing queries and tried to secure an agent. I got my share of polite rejections and I took them in stride. It (the book) will find a readership, I assured myself. 

     At that time I was 46 years old and the manuscript, which was started originally around 1989 and was shelved, was now 21 years old. Actually it was only a year and a half old, because in 89 only

Standard Rejection Slip.

about 112 pages had been written, but the story itself was 22 years old. In my search for a publisher, I did a bit of research, bought copies of the Literary Agents and Writers Market and after being warned I visited a site called: Predators and Editors. There I learned about the true underbelly of publishing.  I was blown away by some of the things I read. Publishers who basically stole your story, hit up writers for editing and as a contractual obligation you had to purchase books into the thousands. So, the deal with self-publishing hadn't changed much had it? The writer, who desperately wants to be published signs a deal with the devil and is no closer to being read than he/she was when they finished that first manuscript.
     So, I continued. Query out! Rejection in. I didn't let this frustrate me. I had been down this road before, some 20 odd years before I was writing movie reviews for a local town paper while trying to get shorts published in everything from Redbook to Readers Digest, and even Playboy. Rejection slips are part of the deal. The only issue that was nagging me was time.  I kept thinking, In four years I'll be 50 and if I don't get this book to press, what then?
    Then I heard about (Print on Demand) POD, which eliminated the financial burden of spending thousands on printing books that could very well end up in your basement, only to be given away to people who would rather grab a free book from a friend than pay for it and support their art. I asked around, did a bit of research and for the most part got positive feedback. There were still some drawbacks of course.  Editing being the first. When it comes to editing, you are on your own and it can be an extremely expensive endeavor. Trust me when I say this. You get what you pay for, but that's for another time and blog. The second issue is exposure, and this is where I realized the true difficulty of being an Indie Author.

Lugosi of Dracula fame starred in Woods: Plan 9 from Outer Space

You are literally adrift in a sea of mediocrity. Mediocrity being a nice word. Oh, and here's another sad fact. You could be one of the millions who think they are poised on the cusp of literary greatness, but the truth is: You're just another knock off or worse, the "Ed Wood" of the writing world. If you don't know who Ed Wood is, I'll save you a Google search. Ed Wood was celebrated as one of the worst B movie directors in history. His most famous being Plan 9 from Outer Space which starred horror icon Bela Lugosi (Dracula) who would die during production, it would be toted as one of the worst films ever made.
     Negativity aside, there are success stories to come out of the Indie World. Scott Sigler, E.L. James and Stephenie Meyer all found success by going indie. So all is not lost my fellow indie authors. That is not to say that there aren't prejudices and dare I say snobbery. Horror great Stephen King has criticized James and Meyers and while he is entitled to opinion I think there are millions of readers who will disagree. When King criticized Twilight I hardly gave it a glance, romance vampire novels are not my thing, but after he criticized E.L. James I decided to sit down and give her book a read. Note to King: James can write and if you didn't care for the content I get it, but the lady knows how to write. By the way, I only read the first one. Bondage isn't my cup of tea and neither is getting ribbed by my male friends.
     And therein lies the issue with being indie. There is a prejudice not only among the mainstream (not all I might add) and among readers themselves. In a second hand conversation I was talking to a friend who made mention of me and my latest book ACADIA EVENT, (You had to know I was going to slip that in here somewhere), to some friends of his who were avid readers. During that conversation my friend was asked a very pointed question and this is not verbatim. The individuals asked if indie writing was just a bunch people who didn't have the talent or time to put in so they self-published. My friend, a traditionally published author said, "No, there is a pool of talent in this group that should not be overlooked." 

And of course he is right. Without all forms of Indie we would not have the likes of Kevin Smith, Scott Sigler, or possibly Quentin Tarantino. There was a time that traditional film looked down their nose at the indie filmmakers and now there are mainstream filmmakers who are passing their stuff off as indie. I wonder how many crappy independent films were made before Clerks became a huge success. Without indie, what would have become of Tobe Hooper?
     I guess the lesson in all this is that you have to decide if you’re

in this for the right reasons. Are you simply trying to duplicate Twilight and ride the coat tails of Stephenie Meyer, be a knock off of Jonathan Mayberry?  Because if you are, well, you're in this for the wrong reason. On the other hand, if you're writing original work (if that is completely possible) and you are doing it because you love to do that, then you are on the right path. Keep on, keeping on, as the saying goes. 

    But then again, what the hell do I know? I could be the literary incarnation of Ed Wood. Seriously? 
     Nah, I'd look horrible in drag.

     See.   

  

Now, if I haven't scared you off, be sure to check out my latest book ACADIA EVENT. 

And if you want to learn more check it out at: http://mjpreston.net/

Available in Print and on Kindle click here to find out more!