My ten-year-old son recently got glasses. It’s not a surprise: my wife and I both wear them. And while two wrongs don’t make a right, apparently two nearsighteds make a farsighted. I was nine when I got my first glasses. I was in third grade, my first year in the old, long-gone Gibson Elementary School in Tennessee. Now, with the … Read More
Death Wish, Old and New
After seeing commercials for the upcoming Eli Roth remake, I rewatched the original Death Wish from 1974. I was really surprised by how different Death Wish was from what I remembered, and how Roth’s remake, to judge from the trailers, totally misses the point. Yes, Charles Bronson becomes a vigilante after his family is brutally attacked, but that’s just the skeleton … Read More
New Writer’s Day Video
It’s been a while since I posted here; life’s been a bit overwhelming. But now I’ve got something new to share. Over the past weekend I attended a combined reunion of my old college newspaper staff and fraternity. It gave me the chance to go around Martin, TN and shoot some video of the real locations that inspired those in … Read More
Witchcraft Through the Ages (of TV and Movies, that is)
Witchcraft has an iffy history in film and television. When I first started doing my Firefly Witch stories, one thing I reacted against was the standard image of the pop-culture witch. Leaving aside the blatant “wicked witch” portrayals, it’s still hard to find anything remotely accurate, let alone sympathetic. It’s not impossible, though. One of the earliest films about witchcraft, … Read More
Past imperfect: recreating 1975 for Blood Groove
When I decided to set my vampire novel Blood Groove in the seventies, in particular the year 1975, I gave myself an interesting dilemma. It was a period I remembered (I was 12 in ’75), but not with the historical details I’d need to recreate it. So I had to do a fair bit of research to make sure I … Read More
Interview: Kim Newman, author of The Man from the Diogenes Club
Like my novel Blood Groove, Kim Newman’s hysterically funny, thrilling and affecting short story collection, The Man from the Diogenes Club, is set in the Seventies. In Newman’s case it’s England in the early part of the decade, where the titular club (originated by Arthur Conan Doyle) is now the headquarters of an organization that battles supernatural and out-of-the-ordinary crimes. … Read More
Blood Groove Release Day!
Today the “suave, creepy” (Publishers Weekly) vampires of my “edgy, enthralling, entertaining” (Library Journal) novel Blood Groove are released on an unsuspecting public. Pick up a copy and journey back to 1975 Memphis when the King still lived, Parliament was in session and the undead wore stacks, bell-bottoms and polyester. Get a sneak peek of Chapter 1 over at Flames … Read More
"That’s the way of the world, baby."
My next novel, Blood Groove, is set in 1975 for a couple of reasons. Since it’s a vampire novel, I wanted it to be free of the influence of Anne Rice; her landmark Interview with a Vampire came out in 1977. I also wanted it to take place in a time when it was still possible to exploit cracks in … Read More