BLACKOUT CITY is on sale now.

On WWW.LULU.COM It will also be on Amazon shortly as the publisher tells me.

Saugus Ghost Story Contest

We will be a judge again for the second year in a row for this prestigious and fun contest for writers of all ages. Check out www.saugus.net for details.

We Are On Twitter A Lot

@josephpatchen

I am tweeting a lot. Its like a return to my stand up days. Okay I try to be funny and timely... I try

Grab more than a flashlight this Friday there's gonna be a BLACKOUT

HIT and DIRTY HANDS together again, in one anthology together on sale this Friday, August 29th.

Cover for the anthology including THE ETHICS OF CLONING

THE ETHICS OF CLONING to be published

I just signed the contract for the anthology SEX DROIDS AND THEIR CYBORG TOYS published by Rogue Planet Press and due out in the fall. Rogue Planet Press is an imprint of Horrified Press.

THE ETHICS OF CLONING is more of a poem than a short story.

Thanks guys.

Enough With The Zombies Already.....

This is another reason I am happy we ditched the television. Cable expects to saturate the market this fall with undead shows. Shows that seek to copy the success of THE WALKING DEAD.

Literature has been oversaturated; in fact we have drowned in zombie tales. We have choked in hurried, hackneyed zombie apocalypse tales. Submission calls thankfully have dwindled but television as television usually does is behind the times and is always beckoning to the brain dead who are also behind the times.

The trope has been used up. The themes are basic and worn.

I just saw the promo for ZNATION.

(Long pause)

Enough already.

Shakespeare In The Afternoon

New Haven can be a not so nice pleace to visit. The crime rate is high. Most of the public can be disagreeable. I was pleasantly surprised when I visited City Hall and found a theater company of young people performing Shakespeare shorts in the main hallway.

It was Shalespeare. What a marvelous way to begin one's day away from home.

At first I thought it was a flash mob.

No I was told this is a local summer group bringing attention to the old bard.

It was nice. Truly nice and truly I wasn't too old for such an afternoon delight.

Bosley Gravel's SUICIDE SMILE is on Lurid-lit NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

We take another piece of original fiction; a seedy and lurid short story from our friend Bosley Gravel. On Lurid-lit right now.

Finally a Headliner!!!

Especially over Howard and Lovecraft......LOL.....

CATCHING COLD IN A CAVE to be published in SCHLOCK! this weekend

We are honored and humbled. Details to follow.

Pulling the Plug on THE RED LIGHT

I've decided to clean out a drawer of my incomplete manuscripts and riffs. I do this from time to time in an effort to keep things fresh.

THE RED LIGHT was one of those tales. I felt a lot of promise for this one. I even posted about my excitement for this one. In retrispect however, this is one of the strangest stories I have ever worked on. The initial concept sounded good in dreams but just couldn't get it going on paper.

I have over three thousand words in the original draft but the problem was it read more or less like a preamble. I could never get the story to hook the reader.

I cut it back to six hundred and seventy words but it just didn;t have the 'juice'.

Writers need to be ruthless and show tough love for their 'children'.

THE RED LIGHT is unplugged.

Robin Williams...We Will Miss You

You will read a lot about depression in the next few days. Most of it from pop experts with simple renditions and simple mechanisms to cope. Understand there is no easy way to deal with this. Robin Williams proves this. For all his resources...

I have never hid my struggles with depression. I can attest that there is no easy answer. There is no easy cope. I try to use it in my writing as 'my sword and shield' to keep it at bay.

But it is a battle. It is a tiring, draining and endless battle.

I feel sad for Mr. Williams, sadder for his family and loved ones.

I just pray the media doesn't trivialize what happened with thirty second packaged advice.

Robin Williams you brought me great joy. I am so sorry.

DARKNESS AD INFINITUM is reviewed on LURID-LIT NOW!!!

Villipede Publication's inaugural Anthology is reviewed on www.lurid-lit.com now. I rate it as a hunka hunka, well you'll read it....

Classic Book Review: POE AND CHIVERS by Landon C. Bell, 1931.

This is a classic and probably an unknown classic to most. Here is the 'inside baseball' view of the claims made by minor poet THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS against Edgar Allan Poe for plagiarism involving several works including THE RAVEN.

Very technical but very much worth reading.

More BLACKOUT CITY PROMOS

Coming August 29th.

THE DRAW to be published

In a concept anthology by Horrified Press titled THE BLACK HAND. This is an alternate universe steampunk collection following World War I. Details to follow.

Thank you Horrified Press.

Thank You WEIRD TALES

For the royal treatment in acknowledging my birthday with a copy of the cover to CORPSES DON'T BLEED and my website josephjpatchen.weebly.com.

I am honored and humbled.