It was a ScareFest Weekend, and a Con Trek adventure!

ScareFest turned out to be quite an adventure! I ended up jumping aboard the Con Trek crew for Saturday, as they had selected Lexington's ScareFest to be one of their season one episodes. Con Trek, of course, is a fantastic episodic reality show that visits various conventions across the USA. It is found on the Microsoft Xbox's Video Marketplace.

I was really impressed with Alan and Brittney, the two Con Trek hosts. Seeing them work throughout the day showed me that they have a great professionalism and work ethic as well as a good chemistry. We got to visit with a number of genre stars, such as Doug Bradley (Pinhead from the Hellraiser films, Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th, was Jason in 4 of the films), Danielle Harris (who was in both of the newer Rob Zombie Halloween movies), three of the main cast from the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, and more.

There were several thousand attendees, including alot of the filmmakers based in the immediate region. Feathered Italian Films (Jason Crowe and TJ Moreschi), Goatboy Films (Jerry Williams), Eric Butts, Pat Bowling, Cherokee Hall, Stacy Gillespie, George Bonilla and ZP International, and many more were on hand. Others included David Rudd of Infernal Dreams, Jason Sizemore of Apex Publications, Schaeffer Tolliver, Billy "Leprechaun" Blackwell (I wanted to know where he hides his pot of gold!) and alot of other excellent folks. Even my pals from Cineline/IMM, Sven Granlund and Matt Perry made it down.

The convention was very well laid out, with large aisles and plenty of room to move. The costume contest, VIP party, and other events turned out great as well. Lori Baker and Susan Rummel, two friends of mine on the ScareFest staff, looked very happy with the results.

Needless to say, lots of cool things happened over the weekend, unexpected and otherwise. Heard Con Trek's Alan Smith defending his Tennessee Titans with Kane Hodder in the rest room (and Alan didn't realize at the time that he was talking with Kane! lol).

We did about a 15 hour shoot on Saturday, so we were a bit tired at the end of it all, but I am looking forward to next year's ScareFest for sure.

First SSP Blog-Interview is up, and first IMM Podcast one day from upload.

Just a quick late night post, to say that I FINALLY got the kickoff of the new blog series on the Seventh Star Press blog site up and going, featuring D.A. Adams of The Brotherhood of Dwarves series. It is all at: http://seventhstarpress.blogspot.com

The first podcast for the Indie Movie Masters blog site is now edited and complete, and will be posted by tomorrow evening. This one features Stephen Lackey, and covers his full spectrum of endeavors, such as Captain Pixel and Cinegeek, as our blog interview of him was mainly focused on Con Trek.

The Hypericon Adventure!

I really love Hypericon. Actually, I am beginning to think of Nashville as my second home. I have attended Hypericon since the early days of this Con, missing only the year that my father passed away, and this convention has always been a very pleasant experience.

It is still a smaller convention, though it has grown alot since its first year. It showed more growth this year, and as always was a pleasant environment in which to meet and talk with people.

There were alot of outstanding writers, starting with the guest of honor, Brian Keene, who has written some magnificent horror novels such as The Rising, City of the Dead, and Dark Hollow. I was pleased to discover that Brian apparently has excellent taste in music, attested to by his Iron Maiden shirt.

Scott Nicholson, who wrote one of the coolest and most visceral non-typical vampire books out there, They Hunger, was actually on one of the film track panels with me (a screenwriting panel). Scott has alot going on, including the world of graphic novels.



I was very happy to see Dan and Jackie Gamber of Meadowhawk Press (and look out for a special blog article on Jackie's book Redheart...coming very soon to this blog and the Seventh Star Press blog too!). Jackie unveiled a new sharpie tattoo, showing off her new rock n' roll image...it looked a little faded on the last day of the convention, but Jackie explained that was because she was demonstrating her toughness by using a brillo pad to remove the tattoo! Don't mess with Meadowhawk Press! lol

Actually, Meadowhawk Press became one of 4 small press publishers ever to have a release win the Philip K. Dick award! (for Terminal Mind by David Walton) THAT ROCKS!

Jason Sizemore of Apex Publications was also on hand. I have not gotten to know well Jason yet, even though we both live in Lexington! Apex is an excellent publisher, with many writers that I have alot of respect for ( Sarah Harvey, Fran Friel, etc. ), and I hope to get a chance to meet with Jason on the homefront a little more often.

One of the coolest things I encountered this past weekend were P'ckit Dragons, from the Smerdiverse developed by Jon Klement. He is not hard to find, walking around with a big purple hat with ears and a shirt with a little purple dragon peeking out from the shirt pocket. Jon took some time to tell me some of the background of the multi-dimensional P'ckit dragons, and after learning more, I believe everyone should have their own P'ckit dragon! Jon is from St. Louis, so I hope to catch back up with him in person at Archon later this fall.

I finally got a chance to meet D.A. Adams, author of the Brotherhood of Dwarves series. I had been looking forward to meeting him at MidSouthCon, but he had some last minute schedule conflicts and was not at a reading that we were supposed to do together there. I picked up a copy of his first book and will be reading it for sure. D.A. and I appear to have quite alot in common as well, which was really cool to discover.

Seeing Sarah Harvey, Elizabeth Donald, and Angelia Sparrow is always a great thing, and Hypericon was no exception! Elizabeth was generous/kind enough to consign some of my books there so that I had availability in the dealer's room. Believe me, this is a really helpful thing at a convention, and I appreciated it tremendously.

I did get to visit for a little while with Steven Shrewsbury, though I did not get to talk to him as long as I wanted to. Steven's book Hawg was a great read, if not disturbing! Not for the faint of heart! LOL His new one Tormentor is just now coming available.

I got to spend a good bit of time with my pals/partners in crime/fellow independent media sufferers Stephen and Suzie Lackey (who do all kinds of stuff, like Con Trek, Cinegeek.com), and Mike Young. As always, we came up with absurd ideas, as well as a few that might yet have merit! lol Stephen had his hands full running the film track, but we did get out for some very excellent pizza on Sunday.

Speaking of ideas that might have merit, something may be brewing regarding the film side of things! My cohorts in Cineline Productions, Matt Perry and Sven Granlund, and I had a great meeting with the eminent H. David Blalock, author of Ascendant (Sam's Dot Publishing). Suffice it to say that it appears that I will be directing a new project, short film in nature, fantasy in nature (YEEESSSS!) later this summer. Get ready, I'm fired up!

The good Jarl of House Blalock and his daughter Hericka and I did get to spend a good amount of time together, which was fantastic, as they are rapidly becoming a couple of my favorites out there. I am going to be posting something soon on Ascendant as well...so stay tuned!

Was very happy to meet a couple of Kentucky authors, David Jack Bell, author of The Condemned, and Julie Kagawa, whose first YA release The Iron King comes out at the beginning of 2010.

Big thanks to Matthew, Jon, Deb, and all those that came to support my signing slot in the dealer's room and who picked up a copy of The Exodus Gate. It means alot when you see someone step forward to take a chance on a new author. I can assure you that it is not forgotten! ;)


Many, many thanks and salutes go out to conference chairpersons Fred and Stephania Grimm, who are among those willing to take on the punishing job of running a large event. I think they have really been steadily building a very nice event, and I hope that they continue, despite the many headaches and challenges involved. (and kudos to all the volunteers like Deborah, and all the others involved with various aspects like running registration, cooking for the con suite, and more).


Oh yeah, while in Nashville, I also got to visit Davis-Kidd in Nashville. Awesome store, 2 levels, grand scale, while still being indie friendly. I got to meet Ashley Strosnider and Joe Nettles in person, which was super cool as I just knew them through phone calls and emails before.




Overall, Hypericon 5 was yet another great experience. I am already looking forward to Hypericon 6!!

The Countdown to the Screening. Thursday in Lexington! 7:30 pm at the Kentucky Theater!

Just a couple of days away from the premiere screening of our new Indie Movie Masters Festival of Horrors Vol. 1 DVD.

I am really looking forward to seeing alot of friends and indie filmmakers that night, as it is always good to gather and enjoy indie film in a first class venue like the Kentucky Theater is.

We're going to be showing several trailers, such as the one for Jerry Williams' and Eric Butts' extravaganza Zeppo, and also including the brand new one for No Town which is scheduled for our 2nd title in the Festival of Horrors series. This one's from Aaron Champion and Justin Ford, and really looks sharp! These two guys are true filmmaking hooligans who I absolutely think the world of. Justin's down in Nashville, TN, probably so he can pester Stephen and Suzie Lackey more (and you all NEED to check out Con Trek on the xBox....it is now available!)

After the trailers, look for a couple of music vids...one by the heavy metal band Spent, whose music appears in Sirens, and one from director Vince Bingham, who acted in both Sirens and Murderer.

Nathan Day's new trailer for Bullet Song will be the last trailer or music video shown. Everyone needs to look out for Bullet Song! Emotional movie made by a very talented and very, very dedicated guy with alot of heart. I am really looking forward to the debut of Bullet Song in the near future.

I hope everyone in the Lexington area or within range can make a little extra effort to come out. Film screenings are not frequent events in the indie world, and we want to have a good showing as this series is going to be one that opens up a bunch of new opportunities for indie filmmakers everywhere. We are really wanting to grow this series and make it work for everyone.

For more on the concept, please be sure to visit the IMM site at www.indiemoviemasters.com

So, come on down and let's have a great indie film night this Thursday at the Kentucky Theater!