Apex Day 2010 was a winner, and I will be on Fender's Den Radio Show tonight...

(photo is of me with the legendary Jason Sizemore of Apex Books, right after the event...if you look carefully, you can see the glow of success on Mr. Sizemore! )

Apex Day 2010 was a great deal of fun...met some new friends like Rodney Carlstrom and Debbie Kuhn, and saw some very special friends like Janet Harriet and Michael West, and got to hang out with the Apex legions at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexington Kentucky.

Jason, the head honcho of Apex Books, put together a great group of guest authors, with a spotlight on Gary Braunbeck, who did several outstanding readings. R. Thomas Riley came all the way from North Dakota, and Jerry Gordon, Lucy Snyder, Mari Adkins, and the always enthralling Maurice Broaddus rounded out the main group up front.

There were definitely some great moments, including seeing Jason Sizemore in a Santa hat, and THEN seeing Gary Braunbeck in one, after he requisitioned it from Jason during the giving out of the door prizes. Proof is below, and no, these are unaltered photos, LOL:







I finally got to take a photo with Mari Adkins, a great editor and writer who is one of the Apex editors, in person...as I joked with her, you see her only slightly more frequently than J.D. Salinger's rate of public appearances when he was alive, haha.
I have proof of this visit with Mari as well:





Rhonda Wilson, Earl Dean, and many other great people I know were in the crowd, and attendence was really good. Rachel at Joseph-Beth produced yet another well-run, hospitable author event, and many that I talked to who were there for the first time now know what I mean when I say that this is one of the best bookstores in the entire country.

Now on to Fender's Den today in Louisville to be on their rockin' radio show, along with actor Sonny Burnette. we are supposed to go on at 7pm eastern time USA, and the show info and archives can be found at www.fendersden.com
that's it for now!

ScareFest, the new book, and another SSP release

(thanks to Nic Brown, I got to do my very first "red carpet walk", which was interesting! Here's a pic from that moment taken by Bill Spangler,who is an awesome photographer)

I attended and exhibited at ScareFest 2010 in Lexington this past weekend. Thankfully, I didn't have far to drive for this one, maybe about 10 minutes, which was nice.

ScareFest is a large and growing horror and paranormal convention in Lexington, which has a big celebrity, visual media, and paranormal investigation core to it. While it does not have any literary/book related programming at the present time, it does bring in a large audience, many of whom do enjoy genres like fantasy, and science fiction.

I was based at the Deth Publications booth, at the invitation of Elizadeth Hetherington, a very talented horror author from Wisconsin. Her husband Vance, who is an editor, was also present, and the three of us had a great visit and weekend at ScareFest.


(Elizadeth Hetherington and myself)

As the Louisville and Lexington conventions tend to be, it was a time when a lot of the Kentucky filmmakers got a chance to come together, hang out, talk shop, and network.


(here's me with David Rupp of Infernal Dreams)

I really enjoy this aspect of a convention, and getting to see such folks as David Rupp (of Infernal Dreams), Jason Crowe and Roni Jonah (of Feathered Italian Films), Jacob Ennis (Tuckywood Productions), Eric Butts (director of Girl/Girl Scene), and others is great, as we don't get to visit in person all that often due to everyone's busy schedules.


(Suzie and Stephen Lackey of Cinegeek.com and the CineGeek Podcast, Elizadeth Hetherington, and myself)


(me with actor Ryan Buckley, who knows how to make some very potent punch!)


in addition to filmmaking friends, there were many other folks that I don't often get a chance to see except for conventions, such as Joe Garcia of Fast Custom Shirts Jason Sizemore of Apex Publications.


(me with Andrea and John Foley, Jason Jacob, and Abby Cook...John made some weapons shown in the castle scene in Swordbearer, and Abby was one of our two main designers and head of our costuming department)


As the convention went on, I did get to visit with some current reader-friends, and make some new ones. New friends included our neighbor in the exhibit hall, Don Sumner, who is the main guy behind the Best Horror Movies site, and he is the author of the new book, Horror Movie Freak, which looks like a great tome of horror movie lore.


(me with Don Sumner of Best Horror Movies)



(Me with my reader-friend Latosha)



(me with CT Brannon and his son!)


A big part of ScareFest are the celebrity film and paranormal guests. From what I observed, George Romero was the biggest draw, and others such as Danny Trejo and Adrienne Barbeau had very busy tables. Kane Hodder, Tom Atkins, Danielle Harris, wrestling legend George "The Animal" Steele, and many more were meeting fans, selling autographs, taking photos, etc.

Romero happens to be one of Eric Butts' favorite directors, and the following pic was taken right after Eric met George (notice the slightly dazed look, LOL)



On the book front, we are VERY close to the press release for the new Fires in Eden book, which will be accompanied by the unveiling of the new cover art, some of the illustrations, and a video trailer. Matt is doing more amazing artwork, and I can't wait to share it with everyone. This book has many elements that are VERY favorable to epic visual images, to say the least, and Matt has been having a lot of fun with the content in developing the illustrations.

On another note, if you haven't pre-ordered a copy already, you need to pick up one of Steven Shrewsbury's new Thrall limited hardovers. Not many in this batch, and it is the first appearance of his Gorias La Gaul character. Great price on it too and it comes with a poster, 5X7 glossy prints, and bookmarks. He's in the SSP family, so show him some love and pick up Thrall! here's a link to the online store. Check my previous blog post for the video trailer.

http://www.seventhstarpress.com/documents/online_store.html

That's it for now! Keep an eye on this blog as it won't be much longer before the new book announcement.