The Flame has gone out (of print, that is) but it continues to burn bright!

Orrin Grey's gothic novella The Mysterious Flame is now out of print. If you missed getting a copy you may still be able to find it at one of the fine booksellers that stock DLP books. Don't miss out on this wonderful debut novella by a rising voice in horror fiction!

Here's yet another great review (at Speculative Fiction Junkie) proving that The Mysterious Flame continues to burn bright!

"Despite its brevity, The Mysterious Flame manages to include an awful lot of action and disparate elements. Whether it's Narthos being awakened from the Spanish tower, Barnabus and his friend taking up residence in an abandoned movie theater, Barnabus hanging out in an isolated diner just to be around others for a bit, the raising of an army of reanimated corpses, or countless other things, this short book packs as much into its forty-four pages as is humanly possible without in any way feeling like it is overreaching or attempting to force too many disparate elements together. Additionally, for a book with such a potentially heavy subject matter, The Mysterious Flame manages to maintain a surprisingly light tone for the most part. Mr. Grey makes some welcome serious points about the nature of the mysterious flame by, among other things, contrasting the relationship between Barnabas and Daniel with the relationship between Narthos and Joy, but the book simultaneously remains a whole lot of fun.

Mr. Grey is a capable writer with occasional flashes of brilliant description. I haven't seen any other works from him but I will be keeping my eye open for him in the future.

BOUND FOR EVIL: 11 Honorable Mentions for Best Horror

This year the list of Honorable Mentions in Ellen Datlow’s annual Best Horror of the Year anthology (published by Night Shade, 2009) was pared down to only the top 50. However, Ellen has posted the remainder of her list on the publisher’s website. Included on this list of the top stories of 2008 are 11 tales from Bound For Evil: Curious Tales of Books Gone Bad. The 11 stories cited for honorable mentions are:

“Mechanix” by Christopher Fulbright

“The Reading Room” by Orrin Grey

“Letters Home” by Erin MacKay

“Guidance” by Gary McMahon

“Recipe for Disaster” by John Llewellyn Probert

“Association Copy” by Barbara Roden

“The Dark and the Young” by Ian Rogers

“Leather, Dark and Cold” by Simon Strantzas

“Cormac’s Mirror” by Ben Thomas

“The Book of Cain” by Michael D. Winkle

“The Alzheimer’s Book Club” by Jill Zeller

Congratulations to these fine writers!

BOUND FOR EVIL Signed by Four

A few copies of Bound for Evil signed by contributors Orrin Grey, Ian Rogers, Simon Strantzas, and editor Tom English are now available from Bill Morrison at Dark Hollow Books. These copies were flat-signed at Bill's Dark Hollow Books booth at ReaderCon 20 (July 11, 2009). When the con ended Sunday afternoon, Bill had only 4 of the signed copies left, maybe fewer. So if you'd like a copy of Bound for Evil signed by four of the writers, you may wish to proceed here as quickly as your mouse can navigate through cyberspace.

At right, one of the engraved river rocks used by the jurors of the Shirley Jackson Awards to "stone" the award-nominees. A nice, symbolic tribute to author Jackson's most famous short story, "The Lottery"!

Engelbrecht Triumphant!

A new review of Engelbrecht Again! at BookSpotCentral has this to say about the Rhys Hughes novel:

"Engelbrecht Again! is one of the funniest, funnest, original and highly imaginative books that I’ve read in a while. The exploits of the dwarf surrealist boxer are so downright whacky at times that you just shake your head and wonder how in the hell did Hughes come up with this scenario because he’s one of those writers that is popping with ideas. His throwaway ideas would be other, lesser writers' centerpiece ideas."

Read the entire review here. Then grab your copy before the dwarf grabs you!

More Fame for Mysterious Flame

Matt Cowan has posted a short review praising Orrin Grey's first novella, The Mysterious Flame, over at VintageHorror.com.

Orrin and I will be attending Readercon 20 (The Conference on Imaginative Literature) the weekend of July 10 - 12th. I'll be bringing the last few copies of The Mysterious Flame, so if you're in or near Burlington, MA, stop in and see us. Orrin will be happy to inscribe a copy of his novella for you. Chances are good you can catch us at the Dark Hollow Books section of the Dealers Room. Bill Morrison of DHB will be selling copies of my Shirley Jackson Award-nominated anthology Bound for Evil (the awards ceremony is Sunday the 12th at 11 am) and we'll be stopping by Bill's tables frequently to talk to readers and sign copies of BfE. Joining us there will be two more BfE contributors, Simon Strantzas and Ian Rogers. So stop by and get your copy signed by four of the contributors. (And possibly by a fifth contributor we hope will able to attend.)

BOUND FOR EVIL Nominated for SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD

I'm extremely proud to announce that Bound for Evil has been nominated for the prestigious Shirley Jackson Award in the Anthology category. The winners of this juried award will be announced on July 12, 2009, at ReaderCon 20 in Burlington, MA.

About the awards:
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, "The Lottery." Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the most traditional genre offerings to the most innovative literary work. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem has called Jackson “one of this century’s most luminous and strange American writers,” and multiple generations of authors would agree.

The Shirley Jackson Award will be voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from a Board of Advisors. The awards will be given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.

Gone in 60 seconds! (or something like that)

The Kiss of Judas & The Death of Halpin Frayser, 23rd volume in the Literary Vampire series, is sold out. Actually, the book was sold out before publication. Who knew?

Here's the description from the envelope:
In 1893, while Bram Stoker was immersed in research for his novel Dracula, several other creative minds were also busy at work making significant contributions to the Literary Vampire genre.

Presented here are those curious and classic contributions: the Ambrose Bierce short story “The Death of Halpin Frayser”; Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson’s article “Origins of Vampires”; Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s composition Love and Pain; and the strange, rarely reprinted title novella, “The Kiss of Judas,” by Julian Osgood Field writing as the enigmatic “X.L.” Also included is the informative Intro, “Children of Judas,” by Series Editor Tom English. Not to mention all the usual snippets of fascinating background info. Softcover chapbook limited to 26 copies only. Cover Illustration by World Fantasy Award-winner Dave Carson

“Limited but highly affordable, Tom English’s lovingly (and ghoulishly) handcrafted ‘Classic Vampires Revisited’ chapbook series should delight both horror fans and discriminating aficionados alike. Resurrecting classic and unde-servedly overlooked vampire tales published before and after Stoker’s Dracula, it is fast becoming the indispensable ongoing literary ‘history’ of Nosferatu and his heirs. As such, it’s not to be missed!”

— Joseph Wrzos, editor of August Derleth’s In Lovecraft’s Shadow and co-editor

of Night Creatures, a collection of Seabury Quinn’s classic weird tales.

THE MYSTERIOUS FLAME Burns Bright!

Orrin Grey pays homage to the classic Gothic pulps, in a poignant but chilling novella that features a haunted monastery and a rundown movie palace; a vampiric monk and an army of animated skeletons; arcane magic and the search for a long lost secret; and caught in the middle of it all, a bewitched young woman and a reluctant hero made of clay!

The Mysterious Flame is being released as a softcover chapbook limited to 100 signed copies only. Cover art by World Fantasy Award-winner Allen Koszowski.

UPDATE (4/19/2009): MonsterLibrarian.com recently posted the following review as part of its "Spring into Terror" horror fiction review project:

"In The Mysterious Flame, the undead necromancer Narthos is hunting a golem, Barnabus, in an attempt to determine the secret of his existence and his soul. The plot summary suggests that the story is high fantasy, but it is actually set in the present day, and has a very elegant gothic feel. Grey does a great job of balancing storytelling, action, and character development in 44 pages. The Mysterious Flame is a chapbook, with a quality in writing and production similar to that of the high-quality chapbooks produced by White Noise Press. The cover art is by renowned horror artist Allen Koszowski, and is an excellent complement to the story.... Recommended for fans of horror and gothic tales."

Dead Letter Press featured in The Washington Post

Dead Letter Press was recently featured in the Washington Post article "Michael Dirda on Unearthing Ghostly Tales of Today" (Sunday, 12-21-2008, Book World section, page 10). In his article, Dirda, a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and former editor of Book World, mentions Dead Letter Press as being one of several fine independent publishers, and recommends two books we recently published:

Bound for Evil: Curious Tales of Books Gone Bad and the Rhys Hughes novel Engelbrecht Again!. Click on the link above to read the archived article at the Washigton Post website.

ROYAL REVIEW: The King of Deadtown

The Atlantean Publishing magazine "The Supplement" recently reviewed The King of Deadtown. Below is an excerpt of the printed review:

The story opens with an outbreak of disease in Iraq. Given the title, it will not be too great a surprise to learn that it is the sort of disease which doesn’t keep you down for long. People transform into cannibalistic ‘virums’, the term adopted by a society scared of using a word so blatantly apocalyptic as ‘zombie’. Now, telling you that this is a zombie story in the mould of Romero that includes a brief visit to a shopping mall in homage, you will be thinking “ah, a Dawn of the Dead rip-off”. It’s the obvious comparison and is an error. Glynn makes no apologies for the genre nor does he try to disguise it and pretend he is doing something different – he embraces the genre but also writes something different. I’d like to tell you more, but it would spoil the surprise.
      Suffice to say, this is not a slavish retread of the zombie apocalypse genre. Glynn takes the familiar tropes and gives them a twist. Well worth reading.
– The Supplement, Issue 42, September 2008 (DJ Tyrer)

The softcover chapbook novella The King of Deadtown is now available in an edition limited to 150 signed copies (in an illustrated envelope).
Cover illustration by World Fantasy Award-winning illustrator Allen Koszowski.