Cthulhu's Thoughts

MacDinton's/Krewe Rugby Charity Golf Tournament

2007-06-15T18:46:19Z

MacDinton's/Krewe Rugby Charity Golf Tournament
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Northdale Golf Club
4417 Northdale Boulevard
Tampa, FL 33624
1pm Shotgun Start
$100 per person includes;
Golf, Transport to and from the course, Open Bar and Buffet back at MacDinton's after the round. Polo Shirt and gift bag.
Register Online: http://www.macdintons.com/

Horror Writers Assoc. - Dark Whispers

2007-05-15T01:28:26Z

In an effort to promote its members, the Horror Writers Association has launched Dark Whispers, an electronic newsletter aimed at librarians and booksellers.

Dark Whispers will deliver news about new releases from HWA members on a monthly basis. Vanity press publications are excluded from inclusion in Dark Whispers.

To get this project off the ground and gauge interest, Dark Whispers will begin as a Yahoo group.

Although the target audience is librarians and book sellers, anyone is welcome to join the list.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hwa_dark_whispers/

In the Hot Seat

2007-05-05T15:21:34Z

I'm in the Hot Seat at TODP.
http://dan0oo.com/mboard/index.php?topic=7939.0
Here's your chance to ask me anything.

Teaching the Horror Genre

2007-03-18T01:36:46Z

Horror is an exciting, High Interest genre. Ask your students how many of them watch horror movies. You'll probably find that it is one of the most popular genres. Stephen King is the most popular living author, and R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books are a perennial hit. Savvy teachers can harness the students' love of the genre to engage them in meaningful lessons that will get them excited about learning. You will find that horror is not all immature blood and guts; there are some excellent materials (appropriate for whatever level you teach). So, what are you waiting for?

Teaching the Horror Genre
http://www.jeanloupbenet.com/education.html

Among the many lessons you'll find there are the following two webquests:

Stephen King WebQuest
http://www.jeanloupbenet.com/stephenkingwebquest.html (7-Adult)
Stephen King entertains and scares us with his vivid imagination and his writing skills. The purpose of this project is to allow you to become more familiar with King and his work. You will also be sharpening both your research and writing skills.

Horror Author WebQuest
http://www.jeanloupbenet.com/horrorauthorwebquest.html (6-Adult)
Horror authors entertain and scare us with their vivid imagination and their writing skills. Who are they? What have they written? What is the life of a horror writer really like? The purpose of this project is to allow you to become very familiar with a new author. You will also be sharpening both your research and writing skills.

Shocklines

2006-10-15T00:14:56Z

If you are a book buyer, I urge you to shop at SHOCKLINES!, your one-stop shop for horror!! There's never been a better time to shop for your horror goodies. Halloween is coming up and the holidays are fast approaching. Matt, the owner of SHOCKLINES, is the best bookseller around. He offers the best of the best, written by some of the hottest horror authors around. He offers FREE media shipping and preorders can guarantee your purchase without costing anything until it's time to ship.

If you've shopped at SHOCKLINES before, then I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. If you haven't, then you are truly missing out. You deserve your money's worth when shopping over the web. At SHOCKLINES, you'll get fast, friendly and fair service.

cthulhu @ 2006-08-12T18:09:00

2006-08-12T22:11:31Z

Tampa's Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Convention
October 27-29, 2006
Guests of Honor:Vernor Vinge, Harry Turtledove
Necronomicon

Hyatt Regency Tampa
211 North Tampa Street
Tampa, Florida 33602
813 225 1234

Members of the Florida Horror Writers Group will be in attendance.

Horror Day of Action

2006-08-12T22:07:49Z

Creators in the horror community have launched the "Horror Day of Action," a campaign to inspire all lovers of the horror genre to reach out to the world on Friday, Oct. 13, 2006. The idea caught fire and spread to every area of horror, from haunted house operators to videogame designers to movie makers and writers. But the most important and basic ingredient of Horror Day is each fan's participation.

On Oct. 13, fans are asked to buy a horror book, give away a horror book, rent a horror video, read ghost stories to children, host an art show, or talk to the nearest library, bookstore, video store, newspaper and to call your local radio station.

The official site for Horror Day, along with suggestions for action, can be found at http://www.myspace.com/horrorday.

"We expected this idea to gain momentum quickly because it's so simple," said a volunteer, "But to see it grow so rapidly, and to see the enthusiasm of the people who love this genre has been totally amazing. Horror is often considered a fringe taste, but the reality is it has millions of fans in every sector of society. And our combined voices can have a positive effect on the world at large."

While the Horror Day site has action tips, creativity is the key to the event's success. Fans are asked to come up with their own imaginative spin to promote the genre and share them in the "Comments" section of the MySpace site and on all the various horror message boards.

Most importantly, remember this year Friday the 13th is HORROR DAY!

Plan something cool, and SPREAD THE WORD!
Who I'd like to meet:
Horror readers, authors, gamers, film makers, fans and anyone else willing to make this a major event. If we all do something, a lot can happen.

We made it!

2006-07-27T21:42:49Z

The wife and I made it to Florida. We are getting settled into our new place, and learning our way around. I started work a couple days after we moved, so it's been pretty hectic. The good news is, it looks like a much better job. I get to teach creative writing, and there is no set curriculum, so I can teach it how I want to. I also have to teach reading, but that doesn't really look that hard compared to what I've done before. I agreed to take over the creative writing club/literary magazine as well. My schedule will also leave me more time for my own writing. Add to that the large number of other horror writers in the area (some of whom are on here) and it looks like a pretty good move. I'm not used to the heat yet, but I'm born and raised in northern Michigan so that might take some time.

WHC and My School

2006-03-23T02:56:03Z

This is the letter I sent to my administration about World Horror Con. I thought some of you other writer/teachers might be able to use it (or parts of it).
{letter}
I will be gone on May 11th and 12th to attend this year's World Horror Convention, an annual conference on speculative fiction and issues concerning the horror and dark fantasy genres. This year's World Horror Convention, held in San Francisco, California, is one of the largest international genre conferences, inviting a host of writers and other professionals in the publishing field to lead workshops and panels on a variety of topics related to the writing and publishing of speculative fiction.

Attendance at this conference will introduce me to new creative writing strategies and reading techniques that I can directly incorporate into my classroom. Through interacting with professional writers and publishers, I will be able to cull practical writing tips for my students. I have also signed up for Mort Castle's Writing Workshop, to be held during the conference. Professor Castle has been honored as one of "21 Leaders in the Arts for the 21st Century in Chicago," as well as being the only person to have two national winners in the high school Scholastic Arts competition from different schools in the same year. This Writing Workshop has been very highly recommended, and promises to improve my writing instruction a great deal. I will learn new skills for use in writers’ workshops. Professor Castle is a superb example of how to present an effective overview of the writing and publishing process in a relatively short period of time. I plan to incorporate the materials and strategies used in the Writers Workshop into my own creative writing classes.

This will give me a new perspective on how organizations conduct and promote conferences and workshops. I will be able to see how the conference organizers promote on the web, in the conference guide, in local media, in genre specific media, etc., and how they organize and set-up the presentation space and equipment. This will aid a great deal in the design and execution of similar workshops at Concord Academy-Antrim. This education pertaining to instructional delivery is one of the requirements for the professional development of novice teachers under the Michigan School Code.

During the conference here are to be many convention panels that deal with Young Adult fiction. Literacy and increasing reading for pleasure is an important issue in education today. This is evidenced in our own curriculum plan, and the drive statewide to improve MEAP reading scores. Using fantasy and horror is one proven way to reach students and get them to read. The Harry Potter books have increased literacy and the rates at which young people are now reading enormously. The residual effect is that the Harry Potter books have sparked readers to look for more books such as Eragon, Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events, Artemis Fowl, Charlie Bone, Cirque du Freak, and initiated a resurgence in the popularity of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

There are often on panels about horror and academics, since horror literature and creative writing are often taught in schools. The panels deal with the genre and provide information I will directly use in class. There will also be many panel discussions about the history and current trends of the horror and dark fantasy literary genres. I will be able to stay abreast of the most current books in the field that would be of interest to my students.

I will use what I learn in the discussions to help students develop their writing and possibly reach for publication. These discussions will help me craft a list of Young Adult friendly markets that accept submissions from teens. I have already had one student place highly in a poetry contest. More awards and publications for our students will increase the self esteem of the student, and their fellow classmates as well. The notoriety that such awards and publications will bring to Concord Academy will be a huge help in community relations, advertising for students, and student retention. Imparting my knowledge that come from being a professional writer will help the students recognize the mistakes and misconceptions that beginning writers have about writing and publishing. I will also help them understand the techniques they can employ to make a quantum leap in the quality of their fiction, and learning the do’s and don’ts for trying to get their work published. These enhanced publishing opportunities for students will make the act of creative writing much more exciting, personal, and meaningful for the students.

I will have our students read short stories by authors attending the convention and have the students come up with a list of questions which I can present to the author to ask he/she to respond. Because of the informality of WHC it is easy to speak directly to writers who attend WHC; writers whom I might convince to read and critique our students' work. It will enhance our students' self-esteem to have authors they read respond to their writing (whether it be a critique of their work or short fiction based on what they have read). I will be able to develop ongoing and professional relationship with these professionals who may agree to visit Concord Academy-Antrim as guest lecturers and workshop leaders. These opportunities will really open our students' eyes to the world around them. We want our students to expand their horizons, to think about more than just their little corner of Antrim County. This is a great avenue for that self-discovery.

WHC also has a strong cadre of professional artists from the other fine arts, which is an important aspect of Concord Academy as well. There are a number of artists who attend WHC who sell their work, many of whom do school visits and/or communicate with students. I can show our students their work prior to WHC and have our students write questions for the artist, and then present the material to the artist at the convention for their response. There are also singer/songwriters, world-famous actors, and every other type of artist imaginable. This will show the students how artists in different fields express themselves. This gets at Dr. Gardner's "Multiple Intelligences," something that is of great importance at Concord Academy.

My association with other educators in the genre will also help when our students our applying to colleges. I have heard from many heads of English departments who write in the genre that they have given a step up to students of writers they knew and respected, sometimes even arranging scholarships to qualifying students. Combine this leg up with a student body that has published and won awards, Concord will be well on its way to making a way for itself as one of the preeminent fine arts academies in the state.

I have been told attending WHC the best way to meet other professionals in the trade as it is much more of a "pro writer's meeting" than a "fan convention." The convention is a great way to meet other writers, editors, and professionals in the trade. A number of connections made at WHC haves helped authors publish stories in markets they wouldn't have heard about otherwise. This includes markets for our students that teachers not in the know would be ignorant of. As a professional writer, this conference will allow me to confer with publishers who are in the process of publishing several of my works, as well as afford me the opportunity to meet with potential publishers for the novel that served as my Master's thesis at Seton Hill University. To this end, I have scheduled a "pitch" session, where I will be given a one-on-one meeting with an editor or agent to attempt to place your work for publication. I plan to model a pitch session to our students when I return, so they can see first-hand what it is like to sell their work face-to-face to an editor. I have also prearranged meetings with some of the top genre professionals to "talk shop" and introduce me to others in the business. If teachers are role models, then an aspiring student writer can look to me for guidance and business advice. I will learn this from more established writers in my field at networking events like this convention.

In addition, the school's academic reputation will be enhanced due to the positive exposure of having a faculty member share his creative and professional expertise with scholars and professionals from around the world. This exposure will also demonstrate that the faculty of Concord Academy-Antrim not only teach literature, but they are active writers with impressive publication credits. This, in turn, will have positive effects on student and alumni satisfaction with the school, and possibly spark interest in potential students who are interested in creative writing.

World Horror Convention is an opportunity for me to really come into my own as a teacher. Techniques I will learn in writing instruction will stay with me for the rest of my career. Contacts I make (and plan to foster) will aid in student publication. My own emergence in the field will fix me as a role-model for those students who yearn to write, and will work well for advertising the school as a true fine arts academy. This conference is an important step in my move toward becoming a master teacher, and will be a boon to the school as a whole.

Sincerely,
Aaron C. Bennett
{/letter}

Teaching Horror

2005-11-19T19:49:33Z

The State of Michigan had a nice unit on horror. They decided to remove it from the site when they changed partnerships. It looks like it will now be a pay site, and the Horror Unit is no longer available. I used my internet prowess to dig up the print version of the files (which are purposely not searchable by Google and the like, nor are they archivable through sites such as Archive.org). It was a pain, so save and/or print the files now before the powers that be find out and remove the print views as well.

Unit Plan for The Darker Vision - A Genre Study of Tales of Horror
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-39694--,00.html

Lesson 1 - Beginning to Understand the Horror Genre
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-40971--,00.html

Lesson 2 - Examining Poetry in the Horror Genre
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-40976--,00.html

Lesson 3 - Gothic Horror Stories and Allegory
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-40980--,00.html

Lesson 4 - Modern Horror: Comparing Southern Gothic Writers and Stephen King
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-40987--,00.html

Lesson 5 - A Novel Exploring the Dark Side of the Human Mind
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-40991--,00.html

Lesson 6 - The Film Version of a Horror Novel
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly//0,1687,7-155-10702-40997--,00.html

Lesson 7 - Listening to Radio Horror
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-40998--,00.html

Lesson 8 - Adapting Horror: Creating a Script from a Published Work
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-41000--,00.html

Lesson 9 - Adapting Horror: Creating a Video
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-41002--,00.html

Lesson 10 - Presenting and Reviewing Horror Videos
http://www.michigan.gov/printerFriendly/0,1687,7-155-10702-41004--,00.html

I'd also check out:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/page/4095.html
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeArnzen/000759.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=237
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/more/LAShortStory3ModernFearAndSuspense1112.htm
http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/kinghorror.pdf

HWA-Michigan

2005-10-01T00:15:51Z

I have just been made the head of the Michigan Chapter of the Horror Writers Association. One of my first duties was to redo the website. You can check it out at:http://www.horror.org/mi/

Ketchum and School

2005-09-29T00:25:20Z

Anyone interested in horror writing needs to listen to Jack Ketchum's interview at:
Voices of Horror: An Interview with Jack Ketchum

School is going fairly well. We have the theatre program going so the kids are starting to do their own thing. Many are really finding their talents, and giving us hope for a great year. Today I read two classes my old story about hunting with my high school buddies. One class laughed the whole way through. I read my squirrel story to my Advanced English class. It's a story that started as a simple story about squirrels, but I had to add conflict and tension to make the story interesting. Giving such an innocent topic to a horror writer leads to a rather... um... interesting story. Some of the kids loved it, some will never look at squirrels that same way again. All were moved, and I guess that's what writing of that type is intended to do. The students' writing is improving, slowly. We will be working on POV soon, and then character "essays." I really want the literature magazine to be something the students will be proud of. It looks like we are well on that road.

For you moment of Zen, I refer you to marysang, with some thoughts on short story markets.

Preparing for school

2005-08-27T22:23:20Z

Yeah, I know. I need to update more often. I am getting settled into my new apartment.

Image removed due to stalker activity

At 1800 square feet, it is the biggest place I've ever rented. It costs about the same as our 800 ft^2 place in Detroit/Lincoln Park. There are some good things about living up here. It's a cool old place downtown, in what was originally the bank. I have a nice office to write in, although it is still a mess of papers and boxes.
I spent the last two weeks up in Copper Harbor. It was a nice relaxing time. I read a lot, A LOT. I got to catch up on some great TBR novels, and design a big chunk of my curriculum for the coming year. We are doing a World Cultures year, so no American, European, or Ancient stuff. All of the stuff that isn't normally covered. I found some really cool stuff, which I hope the kids will like. When I got home, at school copying handouts, writing their pretest, setting up my room, and other fun teacherly things. I found out I am also teaching two sections of Social Studies, and Theatre. I've never taught them before, so I don't know exactly what to expect. I was also given a copy of the intellectual properties clasue in our new bylaws. It was the worst right-grab I have seen. It said that the school owned the rights to everything I produced on my own time, with my own materials. I could petition the boards for these rights. I would also have to bring to the board any piece I PLANNED on writing, so they could decide if it would be in their best interests. If anything was marketable, they got the right to get it published and make money. (Remember this all applies to things I have written in my own time, using my own materials) I'm glad I checked before the start of the yeaar. I hope they take my revisions and fix this awful language. It does worry me a little as to what the other sections look like.
With all of the school stuff, I haven't had a chance to send out any of my writings. I plan on submitting a bunch of the shorts within a few days. The novel might have a chance at New York house, but I don't want to say anything more as don't want to jinx anything.

Which Tim Burton Character Are You?

2005-06-09T00:30:58Z

Which Tim Burton character are you?

The Headless Horseman

Silent, but deadly.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Excellent Were-bear Novel

2005-05-14T00:49:30Z

I just found out that one of my favorite horror books set in Michigan has been re-released. It's called Crooked Tree, and it's written by the Michigan native Robert C. Wilson (not to be confused with Robert Charles Wilson, the Science-Fiction writer). It has to do with the northern-Michigan bearwalker legend (a were-bear). For more info, check out:
Crooked Tree @ Amazon.com

Crooked Tree @ Univ. of Michigan Press

You can now find it at just about any book store.

cthulhu @ 2005-01-16T22:21:00

2005-01-17T03:25:18Z

FWPFNGR - Forever

dgk goldberg's fiction can be found through:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/scanner_darkly/109783.html

Fun book thingie

2004-12-16T18:36:43Z

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you

"Good reviews make me envy the recipient and wonder how I ended up on yesterday's dust heap."

Goth style is out at Wichita middle school

2004-09-08T22:25:53Z

www.kshb.com/kshb/nw_local_news/article/0,1925,KSHB_9424_3150714,00.html
Follow-up article at:
www.mtv.com/news/articles/1490673/20040831/index.jhtml?headlines=true
People speak out:
www.mtv.com/news/youtellus/topics/non_artist_topics/goth_clothes_banned/090704.jhtml

Info you might be interested in:

Principal Cherie Crain
mailto:ccrain@usd259.net

Wilbur Middle School
340 N Tyler Rd
Wichita, KS 67212
Sedgwick County
Phone: (316) 973-1100
FAX 973-1110

Picture game

2004-08-29T05:44:38Z

Find the differences between these two pictures. I'm told there are 25 differences, but I couldn't find them. Good luck.
http://members.home.nl/saen/Special/Zoeken.swf

More books

2004-08-26T20:02:10Z

For those of you who didn't know, I spent the first half of this month in the UP. For those non-Michiganders, the UP is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A land of trees and lakes and, well... little else. So, I had time to read a bunch of books I've been meaning to get off my TBR pile.
Return to Rainbow Country - William Davidson
This was a YA boys adventure book. Billy and his Indian friend Pete set off on an adventure into the Canadian wilderness. Some of the PCness annoyed me. I'm not a big fan of the PC attitude that actually shows an underlying bigotry. This is the sense that I got. Making a point of how PC a person is reminds me of the famous Shakespeare quote (as it is often bastardized from the original line in Hamlet), "Methinks he doth protest too much." This also brings up the scene with the evil builders dumping waste into the river. We didn't need a scene where the boys mess with the ignorant construction workers. It was glaringly unneeded, and pulled the reader out of the story so hard I wanted to throw it across the room. It had nothing to do with the plot whatsoever. The writing on a whole was very amateurish.
Billy's search for his father brings him to a hippy/back to our roots commune of sorts. It is there that Billy learns a little about the Bearwalk (and the entire reason that I read this book). The bearwalk figured into the frame of a court case, which the Indian was aquitted of. Some interesting points about the differences between US and Canadian handling of Indian cases. The entire thing was wrapped up very nicely, which is to be expected for the type of book.
Moon of the Wolf - Leslie H. Whitten
More werewolves, of course. This is a fairly standard Hollywood werewolf type of story. The main character was a Marine in WWI, and is now a deputy in a small Mississippi town. It does get into the relations of white and black cultures of the area a little bit. The main black family of the novel is Hatian. It is interesting to see how they are in and out of both sides of the town. I liked how the Hatian voodoo mixes with the French-creole loup-garou legends. I didn't like how much time was spent on the chase. This is one of the type of werewolf stories I'm not a big fan of. I want to see the werewolf, even be the werewolf. It was a fairly well written book, but it didn't really move me. It was too much of the same old thing for me.
Four Dark Nights- Bentley Little, Douglas Clegg, Christopher Golden, Tom Piccirilli
This is a collection of four novellas. All are superb. Little's "The Circle" is a few shorts that are loosely related, and come full circle. All are very wierd, and enjoyable. A wierd-fiction Lovecraftian, in modern times, idea. Golden's "Pyre," was a great novella about a haunted Viking pyre on the Atlantic coast. Very atmospheric, and creepy. The actual island with the pyre reminded me of Blackwood's stories. Pic's "Jonah Arose" explored some of the same area that we see in his novel Choir of Ill Children. We see the grotesque freek show circuit, and a den of ultimate freekishness. Pic's prose style creeps like Spanish Moss. It is infectious. Mix Southern-Gothic with a Splatter-punk mind, you've got one hell of a ride.
Clegg's "Words" hit me hard. This piece is about two social outcasts. The narrator is your everyboy kind of character, a little on the dorky side. His friend is into the dark arts. This reminds me of the various Lovecraft stories about calling to Cthulhu or some other elder god. Spooky as hell. Clegg made such a thing real, immediate. I felt like I could have known, or even have been, these kids.
This is one must-buy book. Leisure did a great thing by packaging these four together. Novellas are a hard mmp sell. This way fans of any one of these writers might find three other writers to read.
Watcher - Charles L. Grant
This was a White Wolf licensed book in an rpg world. That siad, Grant does a really good job. A werewolf hunter is sent by the council to kill off a rogue werewolf that could expose them all. (Sound familiar?) There are some questions about who is actually sending him, and what the real purpose is. It is a tale of intrigue, mixed with a good dose of horror, all around ChattaCon. It felt like a quick read. Don't write this one off because it is a tie-in, it is still a Charles L. Grant. If you are a werewolf fan, hunt this one down.
Moon Dance- S.P. Somtow
How did I miss this one? This was also my first Somtow. I was very impressed. This one-upped McGammons' The Wolf's Hour. The scale of this thing is epic. I like the frame, but like even more how we spend more time in the past. We are looking into the fratured mind of a murderer, and a werewolf. The layers are pulled away to reveal a story more involved than I had expected. There is an Indian tribe who is on the same land that the European werewolves want to set up as theirs. There is only room for one group of werewolves, so of course a fight ensues. The web of the story weaves tighter and tighter as we make our way toward the end, and see more and more personalities in our werewolf's mind. A very nice mix of a psychological condition and the supernatural. Don't let the length of this tome put you off, this is a must-read for werewolf fans. I hate the "Does for werewolves what Anne Rice did for Vampires" thing that adorns many werewolf books; but this book actually deserves it.
Time flies, and it's back to my own novel of werewolfy horror. The deadline approacheth.

Worst Club Exerience Ever!

2004-07-19T18:44:54Z

Once in a while, an incident is so striking, you have to tell the world (or at least your little corner of it).
I traveled to Toronto this weekend, in part to visit Savage Garden, THE goth club in Toronto. As many in the goth community, I'm not all that comfortable in the normal dance clubs. On Saturday, when my friends went to "The Docks," I convinced one of them to come with me to check out Savage Garden. I had printed out passes and directions from the website prior to traveling, so I thought I was all prepared. My friend and I were turned away at the door. No real reason was given. The bouncer tried to tell us that he had been told by other bars to not let us in. When I asked what that statement was supposed to be referring to, he just said "I am not allowing you in." There was no way for him to know who we were: and even if he did, my friend and I are not people who cause trouble. It was a rather surreal experience, like something out of a Kurt Vonnegut novel. I thought he was joking around at first because it was so absurd. It smacked of either gother-than-thou bullshit, or anti-American prejudice. I am not an easy person to offend, but this incident has left a very sour taste in my mouth. I have been to goth clubs all around the United States and have never had such treatment. All I wanted was a night to drink and dance in a goth club I had never been to before. Savage Garden has lost my business; I will never be going back.
I went over to the Toronto Goth page and read through the reviews of the club. Apparently this is a problem many others have experienced as well. If there is a "dress code," its enforcement seems to be completely arbitrary. This is defiantly not the way to run a club. It just proves how much impact an a$$hole at the door can make. Anyone remember the debacle at The Nectarine? In that incident, the club immediately fired said bouncer and put apologies in the Michigan Daily and the Ann Arbor News; but the court of public opinion had already made its decision and they lost a bunch of business that didn't come back until new management took over.

Charles Grant Auction

2004-05-25T02:42:45Z

Check it out. Great stuff, for an even better cause.
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&include=0&userid=bookwyrm55&sort=3&rows=25&since=-1&rd=1

I'm being bearwalked, and it's all your fault.

2004-04-20T05:15:16Z

Ok, it seems Seton Hill's servers are on the fritz right now, so I'll post this here.
I read The Bear Walk by Christina Rencontre this weekend. It was a creative thesis for the author's Master's degree at Northern Michigan University.
The elements of actual bearwalking were not that prevalent in the story. Teeple does see the bear, that the reader is led to believe is a spirit bear (or a bearwalker). His aunt, Eveleen, complains about being bearwalked, but we don't know if that is really the case. (A person who is being bearwalked will become sick, and ultimately die) She dies, but that element is left ambiguous. The reader is led to blame her alcoholism more than some vague notions of a dark force working against her, especially when we don't hear/see anyone who would have reason to bearwalk her. Ze-do performs the standard bearwalker thwarting measures, but the reader doesn't get a good sense of whether this worked or not. The bearwalking references that were there were interesting. Most of the ones with Teeple did not invoke any sort of ill feeling. It seemed more as a sort of spirit guide or totem than an evil medicine man skinwalking in the form of a bear. The figure of Ze-do presents an obvious suspect for the Bearwalker because he wears a bearskin outfit when performing a ceremony the first time we see him, and his medicine is bear-medicine. By the end of the book this possibility does not seem very probable. It seems odd that he should know so much abut the bear, but that isn't delved into to any great deal. Teeple is given a bearclaw necklace that may or may not have originally come from Ze-do. The necklace is supposed to be kept on until the wearer is done with their journey. I didn't get a good sense that Teeple was done with his journey. I guess he put his family behind him and realized that he could live a sober live, and possibly restart a life with Carole and her new baby. Teeple's motives don't seem very clear to himself. This is one of the problems that arise from such a close narration of a story. I didn't really care all that much about Teeple's character, and I wasn't given much reason to cheer for him at the end. He's off the sauce and he's going to get another woman. What about he own son? What about the years it will take to truly say he is sober. Perhaps that's the point, that it's not the end of a journey really, but the beginning of another. No journey truly has an end, it just leads into the start of another. If done well, that might work for a novel. I've read other novels with such an ending.
I didn't have a problem with the dreams per se, but I did think they could have been used more effectively to foreshadow and explain events. The one real foreshadowing wasn't a dream at all, but a story Ze-do tells him about a bear who is turned into a man, and then goes back and kills his family. Teeple has a dream where he is that bear, but he is burying his family. This relates to the end of the book where all of his family is dead. We are given a hint that his father may be alive, but just started a new family and didn't want to see Teeple anymore. This could have led to some big abandonment issues. This whole father thing was not dealt with at all. Teeple himself is a father, but he seems very apathetic about his own fatherly roles. Nothing is talked about or resolved about it. He talks about his son, and wanting to find his father, but these points are extremely rare and fleeting. It doesn't look like Teeple really embraced the spirit of the bear. He did have Eveleen cremated in Ze-do's way, not the way of her tribe; but that problem was not dealt with or explained really. I guess that means she finally had to come to terms with the bear spirit that was haunting her.
Looking at it like a mass market editor, I can see why this wasn't published. The vernacular can get annoying for someone not used to it. There are more apostrophes per page than I have ever seen. "a" for "of", "an" for "and" Things like that were a little distracting at first. Once I got a page or two in, it seemed very personal and familiar; like Catcher in the Rye type of prose style. I grew up with that accent though, so I know exactly how she meant for things to sound. It is that uneducated northern Michigan accent (not to be confused with the Yooper accent). Others would probably have a difficult time with it. I gave it to Erica to read, she gave up after 2 pages. Experimental style is a risk, sometimes if falls flat. There are some abbreviations and words that aren't explained. Some people wouldn't get that D.T. is supposed to be delirium tremens; and even if they did, it would slow them down. M.D. 20/20 (the cheap wine, Mad Dog 20/20) is another good example. There were also some words that weren't defined very well for English speakers. If you didn't know that muckwa meant bear, you would get a vision of wide muddy tracks from a pick-up truck. These are regionalisms and colloquialisms that should be clarified if you hope to reach a wider audience. I like what Orson Scot Card said, that writing should be just a little bit more formal that actual speaking.
The novel also had some length issues. We like to say that it's the story that matters, in whatever length it takes to write that story. But sometimes that means a fight to get it into the marketplace. At 190 pages, in 12 point Ariel font, double spaced, single sided; this would not even qualify as a novel. I think much of the diversions could be cut down and this turned into a very readable novella. Many of those diversions really just take away from the main intent of the story anyway. Some of the events seem rambling. A story like this is usually striking because of the emotional impact of a person going through a tough mental journey/awakening. This story seemed to give that a short shrift, even though it tried not to. Overall, this was a fair book. I would never have read it if it hadn't had the bearwalk references. I am glad I read it from a research standpoint. As pure entertainment, I was not as satisfied. This seemed like one of the new breed of literary fiction that is marked by how unliterary it seems to be. It shows a group of people that don't often see print, but it didn't really show much more than the tired stereotypes. It tried to delve into deep issues, but seemed scared to really dig beneath the surface and leave any lasting scars.

New Blog

2004-02-24T05:36:44Z

I have a new Blog for my writing and reading related to Seton Hill. Arnzen had it set up for me. I'm required to post over there, so you will find more musings and general rantings, more or less on topic at:
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AaronBennett/

New and improved

2003-06-17T00:51:33Z

Yes, yes. I don't update here, at all. Since I started this; I've gotten married (sorry ladies), got my BA from U of Michigan, got my teaching certificate, and entered grad school at Seton Hill U. If you want to get a hold of me, check out
www.angelfire.com/goth/abennett