noteworthy notes!

I find it interesting that books have trailers nowadays. I suppose I could launch into some "Back in my day..."-heavy essay about how, you know, back in my day we used to browse at the library, and if the blurb inside the front cover sounded good, we'd check the hell out of that book. But! There's no use. The times truly are a-changin'...or they've a-changed or what have you, and a books now have trailers with phasers set to ENTICE. One such book is the forthcoming Ancestor, written by Scott Sigler, my old cohort at the defunct AMC Horror Hacker blog. As Scott himself says, the trailer's got "Guns, guys, chicks, blood, monsters, drool, and a bad word. What more could you want?" Check it out!


Ancestor hits stands on June 22.

Every five minutes, a transplant candidate dies while waiting for a compatible heart, a liver, a kidney. Imagine a technology that could provide those life-saving transplant organs for a nominal fee ... and imagine what a company would do to monopolize that technology.

On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, PJ Colding leads a group of geneticists who have discovered this holy grail of medicine. By reverse-engineering thousands of animal genomes, Colding's team has dialed back the evolutionary clock and re-created the progenitor of all mammals. The method? Illegal. The result? A computer-engineered living creature, an animal whose organs can be implanted in any person, with no chance of transplant rejection.

There's just one problem: these ancestors are not the docile herd animals that Colding's team envisioned. Instead, Colding’s work has given birth to something big, something evil…something very, very hungry.

As creators become prey in the ultimate battle for survival, Colding and the woman he loves must fight to survive — even as government agents close in to shut the project down, and the deep-pocketed company backing this research reveals its own cold-blooded agenda.

ANCESTOR is at once an action-packed tale featuring a host of deadly, hungry critters and a flawed but heroic group of people trying to survive … and a terrifyingly believable exploration of what can happen when hubris, greed, and madness drive scientific experimentation past the brink of reason. Sigler takes us on the ultimate thrill ride — you’ll be looking over your shoulder long after you’re done reading, just in case.

If you've read Scott's AMC column and/or either of his previous novels (Infected and Contagious), then you know that he kind of, sort of knows what he's doing. By "he kind of, sort of knows what he's doing", I mean that he writes things you don't want to stop reading- which is essential in the world of the horror novel.


In film festival news, June 11 marks the day of Fears for Queers, a GLBT horror film fest taking place in Addison, Texas. Lots of good stuff on the roster- including A Far Cry from Home, written/directed by and starring the inimitable Alan Rowe Kelly. My short film Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear is also in the lineup. Annnnnd, half of the profits are going to benefit Youth First Texas. So go go go!


In other film festivals that are showing Taste of Flesh news, the 2010 premiere of the Viscera Film Festival approacheth (July 17th!!), and you (yes, even you) can help out by becoming a sponsor. Here be the skinny:

What you do:

Donate any amount from $1.00-$99.00.

What the Festival does for you:

List your name/Company’s name on the Viscera Festival Website.
Project your name/Company’s name on the big screen.
Hand out any of your promotional material.

What it means:

Your donation of even $1 will help to pay the expenses of the theater, bloody carpet, backdrop, video/photography services, catering, and the organization of the Festival. We believe that women are truly coming together in one of the most difficult industries to break into today. Any donation will help to serve that purpose!

How to do it:

Click the Paypal button you'll find HERE, or send a check/money order to the address located on the same page. Easy, breezy, et cetera.

The festival is going to be six whopping hours of horror films directed by women. Check out this guest list of speakers, presenters, and...guests:

- Brea Grant (Halloween II, Heroes)
- Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever)
- Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
- Juliet Landau (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
- Guinevere Turner (American Psycho)
- Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp)
- Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary)
- Jessica Harper (Suspiria) (yes, I just said Jessica Harper from Suspiria)
- Alison Anders (Gas, Food, Lodging)

...and more to come. What the WHAT! Unbelievable. Shannon Lark at The Chainsaw Mafia and Heidi Martinuzzi of Pretty/Scary are workin' hard to make this festival supreme; you can help, too, and get your company/website name in front of many eyeballs.

"Festival supreme" sounds delicious, by the way.