Just now, I submitted the second edition of Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover for publication on Amazon Kindle. It contains about half a dozen poems not included in the first along with a few format/editorial changes. I believe they make the work stronger and more powerful and much more poignant. It should appear for purchase by Friday, February 23. Visit my Amazon’s author page for a copy or to find out more about my works.
Month: February 2018
My Interview with KSJE Will Air on March 7 at 10:30 A.M.
In February, I recorded an interview on my works and writing with “Write On Four Corners“, a program with KSJE 90.9 FM, the Farmington (NM) National Public Radio station. The interview will air on March 7, 2018, at 10:30 a.m. The interview covered a wide range of topics concerning my writing and my writing plans for the future including upcoming work. Be sure to tune in. The program was hosted by Traci HalesVass, retired assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at San Juan College in Farmington. The interview will be available on podcast after the broadcast.
To celebrate this, on the day of the broadcast, I am giving away e-copies of all my works available on Amazon Kindle. These include A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, Alien Embrace, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, Diabolical: Three Tales of Jack Thurston and Revenge, and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover. Follow this link to my Amazon Author’s page to find out more about each work.
A Quiet Tuesday Night
Tonight is uneventful.
I was notified yesterday via direct message on Twitter that Namri’d Publishing of Edgewood, NM, is awarding me an advertising package of “two reviews on Amazon, Goodreads and Barnes and Noble and sharing of your book on Facebook and Twitter at least weekly for one month” valued at $100. I have not heard of them and don’t know how they got my name, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. They asked for a copy of one of my books and a cover photo, so tonight I sent them A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror. We’ll see how this goes. I tend to be leery of deals too good to be true, especially if they come out of the blue, but I do not see that I have anything to lose here either. They are not asking for any money (at least at this point). I looked up the company on the Internet, and it seems to be a straightforward, small publisher. If things go as well as I hope, then this will be a good deal for us both and I will always be grateful to them for this opportunity.
Interestingly, I have passed through Edgewood many times. For some time, my wife has lived and worked in Midland, TX, and when I go to see her, the most direct route from Aztec, NM, where I live, takes me through Edgewood. Often, I stay the night at an America’s Best Value Inn in the town of Moriarty, which is just east of Edgewood. Edgewood is about as typical small town America as they come, situated on the edge of the rolling plain just east of Albuquerque. From what I have seen, it is a beautiful little community with a large nature park.
Other than that, I have collected some information together for my taxes and have been advertising my upcoming interview on KSJE (90.9 FM, March 7 at 10:30 a.m. Mountain Standard Time) on Goodreads and sending out a few invitations to listen to it.
I usually keep the TV on in the background, and these days it’s usually on YouTube, which I love for the wide variety of programming (admittedly, some is of dubious sources, but nonetheless entertaining), but you can also find great articles on topics you can’t find on regular TV, such as staging of classical plays like “Death of a Salesman”, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, “The Iceman Cometh”, or “Waiting for Godot”. You can also find great biographies. One of my favorite programs of all time was A&E’s Biography. I can now watch its re-runs. The biography of John Steinbeck is playing now.
So now I sit at my laptop, typing this article, having hot tea, watching Biography, and waiting for my wife to call. After I finish this post, I will start my writing for the night.
“Lady Frankenstein and the Mummy’s Brain” from Drunk in a Graveyard
Scary Tales Publishing, who I’ve talked about in the past with their “Fractured Scary Tales” series, are back with a new release titles “Lady Frankenstein and the Mummy’s Brain.” Making its debut at the spring comics conventions at both Long Beach Convention Center in California and Kansas City’s Bartle Hall in Missouri, this new 20-page […]
via NEW! Horror Comic “Lady Frankenstein and the Mummy’s Brain” Coming Soon — DRUNK IN A GRAVEYARD
Watching Stephen King on YouTube
This evening I have been working on the second edition of Nocturne with YouTube playing in the background. Currently, I am watching “Stephen King, His Books, and Their Origins at Lisner Auditorium (published on Nov. 22, 2014 by Politics and Prose). I always love hearing about the origins of a writer’s works and King touches on several briefly followed by a reading from Revival. The most interesting part I have seen so far is his comment that he thinks plots are for weak writers. He follows his characters, so to speak, and doesn’t have an idea of where a book will end, so its ending is a surprise to him. Quite an interesting video. I recommend it.
Poem: “Come with Me, My Love”
This is a poem I wrote in the late 80’s to early 90’s, most likely some time between 1988 and 1991, when I was living in Alexandria, Virginia, dating around and frequenting the bars in Old Town Alexandria. I don’t recall the circumstances under which I wrote this, just the feeling of these being the emotions of walking home around 2:00 a.m. after closing time.
This is the opening poem of my first volume of verse, Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover. Nocturne will be free on Amazon Kindle on February 23. I published it on Valentine’s Day of this year.
Going through my computer files tonight, I believe I have discovered some poems unintentionally left out. Stand by for a second edition. I hope you enjoy this poem.
Come with me, my love
and I will show you
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle rattling down a cobblestone
street blown by a chill
wind
Come with me, my love
and I will show you
nights of love
full of lust and passion
as lonely as a lonely
man pacing off a deserted street
under the brisk October moon
its cold light muted
in the mists
As the fog embraces you
like a one-night stand in a town
of dying dreams where
hopes lie scattered on the barroom floor
with cigarette butts and the dust
of endless roads
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
as only
lovers can.
“Back to Blogging” from RogerMoorePoetdotcom
It took a long time. Many apologies for my absence. Thanks to the people at WordPress, I found my blog after a six month absence, and I am ready to start blogging again. I look forward to reconnecting with my many blogging friends. Roger.
“Her Strong Enchantments Failing” by A.E. Housman
Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poisons
And the knife at her neck,
The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
“O young man, O my slayer,
To-morrow you shall die.”
O Queen of air and darkness,
I think ’tis truth you say,
And I shall die tomorrow;
But you will die to-day.
My Interview with KSJE Will Air on March 7 at 10:30 A.M.
In February, I recorded an interview on my works and writing with “Write On Four Corners“, a program with KSJE 90.9 FM, the Farmington (NM) National Public Radio station. The interview will air on March 7, 2018, at 10:30 a.m. The interview covered a wide range of topics concerning my writing and my writing plans for the future including upcoming work. Be sure to tune in. The program was hosted by Traci HalesVass, retired assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at San Juan College in Farmington. The interview will be available on podcast after the broadcast.
To celebrate this, on the day of the broadcast, I am giving away e-copies of all my works available on Amazon Kindle. These include A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, Alien Embrace, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, Diabolical: Three Tales of Jack Thurston and Revenge, and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover. Follow this link to my Amazon Author’s page to find out more about each work.
Spring “Diabolical” Giveaway
Diabolical: Three Tales of Jack Thurston and Revenge will be free March 2, 7, and 20; April 6; and May 1.
Jack Thurston is a retired professor of medieval literature and history. He is also a widower and father and a retired sorcerer who has returned to the black arts to exact horrifying revenge for the death of his wife, daughter, and brother. Jack has an intriguing position in the universe at a focal point of life, the afterlife, logic and reason, anger and hatred, the ancient and the modern worlds, grief and his attempts to escape grief through self-destruction. Though he wants to have the peace he once found with his wife, Agatha, he is pulled in many directions by circumstance and by his powerful negative emotions.
Currently, Jack has a Twitter account (@jthurston666), where he has attracted a small following and where it has only recently been revealed that he is fictional. Jack has his own blog at jackthurstonblog.wordpress.com (a work in progress) and his own e-mail at jackthurston666@gmail.com. Information on more social media accounts and other characters (as they are developed) can be found at: philslattery.wordpress.com. Please interact with him at any of his social media accounts as you would with a real person.
Check back frequently. More giveaways are coming in the near future.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.
Alien Embrace Giveaway on Four Days in March
Alien Embrace will be free on March 1, 7, 9, and 20.
Alien Embrace is the story of Logan Rickover, an officer on a spaceship set to explore the alien world of Stheno D. Captured by a xenomorph that wants to use him as food for its young, he must fight a battle for control of his own mind as the alien feeds him hallucinations to keep him complacent until its young hatch. Can Logan regain control of his mind in time to escape back to his ship?
Ron Baker, Amazon Customer, gives this story five stars and comments:
“This short has exactly what I like in science fiction: planet exploration and bizarre otherworldly aliens, in this case insectoid. The horrendous purpose the aliens have for the hapless astronauts who make planetfall to find the numerous previous missing exploration teams is grisly. I love the mystery of the planet and the authors device of alternating from the aliens bizarre perspective then switching to the astronauts point of view.”
Check back frequently. More giveaways are coming in the near future.
“Celebrating: Black Horror History” from HorrorAddicts.Net
Sycorax’s Daughters gives Black Women in Horror a Voice By Sumiko Saulson, editor of Black Magic Women Editor’s Note: On February 5, 2018 the Horror Writer’s Association announced that all three of the works by black women mentioned in this article have made it to the final Stoker’s ballot. The article was written when the […]
via Black Women in Horror: Sycorax’s Daughters — HorrorAddicts.net
Four of My Works Will Be Free on Friday, February 23.
On each Friday over the next few months, I will be giving away one or more of my works.
On Friday the 23rd, I am giving away A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, and my latest work, Nocturne.
A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
In The Scent and Other Stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
In Click, Frank Martinez, a policeman with the Corpus Christi Police Department, has unintentionally shot and killed an unarmed man when called to intercede in a domestic violence case. To recover from the guilt while the incident is under investigation by the CCPD, Frank’s fiancée arranges for him to stay on a secluded island owned by her father’s former law partner. While dozing one night on a lounge chair in the yard, he awakes to find two hitmen slipping onto the island and breaking into the cabin. Are they after him? Are they after the cabin’s owner? Most importantly, how is he going to reach his pistol in his luggage in the bedroom?
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems he wrote during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of that time as a narrator, who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Kindle was published on February 15, 2018. This is the first time it is being offered for free as a promotion.
All of these are available on Kindle at amazon.com/author/philslattery.
Phil Slattery’s Sci-Fi Novelette “Alien Embrace” Will Be Free on Amazon February 16, 2018
My novelette Alien Embrace will be free on Amazon February 16, 2018.
Logan Rickover, owner of a hardware store in a small town in Kentucky, has lucid dreams of life as an astronaut that intrude upon his life at any moment. Which of his lives is real? The quiet paradise of Danville or the terrifying jungle world of Stheno D?
Ron Baker commented, “This short has exactly what I like in science fiction: planet exploration and bizarre otherworldly aliens, in this case insectoid. The horrendous purpose the aliens have for the hapless astronauts who make planetfall to find the numerous previous missing exploration teams is grisly. I love the mystery of the planet and the authors device of alternating from the aliens bizarre perspective then switching to the astronauts point of view.”
I will be offering more of my works for free in the upcoming weeks. Check back often.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other social media.
“Nocturne” Has Been Published on Amazon Kindle
On February 14 at about 10:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, I finished and submitted my poetry collection Nocturne for publication on Amazon Kindle. It has been published. A print version is in the works.
Nocturne is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems written during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of a narrator who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically.
Check back frequently for updates.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 