S.G. Browne

Next weekend, June 16-19, I’ll be attending the Horror Writer’s Association Bram Stoker Weekend at the Long Island Marriott Hotel in Long Island, New York. Although the majority of the weekend programming is open only to those who have registered for the convention, there will be a mass book signing the evening of Thursday, June 16th, that is open to the public.

Held in the Grand Ballroom of the Marriott, the Book Signing Meet and Greet will run from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. There’s no guarantee that everyone at the convention will be signing or have books for sale, but here’s a list of convention attendees. There will be a special area for Guests of Honor, which include Peter Straub, David Morrell, Gillian Flynn, Douglas Clegg, and Dacre Stoker (the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker).

While I will be in attendance signing books, unfortunately I won’t have any copies of Breathers or Fated for sale and I can’t guarantee that anyone in the dealer’s room will have copies available. However, please feel free to bring along your copy for a signature or just stop by to say “hey.” This will be my only appearance while I’m in New York.

Hope to see you next Thursday!

Long Island Marriott Hotel
101 James Doolittle Boulevard
Uniondale, NY
(516) 794-3800 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (516) 794-3800 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

In honor of Zombie Awareness Month (yes, apparently, May is Zombie Awareness Month), I’ve asked Jerry from Breathers if he would like to share his thoughts on some of his favorite current zombie fiction. So without further delay, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Jerry!

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Thanks dude. So to be honest, I don’t read a lot of, like, zombie fiction. Just because I’m a zombie doesn’t mean I want to read about myself. How narcissistic is that? I mean, do private investigators only read detective novels? If they do, they’re total tools.

But anyway, I have read a couple of zombie novels recently that I thought were pretty good, so here’s my take on them.

Zombie, Ohio by Scott Kenemore

This is a story about a college professor dude in rural Ohio who wakes up from a car accident to find out he’s, like, a total zombie. Only unlike the other brain dead zombies that are freaking everyone out, he’s a smart zombie. At first he doesn’t even realize he’s one of us, but when it becomes apparent, he pretty much gives in to his hunger for human burgers.

But as he becomes isolated from the humans in his life (his friend and his girlfriend, who seems totally hot), he finds himself bonding with the other zombies and leading them across Ohio in search of food and purpose. It’s pretty cool, in a funny, disgusting, existential kind of way.

The main character kind of reminds me of Andy, all philosophical and wondering about the meaning of things. Personally, I think he should just chill out and have some fun. Smoke a bowl and drink some Jack. But of course, that’s what got me here, so maybe I’m not the best one to give out advice.

Zombies and Shit by Carlton Mellick III

This is one of the most bizarre books I’ve ever read. In a good way. Funny and gross with a lot of action and hot chicks. It’s like a mixture of the zombie apocalypse, The Running Man, and a totally fucked up version of Lost. Only without Hurley.

A bunch of dudes and dudettes, like twenty of them, wake up in an abandoned building on this island that’s totally swarming with zombies. Turns out they’re on a game show. And only one of them gets to make it off the island alive. So like, one by one they each get picked off, either by the zombies or by each other. Bummer.

The book was a lot of fun, with a bunch of zombies and zombie smart cars and these mechanized zombie dogs that totally freaked me out. I liked a lot of the characters, and totally related to Scavy and Junko, but Heinz was a complete dick. Oh, and one of the characters is a cybernetic Mr. T, that dude from The A-Team. That was awesome!

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Scott Kenemore is the author of the Zen of Zombie series, including The Zen of Zombie, The Art of Zombie Warfare, and Zombies vs Nazis

Carlton Mellick III is the author of numerous Bizarro novels, including Satan Burger, The Haunted Vagina, and Christmas on Crack

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the chance to experience having other people tell me what my books mean. What someone else got out of them. How strangers interpreted them. It’s an odd thing, having people who had nothing to do with the creation of your book tell you and others what it is you’re trying to say with your writing. Sometimes it’s so far off base that you wonder if the person took crystal meth before reading the book.

Like the person who thought Breathers was an allegory for the Holocaust.

Initially, this disparity was something I had trouble adjusting to, even when someone made me out to look smarter or more insightful than I actually am. After all, I’m the one who wrote the book, so I’m the only one who knows the truth of the words I’ve written. Of what I intended to accomplish.

But at some point around the time when Fated came out last November, I began to realize that the truth of creation is no more valid than the truth of interpretation. How one person reacts to a book or a story is true for them. It’s a reflection of how the book speaks, or doesn’t speak, to their sensibilities. Of how it makes them feel. So how one person interprets the words and ideas I’ve strung together is absolutely correct.

It’s just different than my interpretation.

Art in all of its forms is subjective, be it a novel, a movie, an album, or a painting. As a fan of writing, film, music, and fine art, I understand that my opinion is just that. An opinion. I understand that there is no objectivity in art. That art exists for us to experience and that each individual experience is shaped by personal preferences and viewpoints. There is no definitive quality that makes one piece of art better than another. It’s all subjective. As someone once told me, once you start to qualify art, it ceases to become art.

Just because I think Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown is one of the best albums of the past decade doesn’t make it true.

Just because I think Being John Malkovich was the most original film of 1999 doesn’t mean it deserved to have won any awards.

But sometimes it’s difficult to be on the other side of the process, to be the creator rather than the consumer, and maintain that point of view. To understand that when you let your creations out into the world, they no longer belong to just you. They belong to everyone who experiences them.

However, when someone—a reviewer or a teacher or some self-proclaimed literati—claims to know what the author intended, whether it’s a novel written by me or by someone else, that’s where I think they’ve developed an over-inflated sense of themselves. You can’t possibly know what the author intended unless you spoke with the author about his or her intentions. You can guess. You can theorize. You can view the books through your own personal lens and offer your own personal insights. But you can’t know what the author was thinking. It’s all just a matter of opinion. A matter of interpretation.

And in spite of the fact that I might not agree with them, all of those opinions and interpretations are true.

I’ll be attending the World Horror Convention in Austin, TX, at the Doubletree Hotel this weekend, though my stay in Austin will be abbreviated, as I’ll be flying out to Los Angeles on Saturday to attend the L.A. Times Festival of Books at the USC campus.

My schedule for both events is listed below. Unfortunately, since I’ll be leaving Austin on Saturday, I won’t be in attendance for the mass autograph signing on Saturday night. So my apologies if anyone was expecting me to be there.

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World Horror Convention – Doubletree Hotel, Austin, TX
Friday, April 29
Reading (with Gary McMahon)
1:00pm – 2:00pm
Robertson Room

Friday, April 29
Panel: Why Horror Movies Are Terrible
(with Brad Keene, Thomas Sipos, Joe Hill, Gemma Files, and Mark Wheaton)
7:00pm – 8:00pm
Dezavela Room

L.A. Times Festival of Books – USC Campus, Los Angeles, CA
Sunday, May 1
Signing (with Steve Hockensmith, Debra Ginsberg, and Christopher Farnsworth)
11:00am – 11:50am
Booth #372 – Mysterious Galaxy Books
(In the Founders Park area, near the Poetry Stage)

Check out the entire weekend signing schedule for Mysterious Galaxy Books at their booth.

There’s also map of the Festival of Books you can download here. And if you have an iPhone or an Android, you can download the Festival of Books app to your phone.

I hope to see you in either Austin or Los Angeles!

I’ll be appearing at WonderCon this weekend at the Moscone Center South in San Francisco for a couple of events.

April 1 – Signing
Geekscape, Booth #617
2:00PM – 3:00PM

On Friday, April 1, I’ll be signing 11″ x 17″ posters of the covers for Breathers and Fated, including the UK versions.  Unfortunately, I won’t have any copies of my books for sale, but feel free to bring your copy to the Geekscape Booth (#617) and I’ll be happy to sign it.

April 2 – Interview w/ F. Paul Wilson
Room 220
2:00PM – 3:00PM

On Saturday, April 2, I’ll be interviewing F. Paul Wilson, bestselling author of The Keep, Black Wind, and the Repairman Jack Series, as well as numerous other novels, screenplays, and comic books.  There will be an audience Q&A afterward.

Hope to see you this weekend!