BEAT to a PULP #114: A Different Kind of Blue by Michael A. Gonzales

Michael A. Gonzales is a cultural critic, essayist and short story writer. He has written magazine features for New York, Wax Poetics, Stop Smiling, Vibe, Essence, The Village Voice, XXL and High Times. A former NY Press columnist, his essay on literary hero Chester Himes appeared in Best African-American Essays 2010 edited by Gerald Early and Randall Kennedy (Random House). In addition, Gonzales has also written erotica for Brown Sugar 2: Best One Night Stands edited by Carol Taylor (Random House), Gotta Have It edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Cleis Press) and Bunnie 2: Voyeurism.

Inspired by the works of David Goodis, Howard Chaykin and David Lynch, he has written noir fiction for The Darker Masker: Heroes from the Shadows edited by Gary Phillips and Chris Chambers (Tor Books), Bronx Biannual edited by Miles Marshall Lewis (Akashic Books), Needle, Pulp Metal, Crime Factory and A Twist of Noir. Originally from Harlem, he has also lived in Baltimore and Brooklyn. Currently finishing his noir novel Uptown Boys, he blogs at Blackadelic Pop.

This week Mr. Gonzales is at BTAP with A Different Kind of Blue.

Round One Review

Heath Lowrance at Psycho-Noir reviews ROUND ONE.

Photo-Finish Friday -- Montpelier

Little d and I visited James Madison's Montpelier in 2007 when the founding father's home was being restored. This room was where some of the Bill of Rights was written.

PFF is the creation of Leah J. Utas.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Bitter Steel by Charles Allen Gramlich

I can safely say Charles Allen Gramlich's stories introduced me to the world of Sword and Planet and Sword and Sorcery. I have watched fantasy films but haven't read much in the genre, the closest being a lone Tarzan book and part of a C.S. Lewis title, which really isn’t all that close. Mr. Gramlich’s posts on Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane and his own Talera novels (I still have to read the third in this fine series) whet my appetite and now BITTER STEEL: TALES AND POEMS OF EPIC FANTASY has blown the hinges off the door.

I carried my Kindle with me the day our daughter was born. I had about five stories left to read in the STEEL collection, and it was the perfect way to pass the time while waiting for labor to progress before heading off to the hospital, and then the day-and-a-half hospital stay following the birth. I'm no authority on this genre so I'm not going to attempt to discuss it beyond that I enjoyed the book and would recommend BITTER STEEL without hesitation. But I will say, when I read part of STEEL's "Sundered Man" to my four-day-old daughter, she was as quiet and attentive as can be. (A future Fantasy writer? Maybe.) Also, I was inspired so much by the antho that I've begun composing my own fantasy world of characters. We'll see if anything comes from this but it's an enjoyable escape from my beloved westerns and crime stories.

Any fantasy series, short stories, or novels you would recommend?

Fatherhood: Exhaustion & Creative Ideas

Ok, you knew these posts were coming and you're probably cringing because, maybe like me, you still have nightmares of a certain television host’s giddiness over a precocious child named Cody. So, I will keep ‘em short and limit them to less than one hundred and seventy five posts a year. And I will do my best to keep them related to writing or editing.

First-up is making the use of lost sleep. My littlest charmer’s first week’s birthday is coming up, and everyone had warned us about lost sleep--they were not shittin’ Dixie there. (Sidebar: Kieran, thanks for the book tip.) Still I found a silver lining to these beyond-drained moments by tapping into a creative outlet. I’m talking times when you’re using industrial-strength toothpicks to hold the eyelids open but they're still snapping. Then, two hours later, when you're rocking the baby in time to Jagger’s “Just Another Night,” your mind drifts to what’s left of your artistic attic and BAM! There, past Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles Meets the Killer, Boris Karloff, and the Land of the Modest Giants, you can find some peculiar story ideas converging like Lillian Gish’s ice floats in WAY DOWN EAST. Writer John Kenyon informed me that “...have a pen at the ready, too - sleep deprivation can conjure some crazy thoughts... might be a story in it!”

John was very right.

At first, I didn’t know what to think of this bizarro, imaginative terrain but as Mick began warbling “Memo From Turner,” I let my thoughts boogie and found some out of the ordinary yarn ideas waiting to be mined. Many at first I couldn’t use, but, into day four, I welcomed the witching hour and learned to piece different fragments together like those high tech films where they move touch screen still slides from one spot to another on the video screen. Little d and my godsend mother-in-law were mercifully allowed some sleep as I began swimming past the Island of Misfit Toys, Tod Browning’s FREAKS, and FANTASTIC VOYAGE.

My baby coconut is finally drifting off to sleep. 3:45 am. Just me, Ava, Mick and my next story waiting.

Does anybody else know what I’m talking about? What were some of your experiences in the first few weeks?

BEAT to a PULP #113: The Death Fantastique by John Hornor Jacobs

"What's that mean?"

"What?"

"Your titty. Is that French or something?"

She smiled, weakly, and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Efram liked the way she looked, wary, big-eyed and delicate, like she'd spent too much time indoors when she was a girl. She had some bruising here and there, but nothing that didn't come with the business.

"Means a 'fantastic death.'"

John Hornor is one creative son-of-a-gun. He first impressed the hell out of me with his marvelous covers for Needle: A Magazine of Noir, which is why I asked him if he'd be interested in making the cover for my upcoming eBook, Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles. His first novel, SOUTHERN GODS, will be published by Night Shade Books (August, 2011), and his other novels are on submission at various publishers. In between designing covers and writing novels--he even found some time to come up with this week's excellent image--he submitted a first-rate, hardboiled noir, "The Death Fantastique," that begs the question, what can’t the talented Mr. Jacobs do?

Ava

Denise and I received the ultimate Valentine’s Day present: a seven-pound, healthy baby girl. Ava arrived at 10:32 in the evening, and, good lord, there was no greater moment than watching her enter the world. Everyone immediately commented on her full head of hair. A photographer snapped some marvelous shots including one of me holding her tiny feet which I hope to post as soon as the CD arrives.

Thank you all for your kind e-mails, gifts, and posts.