Letters From the Labyrinth 226 - Brian Keene
Hi. I'm Brian Keene and this is the 225th issue of Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for fans of my work. Previous issues are archived here.
Hard to believe that this little guy, who all of you heard growing up over the years while The Horror Show with Brian Keene was on the air, is now 13 years old.
Thirteen is a good age, as I remember it. It's when you really start to develop your own individual tastes in music, art, literature, film, and more. That's certainly true for him. Two of his favorite things from the past year have been the music of Twisted Sister and The Karate Kid/ Cobra Kai franchise. In the case of the former, he's gone so far as to write his own Twisted SIster song parody (like another of his idols, Weird Al Yankovic). Instead of "I Wanna Rock" it's called "I Want A Rock" and is about... a kid who wants a pet rock. When the pandemic is over, he wants Mike Lombardo to direct a music video for him.
Ah yes, when the pandemic is over. That's the refrain we're all repeating now, isn't it? Meanwhile, he turned 13 in the middle of the pandemic. And since we couldn't have a party or see extended family quite yet, I got a few other people to wish him a happy birthday instead.
Here is the video Dee Snider of Twisted Sister made for him.
And here is the video Martin Kove of The Karate Kid/Cobra Kai franchise made for him.
Dee Snider is right in his video. I am a pretty cool dad. ;-)
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Last week was very slow for work. I'm behind on absolutely everything, because I was at various doctors on various days, dealing with blood pressure and other stuff. Have to go back again tomorrow, as well.
About the only thing I can truly say I got accomplished was recording a new episode of Defenders Dialogue with Chris Golden -- in which we finished our coverage of Steve Gerber's run on Man-Thing. Listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts.
I'm pissed off about getting so little done. It stresses me out, which in turn leads to more instability in my blood pressure. A vicious circle. But these new meds they switched me to do seem to be working better than the old ones.
Yes, this is the sort of exciting commentary you folks have come to me for -- meditations on blood pressure medicine.
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Time is running out to pre-order the signed paperbacks of STORIES FOR THE NEXT PANDEMIC by myself and THE SHAPES OF NIGHT by Mary SanGiovanni. Sold as a set, they are autographed by us both, and currently at the printer. $21 gets you both books. CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER
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DISSONANT HARMONIES by myself and Bev Vincent will go on sale later this week from Cemetery Dance. So be on the lookout for that. I know it was a long wait, but it will be worth it.
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Tomorrow (Monday) night's Clubhouse reading will feature Scott Edelman, Wile E. Young and Nina Perez. I'll be hosting it, as usual, but I may be a little late, so Mary will be acting as second host. If you have the Clubhouse social media app, just make sure you're following Mary and myself and you'll get the notification when it starts.
I've really been enjoying hosting these weekly readings. Like I said before, the only problem is that there isn't yet a lot of readers on Clubhouse. It's mostly other writers, artists,. directors, musicians, and the like.
So I reckon I'll even those odds and start giving my Clubhouse invites to fans via a trivia contest.
Here are the rules:
1. You MUST have an iPhone to participate. Not an iPad. Not an android. It has to be an iPhone.
2. The first five people who reply to this email and correctly answer the trivia question below will win a Clubhouse invite from me.
3. I'll email those five winners. if you don';t get an email from me, then you didn't win.
4. When I email you back, you must be willing to share your real first and last name and your cell phone number with me. I can't get you into the app without those.
And then you can start listening in on Monday nights when we do Campfire Tales.
Okay, here is this week's trivia question. You must answer it correctly. Fill in the blank.
"Levi Stoltzfus, son of _________"
Good luck!
My dear friend Regina Mitchell has a new weird western novel coming out, and she is interviewed about it here.
I've known Gina (or G as I call her) since the late Nineties. She is primarily known for her short fiction, so I'm excited for this book length work.
Years ago, before any of us could get published, Gina, myself, John Urbancik, Ryan Harding, Gak, Geoff Cooper, Mike Oliveri and Michael T. Huyck self-published a chapbook called A DARKER DAWNING and gave it away free at horror conventions. Basically, whenever someone asked us if we had a business card, we'd hand them the chapbook. And when I say we self published it, I mean we had John use the copier machine at his place of work.
It worked so well that we self-published a second chapbook a few years later, called A DARKER DAWNING II.
Those two chapbooks go for a ridiculous amount of money when they pp up on eBay now. Last year, during the pandemic, we talked about maybe collecting both chapbooks into an actual book, along with new material by each of us.
Looks like that's going to happen now, so you have that to look forward to.
This is from 2001. From Left to Right that's Gina (beneath the Linda Addison sign), Ryan, John, Mikey, myself and Mike. If you look close, you can see copies of the chapbook. Also, in the foreground, you can see Mary waiting for me to sign her books.
This was a year before (2000). Left to Right that's Gina, myself, Julie Morales, and Mike.
And then below is a more recent pick of Gina and I, from 2019. The artwork in my hand is from a short story we wrote together back around 1999 or so.
Okay, so I guess that's it for this week. I have to fast later today so that the doctors can do more blood work tomorrow. Apparently i';m allowed to have coffee, long as I don't put sugar or milk in it. Which I don't do anyway.
Mary should be home later this week, which will be nice. The house has seemed very empty the past week.
Be good to your loved ones, and to yourself. I'll see you back here next Sunday.