No Moral Center

What's In Store

2012-02-22T20:07:00.000-08:00

Just a few notes on upcoming things:

First of all, I am proud to be a part of Beat to a Pulp: Round Two. I cannot wait to see what the new collection looks like. If it's half as good as Round One, I'm sure it will be amazng.

The Drive-In Fiction project is coming along great. The other writers involved have been much more diligent than myself. Look for this monster some time this summer.

Finally, I am slowly learning how to format stuff for kindle. Pulp Modern #2 should be out on kindle in the next few months.

Also, Jeremy Selzer, the awesome artist responsible for the first two covers to Pulp Modern is busy with an addition to his family, as in, his wife is having a baby. I'm sure we all wish Mr. Selzer and his wife and their new baby the best. The man is obviously going to be busy for some time. As a result, I've had to find a new cover artist and I think I found someone worthy of the challenge. Look for the spring issue of Pulp Modern in late March.

Oh yeah, one more thing--Anyone going to AWP in Chicago next week, let me know so we can hang out and bully the snooty "literary" folks!

Mr. Cizak interviewed at Jim Harrington's Blog

2012-01-16T21:23:00.000-08:00

Six questions answered about Pulp Modern at Jim Harrington's excellent blog.

Pulp Modern: Quick update

2012-01-13T11:36:00.000-08:00

Pulp Modern will no longer be accepting reprints. The only reprints that will run in the journal will be classic stories (such as the reprint you saw in issue one) and older stories that are in the public domain (such the reprint you saw in issue two).

Mr. Cizak's 2012

2012-01-04T09:01:00.000-08:00

While the rest of the world prepares for doomsday, I'm going to continue writing and trying to pay my bills. Some places you can look for my own fiction this year:

Beat to a Pulp: Round Two. If this collection is anything like Round One, it's going to be a hell of an honor to be included in it. My story is part of the Haggard, Indiana cycle that began at Thuglit with "My Kind of Town" (a story that needs a revision, I see now...)

Indiana Crime. Poetry, fiction, and photos by writers from Indiana (obviously) or with some sort of Indiana connection. I've been trying for years to respond to some people I hung out with back in my more self-destructive days. They were roofers who blamed Mexicans for contractors selling them out. Hopefully I've made my point with my story "Dumb Shit," which is included in this collection.

Drive In Fiction. This is a collection of novellas I'm putting together with some other writers. The idea is to tell a story that would have made a good drive in movie back when drive in movies were made by people whose last names weren't Spielberg, Lucas, or Bay. For now, I am keeping my story 'under wraps' because I don't want to tempt the universe to give someone else the idea...

And of course I will continue producing Pulp Modern.

Happy New Year.

The Changing of the Guard

2012-01-03T08:45:00.000-08:00

With little fanfare, yesterday I handed over the keys to ALL DUE RESPECT to its new editor, Chris Rhatigan. Chris will edit the last couple of stories I chose, and by April or May, the whole thing will be his show. He's made some changes to the guidelines, which you can check out at the site, and he's opened submissions in effort to fill out the rest of the year. The biggest, and, in my opinion, best change, is that ADR will now feature stories twice a month instead of just once. Writers still get their due respect (for two weeks) while readers get two stories instead of one.

Writers, conjure up your worst instincts, put them in a story, and send them to Mr. Rhatigan for consideration:

allduerespectcrimeblog@yahoo.com

ALL DUE RESPECT #19: JOHN KENYON

2012-01-01T10:45:00.000-08:00

For those of you surviving on the tundra, John Kenyon provides a glimpse of warmer days this month at All Due Respect. The story is called Dog Days of Summer and should put a smile on your face.

Interview with Mr. Cizak

2012-01-01T06:51:00.001-08:00

http://fulldarkcity.com/2012/01/01/alec-cizak-and-pulp-modern/

ALL DUE RESPECT: 2011 REVISITED

2011-12-23T12:39:00.000-08:00

The first full year of All Due Respect saw quite a variety of stories. I liked them all. I wouldn't have published them if I didn't. I'd like to point out a few that you may have missed, however:

The Absolutely Hardcore Fuck You Polite Society Award goes to Scotch Rutherford's Let's Make a Deal. I'm willing to bet this one made a few readers flinch. It was supposed to. The greatest thing about this story is the fact that it could all happen. That it probably has happened. "Let's Make a Deal" represents, to me, the ideal modern crime story. The independent spirit the Internet has infused in publishing makes it possible for daring stories such as this one to get an audience. Thanks, Scotch, for sharing this slice of American hell with the rest of us.

For a lesson in voice, please see Copper Smith's Mutiny on the Pimp Wagon. Like many of my favorite writers from this on-line community of crime and horror scribblers, Copper Smith doesn't publish nearly as much as I would like to see. That just makes the appearances of his stories all the more special.

And in case I haven't brown-nosed Jodi MacArthur enough, let me remind those who read it and turn those who haven't on to it--Jodi's October offering at All Due Respect, Mantra, will absolutely mess with your head. You will hear voices after you read it. If you don't, you're probably already insane and shouldn't be reading this kind of fiction in the first place. As with Copper Smith, Jodi's work doesn't appear nearly as often as I and everyone else familiar with her unique stories would prefer.

2012 should be, to say the least, interesting. Things will kick off with a hell of a story by John Kenyon. In April, Chris Rhatigan will take over editorial duties. I know of a couple of good changes he plans to implement. All things point to All Due Respect just getting better and better.

Pulp Modern #2 Now Available at Amazon

2011-12-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

Issue two at Amazon.

Pulp Modern Issue #2 Now Available at Createspace

2011-12-13T15:56:00.000-08:00

This one is leaner, meaner, and two bucks cheaper. Pulp Modern #2 is now available at Createspace (it will be up at Amazon within a week or so). Happy Holidays. Happy, murderous, bloody holidays!

PULP MODERN #2

2011-12-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

It's beginning to look a lot like a bloody, violent Christmas! Pulp Modern #2 is on the way.

ALL DUE RESPECT #18: MATTHEW C. FUNK

2011-12-01T12:13:00.000-08:00

I have taken to calling Matthew C. Funk the Voice of New Orleans. I don't care if somebody else claims that title, I'm giving it to Mr. Funk. Last year his story at All Due Respect won a Spinetingler Award for Best Short Story on the Web. In a gesture of respect, Mr. Funk has been given the December spot for as many years as he prefers. This year, he offers us a harrowing account of a crack junky trying to make sense of the madness his life has become since a football injury derailed his original goals. Mr. Funk may have bettered even his award-winning "Times Past" from last year. The story is called "Broken Play" and may just break your cold little heart!

By the way, look for another story by Matt Funk in the upcoming issue of Pulp Modern.

The lineup for Pulp Modern #2:

2011-11-25T18:26:00.000-08:00

PATRICIA ABBOTT

STEVEN AXELROD

STEPHEN G. EONNAU

MATTHEW C. FUNK

JC HEMPHILL

JEROME K. JEROME

DAVID JAMES KEATON

JOHN KENYON

CHRIS LA TRAY

MICHAEL MORECI

LELAND NEVILLE

WILLIAM DYLAN POWELL

JEREMY SHANE

JACK WEBSTER

Look for issue number two in early December.

The Latest Reviews of Pulp Modern

2011-11-12T12:02:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of ace reviews of PULP MODERN:

First, read what Elizabeth A. White has to say about the matter.

Then, head on over to Death by Killing and take in Chris Rhatigan's review.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in this process.

A genuine expert on MANIFESTO DESTINATION offers a fantastic review

2011-11-06T22:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a review of MANIFESTO DESTINATION that demonstrates the reader really, really understood the characters:

Elmore Leonard is an alcoholic, depressed p.i. with a lot of baggage. And once his ex-girlfriend, Felicia, asks him to do some investigations things go from bad to worse. Fast.

The author could have written a typical, genre novel, but Cizak elevates Manifesto Destination into a class of its own. It's like Raymond Chandler with a healthy dose of A Clockwork Orange. In addition, the characters aren't merely stock villains and heroes. They are treated with a surprising and unexpected tenderness. Their motivations are clear, if misguided. Rather than being peopled by evil stereotypes, Cizak's seedy underbelly of Indianapolis is populated by hurt, sad, injured and frightened people. Elmore is possibly the most damaged of them all.

I'd very much like to read more.

"Fred," I will see to it that you get more to read.

All Due Respect #17: MARIE SHIELDS

2011-11-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

Something a little different this month. Marie Shields provides us with three examples of flash fiction. Gut-wrenching stories about abused women and one light-hearted story about a woman who turns things around. Stop on over at All Due Respect and let her know what you think of her work.

PULP MODERN #2 FYI

2011-10-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

The crime section for issue number two is filled. Got lots of horror to go through and a few westerns.

Remember, there are no more official deadlines, so if you were planning on submitting a crime story, feel free. It will be considered for a future issue.

Repost from last year

2011-10-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

http://nomoralcenter.blogspot.com/2010/10/tis-month-to-be-slashin.html

Some Pulp Modern Updates

2011-10-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

First of all, thanks to everyone who has helped sell this beast so far. We need to sell lots, LOTS more so that the big dogs hear us beating down the doors!

The crime section for issue number two is just about full. This time around I've gotten a lot of horror submissions and very few western submissions. It's all good, as the kiddies say. Issue one was crime heavy, this one can be horror heavy.

In excellent related news, Aldo Calcagno, who runs the site Powder Burn Flash, has been brought on board as an assistant editor to help me wade through the submissions and make sure I get issue two out there in time for the holidays.

I've made some minor adjustments to the basic description of Pulp Modern at the top of the guidelines page. You might want to take a look. Also, because of the number of submissions I've received, I'm going to abandon this idea of deadlines for each issue.

PULP MODERN now available at AMAZON.COM

2011-10-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

So, most people might be freaked out by going to the createspace site devoted only to Pulp Modern and nothing else. It just doesn't feel right to them. Would Oprah buy a book this way? they ask. Good news, brothers and sisters. Pulp Modern is now available at AMAZON.COM, where many normal people purchase reading material (among other things). Please tell all your friends and loved ones and lovers and enemies that it is now 100% socially acceptable to buy and read Pulp Modern.

ALL DUE RESPECT #16: JODI MACARTHUR

2011-10-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

Jodi MacArthur is kind of like Stanley Kubrick. She's a quality over quantity kind of artist. Any time I see her name attached to a story, I know I'm about to read something special. Jodi digs deep into the old gray matter to pull out images and ideas most of us are too timid to even attempt to put into words. Her story MANTRA, which I am honored to feature this month at All Due Respect, is no different. Just in time for Halloween, for the beautiful, sad days of autumn. For the preamble to winter, death. Is there any month more appropriate for a Jodi MacArthur story? Me thinks not. Read. Enjoy. Recover. Read again. Comment. Attempt to see the world in a normal light afterwards. Good luck and a great big thank you to Jodi for sharing this with us.

PULP MODERN ISSUE ONE IS NOW AVAILABLE

2011-09-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

Not quite September 23, as planned, nor September 30, as predicated last week. Pulp Modern Issue One is now available here. This is where you should purchase the book. It will eventually be available on Amazon, where hopefully those who buy now it will post a review to help sell it to all those folks out there who don't already know about it.

Thanks again to all the contributors and thanks in advance to everyone who will help make this a success.

By the way, if you are asked for a password, it should be:

burnhollywoodburn

If they ask for a password and that one doesn't work, please let me know ASAP.

A few thoughts on the future of publishing

2011-09-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to throw a comparison out there and see if anyone agrees:

Is the publishing industry about to see a shift of power similar to the shift that happened in Hollywood in the late 60s and early 70s? I speak of the taking over by directors. For a brief time, suits and ties were not making decisions in Hollywood based entirely on "the bottom line." The directors had the power.

Are authors going to enjoy the same privilege now that the stigma of self-publishing is coming to an end (it's a struggle, I still hear older, PUBLISHED writers say self-publishing is a no-no, but that's just more dinosaur sloshing in the old tar pits)? Are e-books (which even I have an aversion to) going to take the "big" publishers out of the picture? Could this be the Golden Age for writers?

Let me know what you think.

Pulp Modern Issue Two Notes

2011-09-24T13:43:00.000-07:00

So I've started going over submissions for issue two. Here some things to keep in mind:

1. Kill your fucking LY words. Don't tell me SHE OPENED IT CAREFULLY. Show me what that CAREFULLY looks like! The constant use of adverbs (and a lot of adjectives as well) is very, very old fashioned. While I dig the old fashioned stuff, we're writing new stuff, which means NO FUCKING -LY WORDS! (Unless it's absolutely necessary or an obvious part of your particular style)

2. Sentence variety! SHE STEPPED INTO THE KICTHEN. SHE NOTICED HER HUSBAND'S BODY ON THE FLOOR. SARAH GRABBED A GLASS OF KOOL-AID AND SIPPED IT AS SHE STEPPED OVER HIM. I want to see more sentence variety in the submissions I'm getting. I have to sit in my MFA classes and listen to people bemoan genre fiction. The only medicine is to make genre fiction better than literary fiction!

3. Please respect the word limit, which is 2000 to 5000. A little bit over or a little bit under can be forgiven, but not by much.

4. Please send submissions in STANDARD MANUSCRIPT FORMAT. Also, press 'RETURN' just ONCE after paragraphs.

5. Horror, science fiction and fantasy have been combined under the heading of fantasy. I am looking for surreal stuff and stuff that scares YOU the writer so bad you almost can't write it. Trolls and hobbits and stuff, I just don't see it happening.

Here's a big thing: Make that first paragraph and that first page count. I have to go through a lot of submissions. Let me know RIGHT AWAY that you've sent me a story that I HAVE to read.

I don't mean to sound condescending. I'm sure everybody knows everything I've written here already. Just think of all of this as a friendly reminder. I look forward to seeing what everybody comes up with.

A couple of countdowns...

2011-09-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

Received the proof copy of Pulp Modern Issue One yesterday. Made a few corrections, a few adjustments. Barring any other problems, look for a September 30 release date.

Right after you place your orders for Pulp Modern, on Saturday, October 1, prepare yourself for the debut of Jodi MacArthur's story "Mantra" at All Due Respect. If you don't feel a little drunk and psychotic after reading this one, you must already be drunk and psychotic!

Sweet Jumping Jesus... It's gonna' be one hell of an autumn!

In case you missed it

2011-09-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

I wrote the intro for Edward A. Grainger's second volume of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles stories. You can check it out here (the intro, that is). Thanks to Mr. Grainger for keeping the western alive and kicking (or should that be shooting?)

Alfred Hitchcock Presents... Garnett Elliott

2011-09-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Garnett Elliott. His work will be appearing in a future issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. For the dozen or so loyal readers of No Moral Center, I don't have to tell you what an amazing accomplishment that is. Anyone familiar with Elliott's work knows it's probably long overdue...

Some experts weigh in on Manifesto Destination

2011-09-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

Read what the experts have to say!

Ladies and gentlemen... The line up for issue one:

2011-09-07T12:16:00.000-07:00

Here be your writers contributing to PULP MODERN, issue number one:

LAWRENCE BLOCK
JIMMY CALLAWAY
JAMES DUNCAN
C.J. EDWARDS
GARNETT ELLIOTT
MELISSA EMBRY
EDWARD A. GRAINGER
GLENN GRAY
DAVID JAMES KEATON
JOHN KENYON
CHRIS LA TRAY
YARROW PAISLEY
MATTHEW PIZZOLATO
THOMAS PLUCK
STEPHEN D. ROGERS
SANDRA SEAMANS
COPPER SMITH

Interior art:
BRIAN ROE

Cover art:
JEREMY SELZER

Deadline for submissions for issue two: NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Good Reading Around the Web

2011-09-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

Get your fix of good fiction on the Internet:

Chris Rhatigan has a fine piece of flash fiction at Shotgun Honey.

The prose master, Garnett Elliott, picks up another serial at pulp fiction's Gold Standard, Beat to a Pulp.

And in case you missed it, someone who knows a whole lot about crime, IMPD officer C.J. Edwards provides this month's journey to the gutter at All Due Respect.

Enjoy!

Some fine reviews for Manifesto Destination at Amazon

2011-09-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

Three reliable readers have offered some interesting remarks about Manifesto Destination at Amazon. Have you purchased your copy yet? Why not? Are you some kind of non-comformist? You think you're better than everybody else!?! OH YEAH!!!???!!!

Pulp Modern: Deadline for Issue Number Two Has Been Changed

2011-09-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

The deadline for issue number two will be November 1, 2011.

The Danger of Remakes and 'Reboots'

2011-09-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

A lot of people over the age of, I don't know, 12, gripe about the lack of original stories coming from Hollywood. The last time I checked, over 90 percent of the movies produced and distributed by American filmmakers were either remakes, 'reboots,' or movies based on old television shows or video games. It seems obvious why this would bother anyone who still has the audacity to use his or her thinking cap.

I'd like to offer my take on why this trend scares the living shit out of me. You remember those big lizards that used to roam the Earth? We call them dinosaurs. I'm sure if someone had asked them, they would have called themselves something else. Regardless, the dinosaurs spent a great deal of their final days sloshing around in tar pits. I bet the dinosaurs thought they were moving forward any time they moved a foot one way or the other while they were drowning in those tar pits. Now, before the tar pits came along, dinosaurs were a mobile bunch who moved around the land, always moving in a forward direction.

That's what humans who made art used to do. Even in Hollywood, filmmakers used to try to show something new with each film they made. It's called progress. It's called evolution. The moment you circle back and repeat yourself, you have stopped evolving. My theory is this: If you cease to evolve, you begin to die.

So, we come back to this issue of remakes and 'reboots.' Is Hollywood showing us how we're a species sloshing around in a tar pit? Is this really it? Do writers and actors and directors have no new ideas? We didn't last a fraction of the time the dinosaurs did. That makes us cosmic idiots, doesn't it?

This month at All Due Respect: C.J. Edwards

2011-09-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

Well, after Patricia Abbott introduced some class to All Due Respect, it only makes sense that we dip right back down into the gutter with C.J. Edwards' The Peeper. In addition to writing fiction and poetry, C.J. is a police officer who investigates sex crimes. He brings an eerie authority to his depiction of a budding stalker who quickly graduates to the next chilling level.

I discuss the early 80s, again, this time at Let's Fight Everybody

2011-08-31T17:43:00.000-07:00

Some people blame Obama for the destruction of the American economy. Most people know some of the hardest hits were delivered during G.W.'s regime. I'm either old fashioned or just have a better memory than everyone else (take that, anti-drug commercials!). I still blame Reagan and I exercise that obsession at Let's Fight Everybody with my "review" of Fighting Back. If you're one of the many who think Reagan did magical, wonderful things for America, just sigh and roll your eyes and say, "That Cizak is one stubborn idiot!"

ALL DUE RESPECT temporarily closed to submissions

2011-08-31T13:31:00.000-07:00

Chris Rhatigan has been busy filling up the slate for 2012. As a result, All Due Respect will be closed to submissions until at least the end of this year.

An Awesome Rejection Note!

2011-08-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Back in 2002 I decided to write a screenplay using the character from Manifesto Destination, Elmore Johnson. It wasn't really an adaptation of the novel, though there was a sex business/Internet porn subplot, just like in the novel. I showed it to a screenwriting coach who worked at the office my agent worked at. He told me to take out 90% of the politics. I did so and showed it to Jerry Zeitman, the head agent there who had worked in the business since the 1950s. He said it was too political! Mr. Zeitman frequently gave me good advice that I refused to heed at the time. He once told me to assume that anyone I showed a script to in Hollywood was completely stupid. That explains why so much shit comes out of the studios. Anyway, my agent at the time, a guy named Harry Anderson who just vanished one day (I later found out he moved to Japan to be with his girlfriend whom he had gotten pregnant), managed to get the script (it was called Headshot, which I also later found out is a common title for scripts in Hollywood) to Quentin Tarantino's company, A Band Apart. They rejected it, but I held on to the rejection notice because, let's face it, it's pretty cool to be told to go to hell by Quentin Tarantino!

ALL DUE RESPECT: FALL 2011

2011-08-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

Here's what you can look forward to for the remainder of the year:

September -- C.J. Edwards takes us deep into the mind of a stalker.

October -- Just for Halloween, one of the most imaginative writers working today, Jodi MacArthur, takes us deep into the mind of a woman on the verge of a whole lot more than just a nervous breakdown...

November -- The first of its kind at All Due Respect, a collection of three flash fiction pieces by Marie Shield.

December -- The return of Matthew C. Funk to All Due Respect. Need I say more?

*Remember, all new submissions to All Due Respect should be addressed to Chris Rhatigan.

A Brief Rant

2011-08-26T06:50:00.000-07:00

I recently watched a short documentary on Tobe Hooper. Tobe's a part of that awesome little group of directors who made the most important horror films of the end of the 20th Century (this fraternity includes George Romero, Wes Craven, and John Carpenter) and were rewarded with mediocre careers (well, Craven figured out how to get some mainstream bucks on a consistent basis) and then, to add the old insult to the old injury, in the 2000s, Hollywood remade all of their films and raked in big bucks, never once understanding what ingredient made the originals so great to begin with. That ingredient, of course, was poverty. John Carpenter's budget for Halloween was, pardon the pun, monstrous for that group. He had 320,000 dollars. That probably amounts to the budgets on Night of the Living Dead, Last House on the Left, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre combined (it doesn't, but it sure sounds amazing, doesn't it?) So anyway, Texas Chainsaw was a small film, shot on 16mm in a brutal Texas summer. Gunnar Hansen claims that in the final shots of him waving the chainsaw around in the morning sun, he was imagining cutting up Tobe Hooper for all the hell he had been put through during the shoot. I doubt, however, that Gunnar ever said anything on the set while they were shooting. Mr. Hansen, I'm sure, was aware that they were on a tight, tight budget, and worked like a trooper, giving everything he had, to make sure the film came together.

Making a feature movie is tough work. Trust me. On my second film, Beverly Hills Massacre, the budget was probably about the same as the budget on the original Night of the Living Dead. Mind you, BHM was shot forty years after NotLD. It was a low, low budget affair. Most producers who make films for that little provide the cast and crew with "hot pockets" for meals and, if they're lucky, their cast and crew understand the financial limitations. Not so on my set. I had a little gang of actresses (and one actor who might as well have been called an actress) who decided, upon seeing the second night that we were feeding them El Pollo Loco again, that they were going to shift into bitch-mode and poison my set. Their fearless leader, a no-talent actress who was hired simply because we knew she'd show her tits on film, began to complain about things like 'warm humus.' Now, she was lucky there was any goddamn humus on the set to begin with. Whether it was warm or not was of no concern to the bigger goal of shooting and completing a feature-length film. Her problem, quite honestly, was that she felt she deserved more. She had done a cameo in the big budget film Beerfest (hired, once again, to show her tits on film). That little experience, being a nude extra in a large film, put the notion in her head that she deserved a trailer and a staff of make up and costume people to follow her around and keep her touched up every second of the day. The fact that no such luxury existed made her furious. And so she began to question the producer, then she began to question me. Anyone who has worked on a film set knows that harmony among the cast and crew is essential. If one person poisons the set, the atmosphere becomes war-like and instead of a group of artists collaborating to bring a project to completion, you end up with a group of nasty, squabbling rodents showing up for work every day only because they have been contracted to be there (I had a similar problem on my first film, Mr. Id, which eventually led to my walking off the set. In that case, however, it was the director of photography who poisoned the set. The danger can come from anywhere!)

I only bring this up as a reminder to anyone working on a grassroots-level project to understand the difference between mainstream and independent art. Things are not done "by the book" in an independent circumstance. That's what makes independent art different and groundbreaking. That's the pay off for not, well, being paid off right away.

John Kenyon is the winner!

2011-08-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

After a brutal hand-to-hand struggle between ace writer John Kenyon and ace teacher Susan Adams, I have decided to give the contest to John Kenyon. John, send your snai mail address to the Pulp Modern email account and I'll put your book in the mail.

Pulp Modern Update

2011-08-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

Let me take a break from trying to sell a book I apparently can't even give away--

Pulp Modern has an awesome cover. I have been contacted by a few artists for interior art, I have told them what is up, and then I have never heard from them again. It is getting close to crunch time here and if I cannot find a reliable artist who keeps in contact, there just won't be any interior art in Pulp Modern.

CONTEST! Win a copy of MANIFESTO DESTINATION

2011-08-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Win a copy of my book MANIFESTO DESTINATION. Rules are simple-- Write a six sentence story about PROZAC. Best one wins. Write your entry in the comments section. Deadline is August 17, 2011. Good luck.

MANIFESTO DESTINATION now at AMAZON

2011-08-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

So I reckon the reason I didn't see magnificent sales figures last week for Manifesto Destination at createspace was because folks were uncomfortable with the password, burnhollywoodburn. Great news! The book is now available at Amazon. You may now purchase the book free of guilt over being disrespectful towards Hollywood and support independent art in the process. Amazon lovers, the book is available here.

By the way, for those of you beautiful people who did and will purchase the book, please write a review at Amazon, even if you hated the book, let others know what you did or didn't like about it.

Duotrope's 'interview' with All Due Respect editors, past and present

2011-08-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Anyone thinking about submitting stories to All Due Respect should check out comments from me as well as the new editor, Chris Rhatigan, here.

REMINDERS!

2011-08-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

Old school hardcore hardboiled fiction by yours truly... Manifesto Destination. Password: burnhollywoodburn

One of the most popular stories right out of the gate at All Due Respect.

Speaking of All Due Respect, all new submissions should be addressed to Chris Rhatigan.

Pulp Modern deadline for issue one is less than a month away-- September 1. Deadline for issue two is December 1.

MANIFESTO DESTINATION...Finally!

2011-08-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

All right, I got all the kinks worked out. My first book Manifesto Destination is currently available here (password: burnhollywoodburn). It will spread like a virus across the Internet, first at Amazon and then all the other usual places, over the next few months.

I've spent the last two months editing it. Even though it was published before, it had a lot of the errors typical of my work around 2001, when it was written. I've wrestled with the idea of publishing it again for some time and I decided to for several reasons. First of all, I needed the experience of working with createspace in order to make sure I could put a decent product out when it came time to release Pulp Modern. Secondly, I saw an interview with John Carpenter in which he defended the absurd fight between Roddy Piper and Keith David in They Live. Carpenter, who is a hero of mine, said that you have to own your work, even if you've outgrown it. There are some elements of Manifesto Destination I have certainly outgrown. I no longer automatically hate cops. I no longer harbor resentment against the ex-girlfriend I depict as a lunatic in the book (though I will always hate her father for damaging her when she was too young to fight back). However, the book echoes my long-standing concerns about various factions in society hell-bent on dictating how everyone is supposed to think and behave. The fact of the matter is, the last eleven years of my life were spent, for the most part, living in poverty in L.A. and making two feature films that suck so bad I can't own them. The tampering of producers and other people left my films without coherent storylines. I can forgive all the other trappings of low-budget filmmaking, but I can't stand having to explain the stories to my friends and family before showing them the movies. I rarely watch them because it's just too painful. Manifesto Destination is the only major work I produced in that time that is remotely coherent.

And that's saying a lot, because well-read folks will instantly recognize the hybrid of Raymond Chandler and Phil K. Dick that exists in Manifesto Destination. Like The Big Sleep or even The Big Lebowski, Manifesto Destination is less concerned with plot and more concerned with characters. You are basically going along for a ride. It's hard to figure out how the ends tie together by the book's conclusion, but I know there's some sort of coherence because I remember making an outline and character graph when I wrote it. The 'mystery' aspect of it gets resolved in a rather old-fashioned, cliched manner, but I think by the time the reader gets there he or she will have been entertained enough to dismiss it.

I think the book is an entertaining read with ambiguities that will invite multiple readings. That makes it a great investment in these troubled times!

All Due Respect #14: Patricia Abbott

2011-07-31T23:40:00.000-07:00

After thirteen months of contributions from scoundrels and reprobates, All Due Respect finally gets some freakin' class as Patricia Abbott offers The Perfect Day. We should all have thoughtful fathers like the father in "The Perfect Day." Stop by and read the story and let Patricia know what you think.

FYI -- For anyone sending submissions to All Due Respect, Chris is reading them so feel free to address him and pretend like I don't even exist.

Pulp Modern Update: In need of an illustrator

2011-07-31T08:57:00.000-07:00

Issue one is looking good as far as the stories go. Unfortunately, I am having a hell of a time finding an artist to provide some drawings for the interior as well as cover art. I have been in contact with several artists but they seem to drift off into oblivion before I receive any work from them. I went to a tattoo shop and asked one of the 'artists' there if he or anyone else was interested in drawing for a pulp fiction journal and he said "Pup fiction? What's pup fiction?" Even after I explained what it was, after I suggested it was similar to the art in the old E.C. comic books, he continued to look at me as though I had just asked him to cut his parents up and serve them as dinner at a local gathering of the American Communist and Witchcraft Society... If anyone knows of any artists who would be interested in this, please send them my way. Otherwise, I'm going to have to use my own photography of old toys and other antiques to 'illustrate' the journal in a manner most post-modern, but not necessarily pulp modern.

Pulp Modern Update

2011-07-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

Still looking for horror and science fiction and anything that might fall into the category of fantasy and adventure. If you're writing crime and nothing but, the deadline for issue number two is December 1, so if you send a crime story and it's great I will probably hold it over for issue number two. Also, the western folder could use a little more weight. I know there's at least one story on the way. Another two or three wouldn't hurt.

Finally, I've been getting emails from writers whose stories I have rejected claiming they aren't going to submit any more stories to Pulp Modern. When the kind women at AHMM and EQ seal up my SASE and send it to me with their charming rejection form in it, I get pissed, and then I immediately figure out what I'm going to send them next. I'm going to keep sending them my stories until they publish one just to get me off their backs! Tenacity is the fuel of success, is it not? If you've sent a story to Pulp Modern and I've passed on it, send another, and another, until I have no choice but to print your work!

PULP MODERN UPDATE

2011-07-18T17:13:00.000-07:00

Still need horror and science fiction. The whole adventure/fantasy thing doesn't seem to be happening, so it looks like this literary amusement park, for now, will consist of four sections (unless I don't get any good science fiction, in which case it will only be three).

Crime, I can tell you, is pretty much taken care of for issue one. Six of the ten stories I've accepted are crime stories. My holding tank for stories I am still considering is crammed with crime stories. Anybody out there who knows good science fiction and/or horror writers, please direct them to the guidelines.

Thanks!

Pulp Modern Update; Some tips for newer writers

2011-07-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

So I've gotten a lot of submissions for Pulp Modern, many good, some ok, quite a few in need of some advice. If you're relatively new to writing and submitting your writing for publication, let me give you a few tips that I wish I had gotten twenty years ago--

1. See that copy of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style? Pick it up. Read it. Learn it. Study it. Worship it. Make the rules in that book your religion when it comes to writing. Do you dig Stephen King? His book On Writing is a very entertaining guide to good, crisp writing. I can tell you, however, the golden rule to take away from King's book: Drop your unnecessary modifiers. Don't tell me he "ran quickly," it sounds silly. Don't talk about the femme fatale's "forced smile," describe what that smile looks like, what does it do to her pretty blue eyes? How do the muscles in her cheeks stretch when she 'forces' that smile? Big Steve King says adverbs are your enemy. So are adjectives that would do better to be fleshed out and described. It's the best lesson I've learned over the last few years and I believe it has improved my writing, ah, drastically...

2. Get to the story. If you need two pages of back story before the actual story begins, take another look. How important is all that information? Can you sprinkle it in throughout the actual story? I do my best, as an editor, to read an entire story sent to me. It becomes difficult when I'm on page four and still can't figure out what the story is about, who should I be paying attention to, etc. Most editors are not nearly so patient. If you don't grab the reader's attention right away, you're in trouble.

3. Control your point-of-view. Decide in your prewriting whether your story will be first person, third person limited, or third person omniscient (second person in fiction-- not a good idea). First person, of course, means a narrator tells us the story from his or her point of view. Third person limited means we see the story through one of the character's eyes (this means we do not know what other characters are 'thinking'). Third person omniscient means we know what every character is thinking. This point of view is best reserved for novels. Also, I don't want to raise any controversy, but if you are going to write a piece of fiction in the present tense, it had better knock the reader's socks off, literally. It's almost painful to read in the first place and when it's done poorly, it's torture.

4. When submitting fiction to a print journal, use twelve-point type, double-spaced, normal paragraph formatting. I'm getting a lot of submissions that are formatted for Internet publication. If I accept a story formatted that way, I have to go through and re-format it when I put the journal together. That makes me grumpy. I think about that when I'm reading the submission.

5. This is specific to Pulp Modern-- If you submit a horror story, make sure it's a story that scared the crap out of you while you were writing it. If it didn't scare you, chances are, it won't scare anybody else.

Thank you for your time and patience.

Mr. Cizak's Annoying, Random Thoughts

2011-07-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

So I went to the dollar theater last Sunday to give my brain a rest. Of course, the moment you tell the brain to take some time off, the old noodle decides that's the moment he's going to start really rotating the cogs and come up with thoughts and ideas that seem, at the time, important. They showed the teaser trailer for Transformers 3. It's the one that starts out like it's a movie about Apollo 11. Then it looks like it's going to be a movie about aliens on the moon. Then you realize it's a Transformers movie and sink in your seat (the first time you see it) and say, "Aw, shucks." There's a line in the trailer, however, that really stood out. The narrator refers to the moon landing-- appropriately, I think-- as 'a generation's greatest achievement.' I got to thinking, what the hell is my generation's greatest achievement? Have we done anything that has truly advanced the state of human being? Mostly what we've done is let technology wrap its cold, dead hands around us and turn us into slaves to electricity and other forms of artificial power. The other thing we've done is allow the government and the media to be completely taken over by corporations and the self-centered interests of a very small number of filthy rich people. So, I realized, what my generation needs to do, or at least start to do, is take back the government and the media. The government is not my department. I could care less who's democrat and who's republican. They all take money from the same corporations to vote against my interests so I have absolutely no need for politics or politicians. The media, on the other hand, does involve me. As a writer, as a(n allegedly) retired filmmaker, taking the media back from the corporations seems like a perfect goal. If it sounds outrageous, remember what folks probably said when Kennedy announced he wanted people on the moon by the end of the decade-- "Oh man, that's impossible!"

Let's go people. This is our mission. This is what we need to leave the generations that follow:

Media that doesn't suck corporate balls...

Some Alec Cizak News and Links

2011-07-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

First of all, the DVD commentary for my short story "Katie Too" can be experienced at Patti Abbott's blog.

Also, I just received my contributor's copy of The Incredible Shrinking Story, from Fast Forward Press. It contains my short story "Presently Tense" which, you might guess, is about fiction written in the present tense. You may purchase this slim, well-produced volume here or here.

Also, I have done two more edits on my first and only novel (it should really be called a novella), Manifesto Destination. I am publishing it as a print edition and selling it relatively cheap (eight bucks). The saving grace of this novella is that the message is more important today than it was ten years ago when I wrote it. The new volume is polished and can be read on an airplane or in a bathroom with equal delight. It should be available within the next few days, at which time I will post links here.

What are you waiting for?

2011-07-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

Need some summer reading? Everywhere you look there's good reading!

First stop: Beat to a Pulp. Garnett Elliott picks up the Rip Through Time series with Chaos in the Stream. Make sure you read the first two installments by Chris F. Holm and Charles A. Gramlich. By the time you're done with all that, it should be getting close to autumn...

If you're a fast reader, though, and you like the new e-books all the kiddies are puttin' out, make sure you check out Black Heart Magazine's noir issue edited by Jimmy Callaway. While you're at it, don't forget to pick up SpeedLoader for your kindle. It features stories by ADR contributors Matthew C. Funk and Nigel Bird.

And in case you missed it, Copper Smith's Mutiny on the Pimp Wagon is still booking passengers for a hell of a ride on the open sea.

Nastiness and violence the whole family can enjoy!

Happy 4th; Pulp Modern Update

2011-07-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July. Let's remember the whole purpose of this experiment called the U.S.A was to form "a more perfect union." That means, to me, a country where everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has an equal chance at improving his or her life.

Now, on to the more 'important' stuff:

As I have stated, I'm getting lots of crime submissions for Pulp Modern. I've gotten a fair number of westerns as well. The science fiction, horror, and adventure/fantasy submissions have been few and not many have made the first cut.

I think I am picky when it comes to science fiction and adventure because I don't read too much in those genres. In order to help any writers interested in submitting, let me offer some hints as to what I like when I do read science ficiton-- I'm a fan of Phil K. Dick. If you send me a story that messes with reality, I'll probably be interested. I think the most important book (of any genre) of the last century was 1984 and the most important book of the century before that was Frankenstein. I guess what I'm getting at is that sociological science fiction stands a much better chance. Since the journal is called Pulp Modern, however, I would not mind seeing some technical science fiction provided THE WRITING IS GOOD.

Ah, time for me to digress: A lot of genre writers feel, as Stephen King does, that story is the most important thing. I even wrote a review of Ed Grainger's western collection in which I echoed that sentiment. It's true, story is important. But if the writing isn't very good to begin with, it's going to be difficult to get into the story. Science fiction, to me, has always suffered a problem where the writing was concerned. I'm not going to mention names, but some very popular science fiction authors turn me off because, while their ideas are great, they have no writing style to speak of.

So, PLEASE send me some science fiction that is written in a readable style.

Horror.

What is horror? Horror is actually my favorite genre because when it's done properly, it evokes the purest, most primal emotions. I remember when I was a small child and my father read "The Tell-Tale Heart" to me just before I went to sleep. Well, I don't need to tell you that I didn't go to sleep. Everything about Poe's story fascinated me. I remember seeing an old Hammer film, Frankenstein Created Woman, on television and not being able to sleep for several nights. I remember the first time I saw Halloween. I couldn't sleep in a room by myself for weeks. That's what I'm looking for from the horror submissions-- stories that will crawl inside the mind and make the reader cold with fear. I don't write a lot of horror myself because I know how difficult it is. If I'm not scared while I'm writing the story, how can I expect the reader to be scared?

Adventure/Fantasy-- Just send me what you got. I've gotten the least amount of submissions in this catagory. Anything pirates, Johnny Quest, even James Bond-like, falls into this category. If you're writing fantasy, make it good because that's another genre I'm very critical of if the writing doesn't jump off the page.

I know I sound like a pompous jerk making all these demands but keep in mind that I want (and any writer involved should feel the same) this to be the best goddamn journal EVER. There is a strong group of writers on the Internet that I want the world to know about and the only way to make that happen is to make sure we get the best stories out there so people who don't normally read online fiction take notice.

ALL DUE RESPECT #13: COPPER SMITH

2011-07-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

The Man from Minnesota brings his unique voice to All Due Respect with a perfect summer story about a not-so-perfect cruise-- It's called Mutiny on the Pimp Wagon. Head on over and enjoy some vacation violence!

Pulp Modern Reminder

2011-06-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

That deadline is almost kind of sort of almost near. Got plenty of crime submissions. For the record, mystery stories need to be DAMN good to get in (mostly because there are two big print journals that specialize in mystery, so I don't want to dwell on that kind of story too much). Would really like to see some far out science fiction and some horror that makes me want to sleep with the lights on.

I'm having difficulty with my artists. I may have to find some pretty folks and dress them up in appropriate gear for each section of the journal and take some fancy black and white photographs. Just a heads up.

Peeling thin layers off of America's mythology

2011-06-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to mention that Ed Grainger is David Cranmer. It's really not that important. One of Big Steve King's primary rules about writing is: STORY. Story is what's important.

Big Steve King doesn't go over well among the hoity-toities in college writing classes. Never mind that half the people in any writing class I've ever taken enjoyed and wanted to write genre fiction. Something about the university compels people to hoist their snouts high in the air and pretend writing about the time grandma announced she was a lesbian at the family Thanksgiving dinner is somehow more relevant than a story about a man bending the law in order to better administer justice to those who deserve it.

Question: Who cares about your goddamn grandma, other than you?

Answer: Nobody.

Genre fiction soars above "literary" fiction for one important reason:

Story.

The human beast craves stories. It's what ties the individual to the Earth, to history. It ties all individuals together and creates what we call culture. Those cave paintings anthropologists and archeologists pee their pants over, those are genre stories.

Just saying...

Mr. Grainger has provided us with seven stories involving his "outlaw marshal," Cash Laramie, and his rather progressive character, Gideon Miles, a lawman who might well have spent more time outrunning lynch mobs than rounding up actual criminals for the "legitimate" gallows. Most of the stories I had read before. No problem. They're entertaining. They're stories. While each story features Cash or Gideon or both, each story is very different from the others. The order they're in creates a progression towards the shocking, final tale, "The Outlaw Marshal."

In the collection's stunning conclusion, one gets the impression of a concept album, or a good revenge film told in episodes. The mood the collection has created rises to an angry pitch and crashes like a wild, psychedelic guitar solo (I'm thinking of "L.A. Blues," the last song on The Stooges record Funhouse, without question the greatest rock album ever). This moment, however, has a logic to it. The reader has seen the treatment of Gideon Miles by the society around him, the reader has had his or her heart broken in a story about a young girl who is abused by her father, the reader has held his or her breath while an American Indian is forced to hide while the marshals, just doing their jobs, search in vain to bring him back to a vicious lynch mob (tip of the hat here to Mr. Grainger's co-writer on that particular story, Sandra Seamans). The reality of the west, the reality of the United States, is played in these stories as matter-of-fact, as it should be.

I place the efforts of Ed Grainger right up there with The Searchers, my nomination for Best Freakin' Western Movie Ever. Like The Searchers, the exploits of Cash and Gideon refuse to blink in the face of uncomfortable truths. Mr. Grainger accomplishes what "literary" writers attempt without the self-conscious, self-congratulatory melodrama that plagues "literary" fiction (why the hell is "literary" fiction even called fiction?..) The post-modern elements in Mr. Grainger's stories fit nice and snug with the narratives they are a part of. The reader isn't slapped in the face with a big sign that says: MESSAGE. The result is an enjoyable read that will make you nod and say, "Yeah, that sounds about right."

Isn't that what a good story is supposed to do? Here are seven that do it extremely well.

Just a friendly Pulp Modern reminder

2011-06-21T16:32:00.000-07:00

In a week, there will only be TWO MONTHS before the PULP MODERN deadline!

The Future of All Due Respect

2011-06-19T05:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I announced that All Due Respect would need a new editor after April of 2012. I was fortunate enough to get an email from Chris Rhatigan, who runs the excellent site Death By Killing, in which he offered to take over editorial duties. Chris knows good writing. I had worries about shutting ADR down or passing it on to an editor I might not be too sure about. Those worries are gone. I believe Mr. Rhatigan is going to do a hell of a job.

All Due Respect Update

2011-06-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

As of now, April, 2012 will be the last edition of All Due Respect. If anyone is interested in taking over editorial duties on that site, let me know. In order to make sure Pulp Modern is the best it can possibly be, I will have to concentrate on it.

Yes, this is research!

2011-06-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

A wild little western I happened to watch simply because I am studying up on Abilene at the moment.

Pulp Modern Update

2011-06-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

So far, I've selected three stories for the first issue (others are pending decision). Two of the three stories chosen were submitted in standard manuscript format. It makes many things much easier on an editor who has to read anywhere from six to a dozen submissions a day if the story is in standard format. I'm seriously considering making it a part of the guidelines, just so at least three-fourths of the submissions come in that way. I've learned that a certain percentage of people either don't read the guidelines at all or don't pay attention to them, so I'm well aware that I'll still get some in crazy formats.

For a reminder, here is a standard manuscript sample.

Still looking for some solid horror, science fiction and adventure (pirates, Indy Jones-stuff, etc).

Original image location: fearzone.com

Patricia Abbott at Spinetingler

2011-06-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

Some classy prose by Patricia Abbott at Spinetingler-- Her story Father's Day could very well be in any number of those literary journals edited by people who frown on genre fiction. Proof, yet again, that the best writing is done by genre writers...

This week at Beat to a Pulp

2011-06-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

For a lesson in compact, concise storytelling, head on over to Beat to a Pulp and check out Chris F. Holm's The Man in the Alligator Shoes. The story provides an excellent reason to never remind someone of someone else.

Photo courtesy of boottownusa.com

Abilene, KS

2011-06-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

What might I be doing, looking at maps of Abilene, KS in the 1880s? Hmm...

Pulp Modern Update

2011-06-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

Still looking for horror and science fiction submissions.

Mad Men Amendment

2011-06-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

I've gone through seasons two and three of Mad Men and I'm afraid to say I'm not nearly as impressed as I was with season one.

Pulp Modern Update

2011-06-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

Getting a lot of crime submissions. Would like to see some sf, horror, adventure (i.e., pirates, Johnny Quest kind of stuff) and western submissions. Pulp Modern is also listed at duotrope now.

Image courtesy of forbiddenplanet.co.uk

My Review of the Stunningly Awful Graduation Day

2011-06-06T06:08:00.000-07:00

I review one of the worst films ever made at Let's Kill Everybody. Thanks to Jimmy Callaway for publishing it and doing a great job of editing it.

Pulp Modern: Weekly Reminder

2011-06-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

Here's your weekly reminder. Pulp Modern is now accepting submissions!

Mr. Sensitive

2011-06-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well, at the end of a week in which an entirely irrational, bitter woman attacked me for defending an old toy (that originally belonged to my mother) she saw a picture of on facebook (and called "creepy," creepy being a word that is entirely over-used these days), I suppose it is appropriate to announce that a non-horror non-crime poem I wrote, "Scenes from a Diner," will appear in the fall edition of a literary journal called The Toucan. It's put together by some folks in Chicago, which is a good or bad omen (I have, historically, had bad, bad luck in Chicago...) Also, tonight I will be reading my poetry (including a hell of a poem called "Ed Gein" which is, amazingly, about "Ed Gein") at Black Dog Books in Zionsville, Indiana. I just thought it funny that after being called a number of unpleasant names, here I am, engaging in the pleasant practice of reading poetry to a group of quiet, dignified literary types.

I will post later about my feelings on what we, as a society, need to do about indiscriminate name-calling that can lead to ruined careers and lives (does a recent exchange at Spinetingler come to mind?). Luckily, in this case, I flagged the offending post and Facebook had the good sense to agree with me and remove it.

All Due Respect #12

2011-06-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

This month marks one year of All Due Respect. I'd like to offer thanks to all the writers who made the first year so entertaining. Jim Wilsky contributes the birthday story, Severance. Wilsky reminds us that white collar workers are also suffering in this miserable economy and if their bosses don't watch it, their employees just might explode with rage and show up for work when they're not scheduled... "Severance" is told in a manner very similar to the classic pulps. It's non-stop excitement and allows anyone who has been screwed-over by this economy a brief, if violent, fantasy.

This week at BTAP

2011-05-31T22:35:00.000-07:00

Paul Brazill and David Cranmer provide some fast-paced, science fiction adventure in the first of a serial, LoVINg the Alien. So far the story makes more sense than the David Bowie song of the same name. Paul's writing style is crisp and economic. No space is wasted on anything extraneous. Pure story. Go read it.

Call for submissions

2011-05-30T06:21:00.000-07:00

I am starting a print journal devoted to pulp fiction. The guidelines are here:

Pulp Modern

Any suggestions on how to improve the guidelines would be appreciated (as long as they don't come from some angry guy living in his mother's basement who thinks his story that was published in his third-grade school newspaper qualifies him as a 'professional writer'...Believe me, I've gotten all kinds of legal advice from that particular breed!)

Coming soon...

2011-05-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

Expiration by Termination

2011-05-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

Chris Rhatigan has some kind words for Katy Too at his blog Death by Killing. He also mentions some ace stories by Copper Smith and Matthew Funk.

I'm hooked...

2011-05-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

So I'm always getting tv shows from the library on dvd and watching them to put me to sleep at night. I made the msitake of getting the first season of Mad Men a couple of weeks ago. I say 'mistake' because I can't sleep while this show is on. I wasn't too sure at first, but by the season finale ("The Wheel"), I was hooked. I think some of the show's (very few) critics are correct in pointing out that this is a series that wants to have and eat it's cake. While it tends to go overboard on depicting old-school sexism, the show can be seen to be contributing to sexism the way it clearly "objectifies" its women. Frankly, I don't care. I can't figure out why, but this is a show that makes you think. Quite rare these days. While it doesn't appeal to the drive-in junky in me the way Breaking Bad does, I think this may actually be the better of AMC's original two series (I haven't watched The Killing yet. It'll be another one I get on board late, mostly because I'm rewatching the entire Twin Peaks series at my brother's house on movie night so I don't need two running stories about a dead girl...)

Just a side note, in 2002 I was without regular work in L.A. I had to take jobs as an "extra" on tv shows. I was always cast as either a lawyer, politician, or cop or security guard. One of my first gigs was on a show with Sally Field called The Court. Don't feel bad if you missed it, it was on for about six episodes. Anyway, the director singled me out to do a little bit with a young blonde actress where she walks into the courtroom and heads in the wrong direction, so I grab her and redirect her to where she's supposed to be. I remember that young lady quite well because she had big, round, gorgreous eyes and a hell of a body. I just learned, by watching Mad Men (I'm on season two now) that the name of that young actress was/is Christina Hendricks. Oh well. Even back then she was way, way out of my league... (And I don't even believe in "leagues")

Photo courtesy of screenrant.com

Mr. Cizak at Beat to a Pulp

2011-05-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

I consider Beat to a Pulp the gold standard for pulp fiction sites on the Internet. It's the only site that ever had an editor call me and tell me how to improve my writing. David Cranmer and Elaine Ash are responsible for the hands-down coolest goddamn anthology of the last few years. Being published at BTAP is an honor. This week, my story Katy Too appears at BTAP. It's pure pulp fiction. Based on a story an old (and now, unfortunately, dead) Irish-American gangster told me (among many others I believe he expected me to put on paper). In addition, David Cranmer wrote a hell of an intro for me at his blog The Education of a Pulp Writer. Thanks to Mr. Cranmer and thanks to anyone who takes the time to read the story.

Funk and Mac Flash Friday

2011-05-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

You'd think this was the Matthew Funk fan club. Mr. Funk's flash fiction is on display at Shotgun Honey in a number titled Nothing to Say. You'll see from comments I left there that I found it very instructive with regards to how the protagonist makes use of pliers and duct tape.

If that's not enough to add to your early weekend anxiety, Jodi MacArthur has a nice piece at Flashes in the Dark called Spin Top-Swan on the Rocks. This story is hallucinatory and rich in beautiful, nightmarish-images.

Photos courtesy of charlesandhudson.com
and soulseasons-yiota143.blogspot.com

I would love to know...

2011-05-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

...how the All Due Respect email address got out to scam artists who pretend to have access to millions of dollars, who will share their wealth with me if I only give them my bank account number so that they may transfer the money over to me. I'd love to meet these people in person and demonstrate my feelings about their emails with an interpretive beat down...

Sorry, political interlude

2011-05-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

The Indiana State Supreme Court has taken a giant shit on the Constitution of the United States. They have passed a horrific law that states you may no longer defend yourself if a police officer enters your home without a warrant (an illegal act, according to the Fourth Amendment). Folks, this is it. Kiss freedom goodbye. Once the rest of the country sees that my goofy hillbilly neighbors don't have the sense to resist this crap, it will spread across the country. Imagine, cops just walking right into your home without a goddamn warrant. Our Founding Fathers fought and died so that we wouldn't have to endure the nightmare of a police state. Looks like the Indiana State Supreme Court doesn't know too much about the law. Funny, isn't it? I hope the three unAmerican justices who voted for this Nazi-esque legislation has his or her home invaded by a cop. See how they like it.

Nasty Stuff this week at BTAP

2011-05-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

Linda Schenck, supposedly a sensitive, romantic-type, offers up Nobody's Listening at Beat to a Pulp this week. Mrs. Schenck delivers a short story that will make your mind gasp when it's over. It's a wonderful example of fiction being more honest than non-fiction. It's also a well-layered tale that compels the reader to think about several issues at once. Very nice work, Mrs. Schenck.

PS-- Next week, I believe, a writer I am too familiar with will be featured at BTAP.

Yo, Blogger

2011-05-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

What the hell happened to the comments on my last post? What the hell happened to all that work I did on updating the guidelines at All Due Respect? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

Rock and Roll Flash Fiction Contest

2011-05-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

Copper Smith sent me this message:

Hello!

I'd like to invite you to partake of my flash fiction challenge: Going out like Elvis – dead rock star noir!
Here's a sample to get you going: Nothing to kill or die for.

You get the idea: spin a suspenseful tale in which you save your favorite dead rock/rap/reggae/country/jazz star from certain death…

Or you avenge their murder…

Or maybe solve a rock star mystery (who killed Tupac? Is Elvis really dead? Is Keith Richards really alive? Did video really kill the radio star?).

Lots of possibilities: a zombified Elvis, an avenged Marvin Gaye – or just craft a nifty noir-ish tale out of a song by your favorite dead rock star.

It's up to you. Just make it pulp-y and noir-y and make it revolve around a dead rock star. Also make it under 2000 words. Just don't make it about a hit man targeting Mark David Chapman before he can get to John Lennon because I've already gone there.

I'll have my readers vote and the winning story gets immortalized in mp3 format by the Uppercut Avenue players, kind of like this or this.

The deadline is June 1st – so get to work!

Let me know if you're on board and feel free to share the news!

Thanks,

Copper

I'm still working on mine. Looking forward to seeing what other folks come up with.

Photo courtesy of theelvisisalivemuseumonline

All Due Respect's Summer Schedule

2011-05-08T23:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at who will be getting their all due respect this summer:

June -- Jim Wilsky reminds us that white collar folks are getting screwed in this economy as well.

July -- Copper Smith takes us on sea cruise not sanctioned by Disney.

August -- Patricia Abbott introduces us to a thoughtful, caring father.

September -- C.J. Edwards introduces us to the girl next door and her friendly neighbor.

There's some shootin', some schemin', some robbin', some creepin' around, and some good old fashioned stalkin'. Looks like a fun-filled summer for the whole family!

I torch The Burning at Let's Kill Everybody!

2011-05-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

This is the first review I wrote for Jimmy Callaway's series of blogs dealing with exploitation movies. I think it's a little choppy and there's at least one place where I wrote a sentence that flat out doesn't make sense. I wrote the review over winter break when the OCD got me hooked on watching early 80s slashers. People love The Burning and I'm sure will hate me for pointing out what I think is obvious-- It's a terrible movie and a terrible attempt by the Weinstein Bros. to deconstruct a genre right at the height of its popularity. With the benefit of time, I have decided I do not like The Prowler nearly as much as I did back in December. I rewatched it and realized it gets repetitive. The only impressive thing about it are the first three kills, which display some of Tom Savini's finest work. Upon seeing the footage that was cut from the original My Bloody Valentine (nine friggin' minutes!), I've decided the only slasher to come close to Friday the 13th or the godfather of slashers, Halloween, was, in fact, My Bloody Valentine. It wasn't quite as scary, but the atmosphere was great, the gore was fantastic and the blue-collar setting separated it from all the other Halloween imitations. The painful truth is, the slasher genre was nothing more than people trying to cash in on the success of Halloween. What none of the producers of the subsequent films understood was that Halloween worked due to suspense. The Prowler has moments that are suspenseful, but the sloppy plot construction takes away any power that suspense might have had. I think it's time to applaud John Carpenter for being the only member of the New Hollywood generation who could ever have replaced Alfred Hitchcock. Anyway, read the review if you like and leave a comment, even if you think I'm full of shit.

Photo courtesy of buckthereom.blogspot.com

Congratulations to Matthew C. Funk

2011-05-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Mr. Funk's "Times Past" received the 2011 Spinetingler Award for Best Short Story on the Web. It is a great honor to have published the story at All Due Respect. Appropriately enough, Matthew Funk will be the first writer to appear twice at All Due Respect. His story "Broken Play" will be featured in the December edition. Congratulations once more, Mr. Funk.

All Due Respect #11: Barrie Darke

2011-05-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

For the second month in a row, All Due Respect belongs to a writer from across that big lake called the Atlantic. Barrie Darke proves himself the United Kingdom's answer to Mark Twain in his unique story, The Cacker.

Coming Soon to Beat to a Pulp!

2011-04-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

It's always a tremendous honor to have a story at Beat to a Pulp. My story "Katie Too" will appear in the May 22nd edition. The title comes from a perfectly harmless Johnny Cash song (actually, the narrator of the song basically says he's going to see all the women he wants, but will always include "Katie" on his list of girlfriends. Maybe it's not so innocent after all!) The story itself is based on a real incident told to me by an old gangster who was gunned down by cancer a few years ago. Hopefully I did it justice.

Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves...

2011-04-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Border's Books at Keystone and the Crossing is closing so they're selling everything in the store dirt cheap. I went this last weekend to see what I could round up. I got an excellent book on cowboy culture that will hopefully be helpful as I craft some westerns over the summer months. I bought an old edition of The Best American Short Stories and a magazine focused on cult movies. I have to say I was disappointed, however. Border's, unlike Barnes and Noble, is thoughtful enough to have a separate section for horror books. I was hoping to find some cheap paperbacks by new writers to get a sense of where the genre is headed. The entire section was dominated (save for the shelves of Stephen King and Dean Koontz,) by zombie and vampire books. The monotony was broken up by the occasional werewolf book. Is this really the scope of horror today? I've been noticing the rise of zombies and vampires in popularity over the last decade. I can't figure it out. I guess vampires have appealed to women for some time now, thanks in large part to Ann Rice turning them into pouty, bisexual fashion models. Werewolves are a natural extension of vampires, maybe the masculine version of whatever fantasy these stories satisfy for women. But where in the world does the fascination for zombies come from? Could it be a metaphor for the realization that the American Empire is in decline? Is this the signal that American "culture" (I'm not even going to start the argument on what exactly American culture actually is) is dead? The zombie mythology comes from old voodoo ideas about controlling souls. Is any of that present in modern zombie stories? Finally, what will take the place of these trends? My goal is always to try something that, ultimately, will be original. I know people say "there are no new ideas" but I think that's bullshit. Where are the pioneers in horror who will direct this cruise ship of blood-suckers and brain-eaters towards the rocks so that new nightmares may be unleashed? Hmm...

Cash Laramie Gets Ruthless

2011-04-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already read Ed Grainger's latest Cash Laramie story at the Flash Fiction Offensive, get to it. Cash is not exactly the poster boy for regulations in this one. As this cycle of stories continues, the blood and truth embedded in the soil of the west climbs closer and closer to the surface. Polite Police be warned, this one was made for late night cable, not the Saturday Afternoon Round Up with Gene Autry...

Photo courtesy of gunblast.com

Brilliant story at BTAP this week

2011-04-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

Terry Farley Moran contributes For Keepsies at this week's Beat to a Pulp. This one will knock you down. The writing is perfect. It has all the qualities "literary fiction" strives for but never achieves the way good "genre" fiction does. The ultimate effect was that of being a kid, sitting on the lap of a relative who knows how to tell a good story and realizing nothing is going to protect you from the Big Bad World.

Photo courtesy of photoblogster.com

After a considerable delay, D.O.A. is finally available

2011-04-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

Quite possibly the most morally reprehensible story I've ever written, "Saving Ralph," is now available in the anthology D.O.A. from Blood Bound Books. Those who reviewed my story "Strength," from the Ruthless anthology, who felt I had gone too far in my sketch of a budding serial killer as a child, will be thoroughly disgusted by this flash fiction portrait of a poor homeless schmuck and the manner with which he both dines and eliminates demons from his past. The anthology is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I believe it is actually a buck cheaper at B&N. This is another "extreme horror" collection, so be warned if that sort of thing bothers you. Both "Strength" and "Saving Ralph" are artifacts from the mid-2000s when I was living in extreme poverty in Los Angeles, watching rodents take over my one room, no kitchen apartment in Koreatown (sooner or later, they figure out every trap, every poison. They're amazing little fuckers!) I don't know if I'll ever write this sort of stuff again. Then again, the way the economy is going, maybe I'll have no choice!

By the way, I got the check for this story today in the mail. The editors made it out to Alec Cizak, not my legal name. Can't wait for the hassle at the bank!

All Due Respect #10: Nigel Bird

2011-03-31T22:01:00.000-07:00

Last month we spent time in a classy trailer park. This month's All Due Respect spends some time in the sleaziest possible environment-- a Hollywood movie shoot! International super-star Nigel Bird breaks one of the most sacred taboos in Hoodwinked.

"A Moral Majority" now up at Paraphernalia Quarterly

2011-03-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

These folks said they'd let me know before the story went up. I stumbled across another site called "The Literary Underground" that alerted me my story A Moral Majority was included in the latest issue of Paraphernalia Quarterly. Anyway, take a look at the story. It's the last story I sent out where I still 'wrote' the exact pronounciation in dialogue. I've since had a change of heart on that whole matter. Whenever I put together my Haggard, Indiana anthology I'll fix that.

Now, I have a lot of friends who are Christians. I'm not bashing Christianity here, just hypocrisy. Please keep that in mind. This could be a story about anybody. It just happens to be about a preacher from my made-up small town, Haggard, Indiana (and anybody looking at a map can clearly see I'm talking about good old Hobart!)

Photo courtesy of seminaryblog.com

My review of BAD LT. at Let's Drink Everybody

2011-03-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

To read about a movie I actually did like, head on over to Jimmy Callaway's blog, Let's Drink Everybody! and take a look at my review of Bad Lt.

HorrorHound Weekend

2011-03-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

Way back in the dark ages, also known as the late 1980s, I used to accompany a friend of mine, Kali J., to Star Trek conventions. Kali was rarely hounded by men in the normal world. At Star Trek conventions, however, the boys tripped over themselves trying to talk to her. Kali was and is, for the most part, a man-hater, and never responded well to boys hitting on her. She would pay for my admission and I would tell the Trekkies I was her brother and that allowed Kali to do whatever it is she needed to do at these conventions in peace. In those days, conventions were operated by locals and had a very grass-roots feel to them. The last time Kali used my services at a Star Trek convention was 1990. Some corporation had taken over and the difference was obvious. The greed-factor was multiplied by a thousand and the guests, while “bigger,” were snobbier and less than cordial with their fans.

Flash forward to today. I decided to head on over to the Marriott East and check out the HorrorHound Weekend. The theme was ‘80s Slasher Movies.’ My half-dozen readers are well-aware that I love early 80s slasher movies, so I figured it might be interesting. My overall opinion is this: Horror movie conventions are like screenings of Rocky Horror Picture Show with slightly fewer transvestites. The hardcore fans do a great job of dressing up like their favorite, beloved serial killers and ghouls and what-nots. There were a few zombies and a whole lot of zombie-killers. I find that interesting. If you think about it, the original Night of the Living Dead was about the new order (i.e., youth and “minorities”) taking over the old order and how the reactionaries respond to that movement. That means the zombie-killer phenomena is, essentially, a reactionary expression. The zombie-killers were dressed like soldiers and carried fake pump-shotguns. Yup. That about sums up the political landscape of America today.

I met the guy who actually did all the killing in The Prowler. Real asshole. Turns out he was the First Assistant Director on the picture. That makes sense. 1st ADs, traditionally, were assholes because they had to keep the set running. Most of the “guests,” I discovered, were bitter old men who were pissed that their brief turn as a serial killer thirty years ago didn’t flower into the same career Wes Craven or Jamie Lee Curtis had. Even Sid Haig looked sort of sad and bored with the whole thing.

I sat in on two panels. The first had members of the cast and crew of Halloween III. As most people know, that is one of the most interesting failures in the history of b-movies. People hated it initially because Michael Myers wasn’t the villain. Recently, it has gotten a critical re-examination. The truth is, it’s not a very good movie. But, it has that early 80s feel to it that allows me to forgive it out of nostalgia. The first time I saw Halloween III was at my friend John Baker’s house. He was having a birthday slumber party. We were all in the fifth grade. Halloween III was playing late on HBO, following another classic of that era, H.O.T.S. By two in the morning, having had my hormones sent into a frenzy by all the boobs in H.O.T.S., Halloween III seemed like a mystical film. Anyway, the panel included the director, Tommy Lee Wallace, and the two main stars. Wallace got pretty political. All in all, I enjoyed that panel more than I thought I would.

Then came the bitter old farts. The 80s Slasher panel was beyond disappointing. Ted White, who played Jason in Friday the 13th part 4, slammed the director, Joe Zito. Even worse, Derek Mackinnon, the effeminate killer in Terror Train, slammed his director and Jamie Lee Curtis. All of these guys make their living off of obscure parts played in movies very few people actually care about and all they can do is bitch and moan. They don’t understand how lucky they are.

Everything is about money now. All these old farts charge people to pose for pictures with them. The old farts in the slasher panel are people whose faces never even appeared in the movies they were in. Their contributions are paper-thin. Shouldn’t they be grateful for the plane ticket, hotel room, meals and adoration they don’t deserve? Maybe I just don’t get this whole convention thing…

2011 Spinetingler Awards

2011-03-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

Matthew C. Funk's story Times Past has been nominated for a Spinetingler Award for Best Short Story on the Web. Thanks to those who nominated the story and thanks to Mr. Funk for contributing to All Due Respect. If you haven't read his story, or his work elsewhere on the web, do yourself a favor and take care of that right now.

Congratulations also to Jodi MacArthur for her romantic little yarn, Pillow Talk, at Beat to a Pulp. Again, if you haven't read it, do so. Right now!

The National Writing Project

2011-03-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

Last year I attended the Summer Institute for the Hoosier Writing Project. It is part of the National Writing Project and if you are not familiar with their purpose, please stop by their website and take a look. If you know of a Writing Project in your state and you are a writer, I would recommend you get involved. This is an effort to improve the way writing is taught in schools. As writers, we are aware of all the things writing can do for an individual. It is a tool for learning, for getting a job, it is even medicine. President Obama is taking funding from this program. Please visit this site and see what you can do to prevent this from happening. Obviously, the most important thing writing does is teach critical thinking. It is obvious why this corrupt government would want to steal funding from an effort to improve the critical thinking skills of our young people.