Category Archives: The Writing Life
Hot Times, Back to the Aquarium and Sorting Things Out
My New Year’s Wish tag was JOY—and all I can say is that so far? That’s been right on! What a month!
I finished writing a short story, “Hot Times at the Dinosaur Bidet.” Set on New Year’s Eve 1999, everyone’s waiting for Y2K to happen (or not?)… but there’s something far worse out there, and it can’t be stopped. I submitted the piece to the intended market, which passed. I’ve already selected twenty places to send it to. I finished another short story that I can’t talk about because the market I’m sending to requires blind submissions.
Discovered that my story “All the Silent Nights,” for which artwork was commissioned, has been published in Christmas Spirits Volume 2. This collection of classically-inspired holiday ghost stories also features amazing art, and the volume is gorgeous, down to the glossy paper. Don’t miss this one. https://store.bookbaby.com/book/christmas-spirits-vol-2
34 Orchard was only open from January 1 – 10, and we’re only doing one call this year to shore up both 2026 issues. We only accepted fiction, no poetry this time. We received 1000 subs, and we’ve picked up a few for 2027 already. We got some great work, including a piece from Nepal! I can’t wait. I have to finish clearing out the inbox by Feb. 28. I still have a LOT to read! Our membership application was also accepted for the Community of Literary and Magazines and Presses.
I’d signed up to go back to volunteer at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, and on Jan. 7 I got the email to attend an introductory session. Between 2001 and 2004 I served 1400 hours. Between 2015 and 2019 I’m not sure how many—I didn’t keep track—but this time around? It’s a brand new fresh start. No one I worked with is there anymore, and they’re now on a playing level with Mystic. I’m up for the challenge and got word that after my background check, my first day will be on my birthday, February 5.
The Dark Discussions podcast, on which I’ve been a part-time co-host for a dozen years, sees our 700th episode this year, and welcomed 2026 in the top 20% of most-listened to ’casts across all carriers. This is Phillip Perron’s baby, and he’s the reason it’s as successful as it is. Curious? Visit https://www.darkdiscussions.com/ This month, we taped episodes on Together, The Hem, and the 2025 Bucket List, for which I chose 2025’s Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Oval Portrait.” Rent that here: https://www.amazon.com/Edgar-Allan-Poes-Oval-Portrait/dp/B0FRB41GY4/
House news: I finally hung up some artwork in my office. Still more to hang! Also hung up some artwork down in the dining room. We’ve got a ways to go to reclaim this place, but we’re getting there.
A highlight was attending and presenting at the Winter 2026 Virtual Clockhouse Writers Conference & Retreat, in which Goddard MFAs get together and share info and inspo. It was a rejuvenating weekend of write-ins, prompt sessions, and workshops with like minds in a community that puts the stress on creation. I was honored to share the ever-popular The Architecture of the Manuscript Submissions Process, read a little of a new piece, and moderated a work-in-progress session. But mostly I just enjoyed everyone else. So much moving, powerful work. It was pretty amazing.
On the fun side, I re-watched childhood favorites: 1984’s V and 1983’s Wizards & Warriors. I’m reading How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu and King’s The Shining.
I closed out the month with a visit from fellow writer Trisha J. Wooldridge—we visited Stew Leonard’s (my every day, but a treat for her!) and visited Mystic Aquarium to see the mermaids.
Were there some downsides this month? Oh yes. There always are. I had to wear a glucose monitor to see if I was “on the cusp of diabetes” due to high triglycerides. It turns out that it’s all just due to the MCAS, and that any sugar spikes I’m having are basically due to how stressed I am. I’m upset? Here comes 250. I’m calm? Totally in normal range. A1C well into normal, fasting blood sugars normal. It just changes with trauma response. So… still working on that nervous system, but other than that, it’s all good. Can’t say it wasn’t scary since pancreatic failure is ultimately what killed my dad, but I think I got this.
Hope you’re having a great February!
HP Lovecraft Film Festival VIRTUAL starts this Friday 12/5!
I love cosmic horror—it asks so many questions and makes me think. I also love short films. So the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, going strong since 1995, is my jam! The streaming edition, which is always the highlight of my year, arrives this Friday, featuring over sixty short films, several full-length features, author readings, and panels (and a ticket purchase gives you through 12/12 to watch everything).
Hosts Gwen and Brian Callahan go above and beyond—the quality of this festival, from curation and content to pledge campaign rewards and collateral material—is top notch.
This year’s thirtieth anniversary theme is Cthulu on the High Seas, so in addition, some contributors to the Lovecraftian Microfiction/Challenge from Beyond books, which always accompany the festival, were instead asked to write an X-files-esque story surrounding The Emma, a two-masted schooner that plays into strange events in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulu.” There are stories by favorites like Cody Goodfellow and John Shirley, and my story “Compaction” is included too. The books will be on sale after the festival on Arkhaam Bazaar’s website.
If short films and cosmic/existentialist horror rocks your world, this festival is for you! You can purchase tickets for the December 5-9 (with extended time through Dec. 12), 2025 streaming event here: https://hplfilmfestival.eventive.org/passes/buy.
My last project of 2024…
I only wrote one short story this year, and it went for its final polish (usually the third) on December 30. Here’s a photo of the drafts and notes I kept during the process… works out to about two inches thick. If you’re a writer, what/how do you keep your notes, if any? What do you do with them all afterward?
Here’s hoping 2025 brings all of us lots of piles of drafts and notes!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Our front stoop!
For the past several years, Halloween—the day itself—for me has been about working on any writing project I choose, dressing up in costume, and playing my favorite “Kitty” game on Google Doodle. Last night, Nathan and I went up to our favorite cemetery to watch the sunset and listen to Christopher Lee read Poe’s “The Raven.”
The beginning of sunset at the cemetery.
I love the rose light on the stones.
Nathan took this. It was absolutely gorgeous–like the sky was on fire. Sorry for the low quality; I was in a hurry so I just grabbed it from Facebook.
Today I’m dressing up as Ellie from Jurassic Park. Tonight, we’ll roast pumpkin seeds and watch Vincent Price in Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death.
YES IT’S THE OFFICIAL COSTUME! I’m still battling that crazy illness and still can’t eat, really, so this year, I decided to treat myself. Plus I’m thin enough now to pull it off. Silver linings!
Here are the kitty game links (officially, it’s called Magic Cat Academy) in case you wanna play, too!
See links below!
2016: https://g.co/kgs/1FLM8by
(I wrote the short story, “We’ve Always Been Here.”)
2020: https://g.co/kgs/J84Tsmv
(I was working on Tidings).
2024: https://doodles.google/doodle/halloween-2024/
(I will be working on an untitled short piece and probably the Lake Rites screenplay polish).
Happy Halloween!
My spider pumpkin. Nathan had to finish it for me. He used to do TONS of pumpkins.
Nathan’s pumpkin! I thought this scarecrow was very cute.
Back to School: Upcoming Can’t-Miss Writing Classes from Almond, ASF
Lately I’ve been feeling restless and wanting to take some writing classes—we all know that, as writers, not only is it like having homework for the rest of our lives, we’re never done learning.
I’ve signed up for Steve Almond’s Almond Joy: A Trio of Classes to Kickstart Your Writing courses at Writing Co-Lab below, and wanted not only to share the opportunity out there with my followers (many of you are writers), but also to tell you that I HIGHLY RECOMMEND his new book—Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories.
No matter where you are in your writing career, I can guarantee you’ll find something Read the rest of this entry
While I was in hell: an earthquake, an eclipse, and the aurora borealis
Up until a few weeks ago, I was in hell.
The past nine years have been rough. I had sudden attacks of nausea with heart palpitations and passing out, brain fog, lack of energy, and abnormal depression and anxiety. Doctors insisted it was “menopause,” “stress,” or “food poisoning.” It was after the COVID shots everything got worse: my hair fell out, I was in constant abdominal pain, and eventually, I couldn’t eat anything except oatmeal. It was all I could do to get out of bed, and, to quote Steven Belanger’s story “Blackstone,” in the Monsters in the Mills collection, “do the damn day.” Food terrified me and social situations became impossible, so I didn’t go anywhere except work. Doctors just kept telling me “I don’t know. More tests a month from now” while I was literally starving to death.
Meanwhile, the world chugged ahead. I felt abandoned, visiting my friends’ social media accounts to see them delight in life, eat things without a second thought, write stories, go places, make plans. In Britt Nicole’s song “The Sun is Rising,” she sings about a person’s hopes for the future burning, and I identified: I was being reduced to ashes and swept aside.
I thought seriously about Swedish Death Cleaning and making my will. Call me a drama queen, but when everyone tells you there’s nothing wrong with you and you know there is, you’re sick as a dog, you can barely function and that starving will eventually kill you? You lose something very important: hope.
As far as my writing, I prioritized the Spring 2024 issue of 34 Orchard, which was released with great success and, if I do say so myself, it’s a stellar issue (get your free copy here: https://34orchard.com/issue-9/). Our Zoom release cocktail hour was an absolute blast, in which I was talking to people in several different countries around the world right in my dining room; my husband’s reception at his Masonic lodge, which I planned, was an amazing day; I was honored to serve on a virtual panel for StokerCon 2024. But everything I had in progress—a short novel for an upcoming call, a screenplay due at the end of June, the finishing up of Tidings, a short story for an anthology that needed an overhaul—all of that was shelved. I couldn’t write a decent sentence if you’d tied me to a chair and forced me; my inner voice was gone. In truth, though, none of it seemed to matter. Most nights, all I had the energy for after a long day of surviving was laying on the couch and watching Netflix. I didn’t talk to too many of my friends, even though I made sure their birthday gifts went out on time. I would look around my messy house and think, oh well, weren’t those parties so glorious? Wasn’t going out and having pizza and spending time with your friends fun? How about all of those awesome vacations—aren’t you lucky you got as many as you did? I’m so glad you took photos, because you’re never going to have that again. Your life is over, be grateful for what you had and what you accomplished. Next.
That said, there were some other interesting bright spots, Read the rest of this entry
I belong to We Are Providence!
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been a member of the Rhode Island-based writer’s community We Are Providence since November of 2023, and what a ride it’s been! I’ve had strong Rhode Island ties since the early nineties, when I did undergraduate work at the University of Rhode Island. Over the past thirty years, I’ve spent so much time in the state it feels like home, and the folks in We Are Providence have not only welcomed me with open arms, they have made me feel like I truly belong.
Helmed by Christa Carmen (The Daughters of Block Island) and L.E. Daniels (Serpent’s Wake: a Tale for the Bitten), we’ve just put the finishing touches on the group’s second anthology, Monsters in the Mills, which releases in August (and includes a brand new story by me called “Cinched”).
If you love all things abandoned, this collection is for you. Edited by Christa and L.E., cover art by Mr. Michael Squid, and introduction by Faye Ringel, and published by Australian-based Interactive Publications, here’s the back cover copy (if you’re wondering if I wrote it because it sounds like me, yes, I did):
♦
DEEP IN THE WEEDS, THEY WAIT.
Behind graffitied fences or obscured by woods, the abandoned mills of New England watch. For thrillists and historians, urbexers and developers, or just the average passer-by. Omnipresent and looming, the mills lure the innocent to their mysteries, secrets…and terrors.
The We are Providence writers hunt what lurks among the crumbled bricks and strangling sumac. A widower on a demolition crew wakes the revenants. Read the rest of this entry
Oh, What a Night! Behind-the-Scenes of CANDLEWOOD: filming and the red carpet premiere!
My photos from filming as an extra in the horror film CANDLEWOOD back in 2022—and from the red carpet premiere at Bank Street Theater in my hometown of New Milford, Connecticut, where the movie was shot—are below! What a magical filming experience and a stellar night—things that’ll always live gloriously in my memory. I’m so thrilled and excited for everyone involved.
Wanna get your chance to see the film everyone’s talking about in a limited run before it goes national? You CAN, right NOW, at Bank Street Theater through the month of February! A new showing was also just added, since several have sold out.
GET TICKETS HERE: https://www.candlewoodfilm.com/tickets?fbclid=IwAR0DGSn13fCXoOpmtixzoiUk6GiT5b16idUICIL1ULJ84pY8GpKg6OMV5cw
I-95 Rock’s “Unveiling the Magic of ‘Candlewood’ – Red Carpet & Beyond” here: https://i95rock.com/unveiling-of-candlewood-world-premiere/
Danbury News-Times Event Coverage: https://www.newstimes.com/entertainment/article/candlewood-horror-movie-new-milford-ct-premiere-18634628.php
And now…
FILMING AT THE MARKET-CT (formerly the Northville Market): October 25, 2022
GETTING READY FOR THE PREMIERE: January 27, 2024
AT THE PREMIERE: Bank Street Theater, New Milford, CT Read the rest of this entry
Creep out your Halloween drive time tomorrow with me on I-95 Rock!
THRILLED to announce I’m going to be on I-95 Rock (WRKI 95.1 FM) tomorrow—yes, HALLOWEEN!—at 8:20 am to talk about Candlewood Lake’s creepy legends with Ethan & Lou (The Ethan & Lou Show)! This is very exciting!! Tune in on your drive-time at 95.1 FM on your radio dial, listen through the app, or you can listen LIVE at this link: https://i95rock.com/listen-live/
Ethan Carey, in particular, is really interested in Candlewood Lake—its history, its culture, and its legends and lore. I hope to get the chance to shed some light on the origins of some of its creepier campfire tales.
Read more at the links below!
“The Lost Souls of Candlewood Lake: Did they make it out alive?”
https://i95rock.com/the-lost-souls-of-candlewood-lake-did-they-make-it-out-alive/
“The Tale of the Lost Souls of Candlewood Lake”
http://i95rock.com/those-that-stayed-behind-beneath-candlewood-lake/
“Stories of Candlewood Lake Monsters that are Obviously Urban Legends”
http://i95rock.com/dont-panic-stories-of-a-candlewood-lake-monster-are-simply-urban-legends/
“The Ghosts of Candlewood Lake’s Chicken Rock”
https://i95rock.com/the-ghosts-of-candlewood-lakes-chicken-rock/
It’s always Tiki Time…
Writer Elaine Pascale and I cocktail it up at TT’s Tiki Bar in Punta Gorda, FL. Photo by Michele Ingram
…when you’re a Gen-Xer! When I was in Florida, fellow writer and I Elaine Pascale got together at TT’s Tiki Bar down in Punta Gorda and had some serious fun with icy tropical cocktails and a few of the anthologies in which we share a Table of Contents.
If you haven’t already, join the party and get your copy of the Generation X-ed anthology full of short shocking trips down memory lane by Elaine, me, and a formidable f-ton of horror-slinging Gen-X writers edited by Rebecca Rowland today—AND you can even get it in good old-fashioned hardcover if you wish!
What the hell’s that pretty blue think I’m drinking? It’s called an Under the Sea Colada. Elaine had herself a Tiki Tai (that’s like a mai-tai. YUM!)
