So tomorrow I'm headed out to Salt Lake City, Utah to attend the World Horror Convention, and I'm pretty excited. My main job will be promoting City Slab Magazine and getting our name out there in front of all those literary-minded horror fans and small presses, but I'll also hopefully do a little networking and fun-having into the bargain. Maybe I'll blog my journals after I get back, if anything interesting happens. Or maybe not. Anyway, full report next week!
Oh, and I'll do a full post on this next week too, but I'm planning on reading for the 4th consecutive year at next weekend's Arkansas Literary Festival "Pub or Perish" event. It's scheduled for Saturday, April 5, at Sticky Fingerz in downtown Little Rock, starting (I think) at 7. I have no way of knowing when my turn will come up, but if you're in town and interested, drop on by!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Off to the World Horror Convention!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Neurotica
I've recently re-established contact with a very dear friend from my days at LSU--writer, artist, teacher, and all-around awesome chick Elva Maxine Beach. We were both in the MFA program in Fiction, and over the course of the two years I was there Max was probably my closest and best friend. Somehow in the years following I allowed myself to fall out of touch with her, which was totally inexcusable on my part and denied me the pleasure of her long-distance company. What a loser I am, huh?
Anyway, a recent nostalgia-fueled Google search turned up Max's kickass new website, and news about her collection of short stories soon to be published by New Belleville Press in Austin. The collection is entitled Neurotica, and contains Max's trademark erotic memoirs in fictionalized form, which have been published (among other places) at the literary-erotica website Nerve.com. Check out what the critics are saying:
Neurotica delivers the uneasy kick of a one night stand or the off-balance excitement of an amateur porno, yet Beach’s descriptive passages radiate such warmth and detail that they seem to cry out in the vernacular of one's own memory. The humanity of this writing eats most writers for breakfast and compares Beach favorably to Bukowski and Anais Nin. – Rex Rose, Toast
Max says of her own work:
“My work isn’t necessarily erotica,” Beach says. “It’s raw, yes, and there’s lots of fucking and sucking, but my work delves into the psyche. It’s psyche-sexual drama.”
I don't know about you, but that sounds like the butter on my toast. So if you're in the mood for some psyche-sexual drama, go the The New Belleville Press's site and order yourself a copy. And tell Max that Scott sent you. And be sure to check out Max's blog on her website for poetry, links to her stories online, self-revelations, and other cool awesome stuff from one of my favorite people in the world. You rule, Max! Read More......
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I'm a Media Superstar
Guess who got a nice mention in this week's Arkansas Times?
Success in the world of poetry and a $5 bill will buy you a cheap hamburger, but bragging rights and publication in a well-regarded journal might at least make the hunger pangs easier to bear. Scott Standridge, a Little Rock writer who programs computers to pay the bills, was a finalist for the 2007 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award...
Standridge's entry, “Noir, #28,” clothes classically Shakespearean themes in a Humphrey Bogart trenchcoat, describing a man's sensual but deadly encounter with a femme fatale.
Yes, it pays to be charismatic, intriguing, and talented. Of course, it also pays to have friends in the field of journalism. But however I get it, I'll take it and like it! Read More......
Friday, March 14, 2008
"Gnome? I never even SEEN 'im!"
You may or may not know that I'm a big fan of cryptozoology--the study of possibly mythical creatures like Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster, often with a view toward proving they exist--so this little piece of news really made my day:
"Creepy Gnome" Terrorizes Argentinian Town
Excerpt:
Residents of a small town in Argentina have been spooked after several sightings of bizarre-looking figure that was captured on video in the middle of the night.
Locals claim the 'creepy gnome' stalks the streets at night. The little 'person' who wears a pointy hat has a distinctive sideways walk was caught on video last week by youngsters who claim to have been terrified.
Reportedly the little guy makes a sound "like someone throwing stones"--a detail I find inexplicably creepy due to its random weirdness. So be on the lookout for THIS GUY:
Actual photo of "Creepy Gnome"Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Conclusion of James Joyce's "The Dead"
For my money, the most beautiful paragraph ever written in English. Even without context, it's gorgeous. In context, it's absolutely devastating.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Read the whole story here. Thank me later. Read More......
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Yet Another Undead Review
FlamesRising.com, which published a great review of my story in Undead 3: Flesh Feast, has doubled back to review Undead 2: Skin & Bones, and while they didn't go quite as far into detail as in the previous review, they did still have something nice to say:
Scott Standridge’s ’til The Lord Comes is one of the stranger stories included in this anthology. The author never lets you know what to expect, making this an odd but nevertheless satisfying read.
I wouldn't have thought mine was one of the "stranger" stories (given that one is about an undead dinosaur and another about an evil disembodied finger), but I'll take it as a complement. :) More reviews as my google searches reveal them! Read More......
