Just delivered THREE ZOMBIES AND A DEMON to R. Scott McCoy over at Stygian Publications. We’re looking at a around Halloween book release. I’ll have pre-order information and the like posted later on when feasible.

Next step is to get (pre-)reviews, blurbs, staged readings, and possibly a production or two (and, if any of you wish to help out in that regard, please contact me ASAP).

And here is a pre-review already on “How to Make a Brain Soufflé” (thanks, Maggie!):

This is a very funny play! I understand that it’s written two years in the future where zombies and humans appear to co-exist. At the start of reading it I wondered how the zombies, Aldrich in particular, were so coherent, but my question was quickly answered on page 2 with the explanation of his body producing antibodies to “combat the zombification process.” I thought that was a very clever concept because I’ve never read or seen a zombie story that could be written from their point of view so well.

Aldrich has a ‘devil-may-care’ attitude that suits him well. He interacts with his audience with ease and predicts what parts of the recipe they will not understand, all the while assuring them that it’s “easy.” For example, on page 4 when he’s explaining that there must be three brains of any size for the recipe and “Don’t bother yourself with the details.” That made me laugh, as did much of his monologue. It was hilarious when he told the story of trying to break into the skull of a small male human, only to find out it was an orangutan head! His flippant attitude remained consistent throughout the play.

I wondered about Susie. Poor Susie! I thought she was going to be part of the recipe in the end, I’m very glad she wasn’t. She is a sympathetic character, and if I put myself in her place I would have been screaming when the vagrant was killed by the announcer. So it makes me wonder; is she’s kept around by Aldrich as a regular for his show and she’s done this before? She must feel somewhat safe in that respect because she didn’t ‘freak out.’ It was hard to tell how she felt about it; I suppose a lot of that is going to be left up to the actress to convey on stage.

There was only one inconstancy, and that was on page 4 after Aldrich says, “In case of emergency, break glass.” Then he says “Ha.” But that is something that the announcer is repeatedly saying and is part of his character - and seemingly his lack of anything more intelligent to say. This is the only “Ha” we get from Aldrich and it didn’t seem to suit him.

I think I squealed a little on page 8 when Aldrich is explaining how to scoop out the brains with “and ice cream scoop or plain old ladle” — eww! It was a very enjoyable read, perfectly gory without going overboard. It’s well written and very clever!

~Maggie Santangelo, Tampa Bay, FL

And I wrapped up and sent out Justin Pilon’s short story adaptation to The Powers That Be around 5 AM or so… I was definitely in the groove last night.

HOW TO MAKE A BRAIN SOUFFLE also had a (very) partial reading during my signing at DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis awhile back.

Stygian Publications will be publishing a collection/anthology of four previously published horror/comedy short stories from their flagship publication, NECROTIC TISSUE, all to be adapted into play script form by yours truly.

Adapted works will include riveting tales by poet/novelist Steve Barber of Ann Arbor, MI; short story writer Eric R. Lowther of “Northeastern Ohio;” writer Nicky Drayden of Austin, TX; and a piece by Justin Pilon, a Canadian ESL teacher in Tainan City, Taiwan, and, as always, various media productions for certain scripts are already under discussion. Scripts will run in size from 10-Minute to possibly Full Length.

No set release date, but we’re shooting for the book launching to take place at either Convergence, Diversicon, or Arcana, where we also plan to do a short production of one of the plays in question. The plays will then be immediately available for royalty performance as well.