Thank you, Wendy, for having me, and thanks to your listeners for listening! Especially Japan’s listeners, who Wendy mentioned, she had just been informed were listing to tonight’s cast!
We talked about the paranormal and weirdness we’ve both had and continue to have in our lives, as well as some of my books and short stories. It was a fun show! Be sure to check out her podcast archive for a recording of this show!
F. P. Dorchak’s short stories take a look at the world in an inside-out, rarely visited way. These are neither happily-ever-after tales nor ghost stories solely meant to creep you out. They are worlds that can be deliciously understated like dreams of dreams, as enigmatic as time warps, and as unexpected as falling in all directions at once. We meet werewolves and undead and people whose past lives bleed through. These tales are nostalgia-meets-a-future with nighttime borders that hint something is not quite right, each one putting the reader in a graying state between sleep and wakefulness.
Karen Albright Lin, WritersLaunchPad
From a dangerously precocious little girl who befriends gargoyles to a conventional guy who discovers (first hand) an invasion of mind-blowing creatures, F. P. Dorchak offers up a collection of horrifying short stories in Do The Dead Dream?, which he delivers with an inimitable, unique voice. The reader accompanies Dorchak’s characters’ bizarre experiences that manifest as rapid-fire flashes of thought-pandemonium…as would naturally occur under such unnatural circumstances. Just when you think the path is headed in an obvious direction, Dorchak jerks the road out from under your beliefs to find yourself suddenly drawn along a most unexpected thoroughfare.
Jan C. J. Jones, Executive Producer/Writer, FOREST ROSE PRODUCTIONS, LLC
Crime writer Lee Child has said that nothing is more exciting than the idea for that next book. You see all the possibilities! They beckon! Schmooze with What-ifs! Then, as we write, all the possibilities get narrowed down into actualities. Quickly, all those possibilities…What-ifs…are no longer what it could be…but are now…simply what is.
I have thought about this a lot…tried to put it into words.
I have the manuscript sent out to my cover guy, Lon Kirschner! Looking forward to his amazing wizardry!
I have the final story out to my editor, Joyce Combs.
I am reworking two stories (“Broken Windows” and “What Dreams are Made of”), based on comments from my writer-friend, Jimmie Butler.
I have sent out versions of the manuscript to those I hope to get blurbs from. The deadline for those are August 26th. I have a handful more I will shortly be sending out to others from whom I hope to gain blurbs.
I have one reviewer awaiting a copy for an advance review. I need to get my butt in gear and get more of THAT goin’ on.
Yesterday I attended the 2017 Denver Comic Con. I only attended one day, since I was not presenting or hawkin’ my wares (novels). But since I wasn’t doing either of the forgoing, I asked if I could still moderate a panel, and Eneasz Brodski was gracious enough to give me the “Mistake Were Made” panel, at 2:30, yesterday.
Note: in my previous blog post, I’d used “June 28” in the title. Where was my head? It started June 30th, yesterday, so I corrected it in my blog post.
Okay…I arrived at the Colorado Convention Center (CCC) early. After two previous attempts at finding where I supposed to go, I found the right place. But as I walked around, checking things out, I’d realized I’d left my camera in the SUV! Damn it…so I thought, well, I had plenty of time, I’ll just go get it.
Right.
Long story short, I spent 2 1/2 hours trying to find where the elevators/exit/entry (because it was also a question of gaining reentry without standing in line, since I was part of the DCC Programming staff–a panel “moderator”) was to the parking lot, and NO ONE KNEW. Well, except for my friend, Jan C J Jones (who was volunteering there) and her associated volunteers. But every time I went to where I was told, and asked to make sure if I was going in the right direction, another volunteer would say, no, I was going in the wrong direction. Again, keeping this short, I cut bait after 2 1/2 hours of intermittently trying, so never got my camera. But what Jan and her co-volunteer had told me had been correct. You see, Jan also told me that another even was going on within the CCC, so it cut into the middle of the CCC’s floor plan. The elevators I’d sought were cut off from us! I didn’t mind walking, but directions from everyone kept sending my literally from one end of the CCC to the other, totally contradicting each person’s previous direction. I tried to stick with what Jan-and-company told me, but when I’d ask about coming back in, that’s where the runaround and the contradictions began. Jan later told me that this was THE MOST ASKED QUESTION of volunteers.
Anywho, that laid to rest, I enjoyed the rest of my time hanging out and running into several of my writer-friends, which was cool. Only book I bought was My Hero, by Stephen Graham Jones, an experimental hardback comic book that caught my fancy. I loved the idea of how Stephen organized the book. I’d talked at length with Josh Viola, part of the Dean Wyant/Josh Viola, Hex Publishers Dynamic Duo, about it. Then I got Josh to have Stephen and Aaron Lovett, the illustrator, to autograph it. Thanks, guys!
So, I hung out and checked things out, and come 2:20, went to room 402, for my panel.
On my panel were Diana Gabaldon, Robin Hobb, Cat Valente, and Dan Wells. Instead of having the panelists introduce themselves, I took a technique from the late Ed Bryant, and did some research on them and asked each of them if they minded if I introduced them…because I’d done research on each…and found things. They were all great sports and allowed me to do so, and we had some great laughs. When we got into the meat of the panel, they were also good sports and open about sharing what they considered mistakes and embarrassing situations they’d done over the course of their careers, and were all good-natured and easygoing about it all. I’d hoped that it would be a fun, laugh-filled panel, and it was. I have to say, of all the panels I’ve ever moderated—this had to be the most fun and liveliest panel I’d ever done! These are great people and it shows just that—that these incredible writers are people, too! That they make mistakes just like anyone else, incredible successful authors or not!
After my panel, I tried to get into the real-life X-File-like paranormal investigations, but it was full! Dang it! Turns out I never had a chance: this was one of those panels where it was expected to be full, so they had those who wanted to attend it line up in a “staging” area, and then they were allowed in. Since my panel ran up to the start of this panel, I just never had a chance.
I hung out a little longer, checked out some more panels, letting the Denver rush hour wear itself out, then left at 7 for the uneventful drive home–which is saying something for that leg of I-25 between Denver and Colorado Springs.
Overall–a great time at the 2017 Denver Comic Con!
