Halloween Cons, Night of the Living Dead and a Giveaway!

Every Day is Halloween #78: The Official Newsletter of Lisa Morton

Hey Crew!

Wow, StokerCon was…uhhhh…intense (thankfully in a GOOD way)! As a zombie fan, I loved seeing everything from The Living Dead Museum in the Monroeville Mall (where George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was shot) to the display of incredible Romero material at the University of Pittsburgh’s display of primo holdings from their Special Horror Collections. At the convention I delivered the keynote speech, interviewed new Lifetime Achievement Award winner Elizabeth Massie, and bought way too many books (click here to see an album of photos from the trip). Now I can’t wait for StokerCon 2024 in San Diego (hurrah - a short drive or train trip for me!).

Before that, though…I’ll be attending ReaderCon in Boston in two weeks and Midsummer Scream at the end of July. NOTE: I’m not taking part in any panels or other programming at either of these events - I plan on just enjoying myself! - but feel free to approach me or ask me to sign something or whatever at either.

In the meantime, I’m drowning in more deadlines than usual (yes, like an idiot I took on even MORE work at StokerCon), so this is going to be a very short newsletter.

Stay cool, and Happy Independence Day.

Lisa

NEW STUFF I LIKE

First off, if you’ve never seen Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, stop reading this now and go watch that.

Good, now that you’re back (and perhaps with mind newly blown by that bizarro masterpiece), let’s talk about Riley’s new series on Amazon, I’m a Virgo. This one’s just as surreal and hilarious as Sorry, but there’s also something sweet about it. It feels like a modern fable, though it’s one that packs a heck of a moral.

Jharrel Jerome (soooooo good in Moonlight and When They See Us) plays Cootie, a middle-class kid growing up in Oakland…who just happens to be 13 feet tall. Cootie’s parents have kept him hidden for most of his life, but at 19 he begins to venture out into the world on his own, where he discovers everything from subwoofers (which he loves) to BingBang Burgers (he spits ‘em out).

The series is weird and funny and beautifully made and you should give it a shot.

THE HALLOWEEN SPIRIT

Halloween conventions seem to just keep getting bigger and more popular.

It started, I think, a few decades with the annual Transworld gathering for the haunt trade. Then the fan conventions started in L.A., and before long our annual Midsummer Scream was drawing tens of thousands. Now there are fan gatherings all over American, including the Preserve Halloween Festival and a lot of Halloween-adjacent paranormal conventions.

If you’ve got a Halloween itch to scratch, I highly recommend checking out a con - there’s nothing quite like being surrounded by people who love the same stuff you do. Plus…VENDORS. Gulp.

STRANGE DOINGS

Did you know that in Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead, the lead hero “Ben” wasn’t always called that? Until actor Duane Jones was cast, “Ben” was known in the script as “Truckdriver.” Jones didn’t look like a truckdriver, so the name and dialogue both were changed to accommodate him.

When I was in Pittsburgh, I got to see Romero’s actual working script of Night of the Living Dead, and sure enough there it was: “TRUCKDRIVER” (see above photo).

What a different film it would have been with that guy instead of Ben, eh?

BEHIND THE SCREAMS

“Pickled Punks and the Summer of Love” from Midnight Under the Big Top

Way back in the ‘80s, when I was writing only screenplays, I worked for and befriended the legendary make-up man Tom Burman. Tom and I went on to make my first movie together - he directed Meet the Hollowheads, which I co-wrote with him (I also served as Associate Producer) - but that wasn’t the only script we worked on together.

One of those scripts was called Only Human, and was prompted by Tom telling one day that he’d always wanted to do a movie about human oddities in a carnival sideshow. I loved that idea (two writers I loved growing up, Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon, wrote a lot about traveling carnivals), so I began researching carnivals. I read a number of books (remember, this was before the internet!), and developed a story about a young man who takes up with a traveling carnival in the 1950s to escape an abusive home life.

Here’s the thing about the carnivals: they began to fade out in the ‘60s, as many states enacted laws making it tougher on carnival sideshows. One of the first sideshows to get X-ed out was the “Pickled Punks” displays; these were exhibits of things like two-headed calf embryos floating in jars of formaldehyde, although they might even include unborn humans.

The script, Only Human, turned out (at least I thought) well, but went nowhere.

Years later, I decided to put that research to use and create a short story out of some of the main elements. I kept a young carny fleeing home, I kept the Pickled Punks exhibit and the “ten-in-one,” or freakshow tent, but I added some horror and suspense elements.

I put the story aside at some point, but when editor Brian Freeman approached me years later with an invite to contribute to an anthology called Midnight Under the Big Top, I remembered that story, pulled it out, finished it up, and submitted it.

Huge thanks to Brian for taking it. I guess I was finally able to justify all that research.

THE WRITE STUFF

I recently saw a debate happening in social media that suggested that literary prizes for anthologies should be given not just to the editor(s), but all the contributors as well.

I disagree with this idea for any number of reasons, including, “Hey, so should the Craft Service person also get an Oscar when the movie they worked on wins Best Picture?”

But the real deal is this: Editors. Work. HARD. I say this as someone who has worked as a novelist, written an encyclopedic reference, crafted screenplays, and edited acclaimed anthologies…and I will confirm that editing was possibly the hardest of those gigs.

Here’s what being an editor is like: it starts off like any other gig, with developing an idea and then hustling to sell it. Once you get that deal, the fun starts: If you’re accepting unsolicited manuscripts, you could get thousands of submissions. It’ll likely take you months and months of weeding through those to ferret out those gems you love enough to want to share with the world, then you’ll start working with the writers to make sure those gems are just blindingly bright. You’ll still be doing the stuff all writers do - going over copy-edits, making sure back material is in place, etc. - but you’ll also be wrangling all these writers. Once the edits are locked and the book is published, there’ll be the usual promotion you’ll have to engage in. And if you’ve done it all right, readers will love your anthology and the contributing authors will be proud to have been a part of it.

Sounds like a lot of work, right? It is…and since any organization’s Anthology prize may be the only one that recognizes editors, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the award recognize ONLY the editors. The fiction writers still have a shot at Short Fiction/Long Fiction trophies.

Certainly editors should recognize the importance of all the contributors if they receive nominations or awards, but they shouldn’t have to share the award.

After all, they’ve earned it.

NEWS & WORKS IN PROGRESS

The upcoming anniversary anthology Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird has been getting a lot of nice press lately, and includes my non-fiction brief history of the seminal magazine.

The in-development docuseries Madness and Writers: The Untold Truth…Maybe? revealed me as one of their guests (see graphic below).

While in Pittsburgh I finally recorded an episode of Scott Edelman’s “Eating the Fantastic” podcast (we’ve been trying to do this for ages!), so that’ll be coming soon.

The British magazine Phantasmagoria’s “Women in Horror” issue includes both an interview with me and a re-print of my story “A Girl’s Life.”

I provided the introduction for Greg Chapman’s excellent new collection Midnight Masquerade.

I was interviewed by the L.A. Times for a story on mysterious food deliveries to one local neighborhood (sorry, I’d link but it’s behind a paywall).

Cemetery Dance just re-issued the anthology Midnight Under the Big Top, which includes my story “Pickled Punks and the Summer of Love.”

I’m now serving on the Board of Directors for the Shirley Jackson Awards.

UPCOMING APPEARANCES

• I’ll be attending Readercon in Boston, July 13-16.

• I’ll be attending Midsummer Scream in Long Beach on July 30.

• I’ll be signing The Art of the Zombie Movie at Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City on October 1.

• I’ll be signing The Art of the Zombie Movie at Dark Delicacies on October 8.

• I’ll be at StokerCon 2024 in San Diego, May 30-June 2, 2024.

WHERE YOU CAN BUY MY BOOKS

• Amazon

• Barnes & Noble

• Bookshop.org

GIVEAWAY

This time, I’d like to give away an ebook of Midnight Under the Big Top.

Okay, I think the way to do contests here on Substack is to use their “Leave Comments” function. So, to enter the contest…hit the “Leave Comment” button, just tell me in the comment that you’d like to win, and I’ll randomly pick a winner at the end of July. Let’s see if this works!

Thanks as always for playing and reading this far!