Bay Area friends, join me, Tamika Thompson, T.E. MacArthur – Author and Nikki Blakely at Oakland’s A Great Good Place for Books 6120 La Salle Ave – Oakland, CA – 94611 on Thursday, October 26th at 7pm for a spooky reading. We’ll share our work and Halloween treats.
HorrorAddicts.net Presents:
Manor of Frights
Imagine a Victorian house where every room is cursed with a frightful existence. Are monsters in the halls? Ghosts left to fester in the library? Or are the rooms themselves enchanted with malevolent energy? What was summoned long ago and what doorways were left open? Manor of Frights is a collection of tales all set in different rooms of the same house.
With authors: Judith Pancoast, Daphne Strasert, Loren Rhoads, Mark Orr, Michael Fassbender, R.L. Merrill, Sumiko Saulson, Ollie Fox, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Rosetta Yorke, Amanda Leslie, Lesley Warren, BF Vega, DW Milton, D.J. Pitsiladis, Jason Fischer, and Emerian Rich.
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An excerpt from Manor of Frights
Missing
by R.L. Merrill
Scullery, 1980
Kristy sat fidgeting in the front seat of her sister Tammy’s Pontiac Firebird and dreading her community service outing obligation.
“Don’t wander off inside that house. Remember what happened to Dawn.”
Kristy rolled her eyes and reached for the handle, swinging the heavy door open. Tammy’s best friend Dawn swore she had a run-in with a specter in the manor when she volunteered for the annual festival, and ever since, Dawn refused to even drive by the house.
Nestled in a suburban neighborhood, the Holmes Manor stood tall and proud surrounded by giant pine trees. The grounds had been restored with walking paths, botanical gardens, and displays of the antique farm equipment used when the manor was the center of a large fruit orchard.
“Yeah, whatever. Pick me up at eight? I want to get to the football game by halftime,” Kristy said.
Tammy waved and drove off. Kristy was only two years younger than her sister, but she hadn’t prioritized getting her driver’s license, so she had to rely on Tammy for rides despite the fact she was now a senior and about to turn eighteen.
Kristy climbed the steps to the mansion. She gazed up past the tower to the overcast afternoon sky, shivering as she reached the top step. She winced at the creaking sound the porch made as she stepped across. The ornate door was open and Kristy saw her classmates inside that were also part of the manor’s High School Historical Society. Their task was to perform the roles played by servants and the family members of the Victorian-era mansion for the 100th-anniversary celebration held that afternoon. They’d been practicing for weeks to guide members of the community through the stuffy old house in groups to see what life was like when the Holmes family moved in during the fall of 1880.
Kristy had begged her history teacher to make her a docent, but since she was also in cooking class, Mrs. Hensley had assigned Kristy to the scullery. That meant for the six-hour event, she’d have to be stuck in the creepy room, chopping vegetables, and peeling potatoes. After the cooks prepared the food for the tour groups, she’d have to wash the dishes. And all the chores had to be done in period costume.
“There you are, Kristy.” Mrs. Lam handed her a uniform. “You can change in the room at the back of the stairs and then head straight to your post. Our first tour group will be arriving shortly.”
Kristy knew where to go and how to dress—in theory—but the bulky material in her arms was heavy. Doing any housework dressed like that would be a chore in itself.
She entered the room and her breath caught. Miranda Glenn was fussing with the buttons at the back of her dress. Kristy’s cheeks burned as she watched the pretty girl attempt to fasten them herself. In a huff, Miranda tossed her dark brown curls over her shoulder and her eyes brightened when she saw Kristy.
“Oh! Can you give me a hand? Then I can help you with yours. I can’t believe how heavy these dresses are.”
Kristy never spoke without sounding like a dork in front of Miranda. She was so pretty. Kristy made quick work of fastening the buttons. She wished she could linger, allowing her knuckles to run over the curve of Miranda’s back. Instead, she finished and then turned to toss the dress over her head.
“Whoa,” Miranda chuckled. “I think yours is heavier than mine. Let me help.”
Kristy could barely breathe as Miranda straightened out the layers of fabric and then buttoned up the back. All Kristy could do was smile so wide her cheeks hurt.
“Thanks,” she said. “I, uh, better go.”
“I wish you were working in the kitchen with me,” Miranda pouted. “You’re so much better at cooking than I am.”
Kristy flushed at the compliment. “I got stuck in the scullery.”
Miranda frowned. “That room gives me the creeps.”
“What do you mean?” Kristy asked.
“I don’t know. When they took us in there, it just seemed like my hair stood on end. It was probably nothing. It doesn’t seem so bad now. Anyway, are you going to the football game after? Maybe we could sit together.” Miranda waved as she left the room, leaving Kristy to gawk.
To read more, go to: Manor of Frights
This is me in 1988 at the age of 20, in the San Francisco Chronicle where I was profiled in an article called “The Bay Area Is Still A Magnet for Poets” by Carlos Vidal Greth. “Thirty years after the Beat Generation held literary court in North Beach, young poets still flock to the Bay Area seeking a spiritual home.” was the subtitle of the May 16, 1988 article.
The segment about me begins by discussing my poetry teacher at a free program for the homeless and marginally housed at Central City Hospitality House in San Francisco’s Tenderloin.
The article says:
Jack Micheline, who lives in the Tenderloin, is one of the unofficial “professors” the emerging poets study. His book “River of Red Wine,” published in 1957 with an introduction by Kerouac, helped set the tone for the Beat Generation.
“San Francisco has always been a refugee camp for poets,” said Micheline, 57.
He worries, however, that younger poets fail to reach a wide audience.
“I tell them if they want to be heard, they should go into a bar and jump on a pool table or read their work on a Muni bus,” said the Bronx native. “Poetry gets in your blood like a hurricane. You’ve got to let it out.”
For 20-year-old writer Sumiko Saulson, however, poetry has been the calm eye in a stormy life.
Saulson said because her mother was in prison and her father was a heroin addict, she had to raise herself and her younger brother, a “Hare Krishna punk studying to be a heavy equipment operator.”
She migrated from Los Angeles to the Bay Area two years ago because she imagined it would provide a congenial environment for her art. Flat broke, she landed in a fleabag hotel in the Tenderloin.
The Tenderloin was an unlikely place to launch a literary career. Yet in the last two years, she has attended writing workshops at Hospitality House, a homeless shelter and cultural center, and has produced two self-published collections of poetry that she has sold through bookstores on consignment. She also has read her work at the Tenderloin Self-Help Center and other social service and “outreach” organizations.
“I don’t see how those places are inferior to a Berkeley coffeehouse or a highbrow bookstore,” said Saulson, who wears steel-rim glasses, a painted leather jacket and braids dyed the color of a polluted sunset.
“The Tenderloin excites me,” she said. “New ideas are generated here because necessity nurses invention. It’s a bad place only if you let yourself get into trouble. You can sleep on the street and not get beaten up.”
Saulson, who sings in a band called Poetic Justice, writes the lyrics of a rebellious child forced to grow up fast:
God doesn’t care about my hair
Or the kind of clothes I wear
If I’m straight or if I’m gay
God will love me either way.
Jesus was an outcast, too
Not Mr. Authority, like you.”
Sumiko Saulson’s short story “The Dessicated Heart” has been published in Manor of Frights, which was edited by Emerian Rich and released on HorrorAddicts on Jun 23, 2023. Additionally, an audio podcast of the story was released on the HorrorAddicts.net Podcast Episode 222 on June 24, 2023 (read by Read by Emerian Rich and Rish Outfield).
Hear the podcast at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horroraddicts-net/id286123050
Imagine a Victorian house where every room is cursed with a frightful existence. Are monsters in the halls? Ghosts left to fester in the library? Or are the rooms themselves enchanted with malevolent energy? What was summoned long ago and what doorways were left open? Manor of Frights is a collection of tales all set in different rooms of the same house.
With authors: Judith Pancoast, Daphne Strasert, Loren Rhoads, Mark Orr, Michael Fassbender, R.L. Merrill, Sumiko Saulson, Ollie Fox, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Rosetta Yorke, Amanda Leslie, Lesley Warren, BF Vega, DW Milton, D.J. Pitsiladis, Jason Fischer, and Emerian Rich.
Sumiko Saulson’s “Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun: Queer Ghoul Clans + Sires” has been published in Girls Write These Worlds (@GirlsWriteWrlds) PRIDE ISSUE Z3: Pride and Resistance.
Queer Ghoul Clans + Sires- taking characters from their novel Warmth, Sumiko has adapted the ancestry and clans for TTRPG! 6 playable clans to bring flavor to your ghoul rp! Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun – The six major Queer Ghoul Clans and their Sires run the gamut from the hoity-toity traditionalist Afflicted (who pretend to be vampires) to the peaceful cottage-core Eaters of the Dead (who would never consume the flesh of living humans); from the fierce Warriors of Seraphim to the cloak and dagger hacktivist Shadow Army; from the near-feral Lizbet of Legion to the kinky leather House of Fadrique. All of them are just trying to stay alive – now that most of humanity is on to them!
This all-LGBTQIA+ author and artist ‘zine is themed around pride. From stories, items, and locations of triumph, joy, and equality, to NPCs of resistance, and every authentic representation in between, this ‘Zine is system agnostic. This Zine is so full of PRIDE that it burst through the word count & filled 76 pages of original TTRPG content created entirely by a 2SLGBTQIA+ team! From authors and artists to editors, layout, sensitivity readers, and admin!
Pick up your copy of this downloadable zine at https://t.co/s13xRDFdc9
Sumiko Saulson’s “The Denouement of Freeze-Dried Coffee” has been published in “We’re Here: An Anthology of LGBTQ+ Horror” released on Gloom House Publishing on June 16, 2023.
“The Denouement of Freeze-Dried Coffee” by Sumiko Saulson is an evocative and disturbing dystopian tale of horrors both all too real and all too possible.” – Bibliophilia Templum
For the marginalized and oppressed, the expression of dread varies greatly. There has been no safer place than art to communicate such powerful thoughts and feelings. And never have these voices been so embraced as in the horror genre. Hence, the existence of this important book—We’re Here: An Anthology of LGBTQ+ Horror. Comprised of twelve stories, We’re Here boldly speaks its mind, presents old and new horrors, and celebrates the beautiful spectrum of otherness. Even in fiction, we live our truths.
Contributing authors: Judith Sonnet, Hailey Piper, Angelique Jordonna, Sumiko Saulson, Michael R. Collins, Pippa Bailey, Ruth Anna Evans, Evan J. Peterson, Dan B. Fierce, James Lefebure, Anton Cancre and Jason LaVelle
“We’re Here: An Anthology of LGBTQ+ Horror is everything the title promises and everything you want it to be. All the stories are by exceptional LGBTQ+ authors, and these stories range from horrifying to evocative to impactful, and all things in between.” – Bibliophilia Templum
‘We’re Here’ delivers twelve exciting tales spanning horror, dark fantasy, and a bit of futuristic science fiction” – James G. Carlson
“Horror is speculative, but it is also a spectrum, and this anthology offers a wide variety of that spectrum through tales of the supernatural, creature features, religious trauma, and even psychological horror.” – Samantha Hawkins
Sumiko Saulson’s short story “A Confusion of the Gods” is in Blackened Roots: An Anthology Of The Undead, released June 23, 2023.
In the horror comedy “A Confusion of the Gods,” DeathCon, the Annual Convention of the Gods of Death taking place in Pittsburgh this year, had been interrupted by an unexpected uprising of the dead! Ravenous, ambling corpses have resurrected and are roaming the earth. Who authorized this? No one seems to know! These Gods need to find out. Someone has got to pay.
Mocha Memoirs Press and Nightlight Podcast are proud to present Blackened Roots: An Anthology of the Undead – a groundbreaking anthology celebrating nontraditional zombie stories from the African diaspora. The anthology is co-edited by Stoker-nominated and award-winning editor and writer Nicole Givens Kurtz and 2022 World Fantasy Award® Winner and 2022 Ignyte® Winner, producer, and editor Tonia Ransom at NIGHTLIGHT.
Blackened Roots is a unique collection and will be a must-have for zombie lovers. Blackened Roots takes the zombie mythos back to its roots. Drawing from a variety of cultural backgrounds, Blackened Roots imagines a world of horror and wonder where Black protagonists take center stage – as zombies, as hunters, as heroes. From a haunting recipe to sibling rivalry, a singing zombie cowboy, a slave ship, and disobedient gods stories, Blackened Roots is a groundbreaking Afrocentric zombie anthology celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the African Diaspora.
Featuring stories by award-winning authors Eden Royce, Craig L. Gidney, Milton Davis, Sumiko Saulson, Marc Abbott, Moustapha Mbacké Diop, Steven Van Patten, Brandon Massey, and Errick Nunnally.
Pick up a copy at https://mochamemoirspress.com/product/blackened-roots/
Saturday, June 24 at 1pm Locus Awards Panel “The Idea Factory: Strategies for Invention” with Ysabeau S. Wilce, Audrey T. Williams, Emily Flummox (Chris Hughes) Locus Publications, 655 13th St. #100, Oakland CA 94612,
Saturday, July 8 at 1pm – Workshop on Erotic Storytelling and Writing at SOMA Second Saturdays, 12th Street between Folsom and Harrison near Eagle Plaza in San Francisco
Sunday, July 9 from 2pm to 9pm Haight Street Speakeasy at Haight Ashbury Free Clinic 558 Clayton St, San Francisco, CA 94117 (Princess Chris Hughes) is also reading there.
Thursday, July 13 – Saturday, 15 ReaderCon 32 – Boston Quincy Marriott in Quincy, MA
Friday, July 21 – 4pm Berkeley ZineFest, Workshop “How to Write and Create Comic Zines” Berkeley Public Library – Central Branch – 2090 Kittredge St, Berkeley, CA 94704
Friday, July 28 – Sunday, July 30 – Midsummer Scream Horror Convention, Long Beach Convention Center, 300 E Ocean Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90802
Sumiko Saulson 