The Fear County Chronicle #8
A brief trip to Ol' Virginia for the 8th (and final) Scares That Care Charity Weekend, plus an exciting announcement I simply can't conceal any longer!
Howdy, y’all! Yeah, I know… this edition of the Chronicle is a week later getting to you, but believe me, I had good reason. Most of the last week in July was spent in preparation of our trip to Williamsburg, Virginia. And why did we leave the humid heat of Tennessee for the equally humid heat of the Dominion State?
Scares That Care Charity Weekend VIII!
I was honored to be a guest author at this year’s Scares That Care Charity Weekend. Upon arrival, my pal Brian Keene escorted me, my wife Joyce, and my young’uns, Makenna and Ryan (aka Bubba) to our table in the Celebrity Room. To tell the truth, I was a little bummed out. The author who was supposed to occupy the table next to me would have been none other than Steven L. Shrewsbury, and unfortunately, he was recovering from the aftereffects of Covid and couldn’t make it. So, Brian said to me “Hey, do you want another table?” Aware of the number of books and merch I’d brought along (four massive totes full!) I quickly said “Sure!” After several trips to the Pacifica, we eventually had the RK Southern Fried Horror Tables set up and ready for the weekend.
Friday night was eventful with the arrival of my fellow authors and the horror/sci-fi/fantasy cinema celebrities. In fact, my table was directly facing Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, and Barbara Hershey. My neighboring authors for the weekend turned out to be Kristopher Triana (accompanied by his constant canine companion, Bear, and the lovely Mona Kabbani) to my left and the incredible Somer Canon to my right. After several hours of signing books, I joined Amanda Headlee and Wile E. Young for an 8:30 reading. For my selection I chose a chapter from The Saga of Dead-Eye, Book Two, Werewolves, Swamp Critters, & Hellacious Haints.
Saturday began with an early morning visit from Father Evil (Lou Avilleria), who blessed (cursed?) the Southern Fried Horror table. The majority of the day was spent meeting fans and signing books, as well as meeting some of my fellow authors, many of whom I’ve known for years through social media but had never met, face to face. And, of course, I insisted on taking a few photos with them.
Around midday Saturday, Keene stopped by my table and said, “I’ve got a question for you… but I’m going to talk to your wife first.” As Brian and Joyce spoke in low, conspiratorial tones, I knew I was in for it! As it turned out, I was recruited into being one of the judges for that night’s Scares That Care Costume Contest, along with actor John Anderson, V. Castro, Father Evil, Laurel Hightower, and John Edward Lawson. The emcee for the contest was TV creature feature veteran Count Gore De Vol. Thankfully, I had a wonderful time!
Sunday was mostly a quiet day. Many of the attendees had already checked out and gone home, along with several authors and celebrities. Around noon, I joined moderator Todd Keisling, and authors Ronald Malfi, Jeff Strand, and Laurel Hightower for a panel discussion about the future of the horror genre in today’s floundering economy. We all shared our publishing experiences, advice for sustaining a healthy writing career, and discussed the publisher crash and burns we had experienced over the years, such as Zebra, Leisure, and Silver Shamrock.
After checking out of the hotel early Monday morning, the family and I drove to Richmond for a bit of sightseeing at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and the American Civil War Museum, then on to Appomattox Court House National Historical Park (Bubba is a huge Civil War fan!) When we got home, I was surprised to find the following statement posted on social media from the board of directors of Scares That Care:
Since its founding in 2006, the Scares That Care charity has raised nearly $400,000 for organizations, children, and families impacted by illness, burns, or breast cancer. We’ve achieved that thanks to the generosity of you – our Scares That Care family. Due to rising costs involved in producing a show of this type, the Board of Directors has unanimously decided to discontinue our Charity Weekend event. This will allow us to focus on our other fundraising efforts, so that we can expand our goals. While we understand that many of you will be disappointed by this news, we ask you to remember that we have never been a charity that supports a convention. Rather, the convention has always supported the charity. As such, our overall mission continues, and we invite our Scares That Care family to support our other upcoming fundraisers and events. Details on our annual Christmas Dance, AuthorCon II, and other surprises are forthcoming.
With deepest love, respect and appreciation – Joe Ripple, Alfred Guy, Brian Smith, Brian Keene, Angel Hollman, Sonora Taylor, Jason Cherry, and Andrew Ely.
Definitely sad news, but certainly an understandable decision under the circumstances. I’ll miss Scares That Care Charity Weekend, which was beginning to become a yearly thing for the Kelly family. But I’m also looking forward to returning to Williamsburg in March of 2023 for AuthorCon II.
A Special Collaboration Announcement!!
Believe it or not, I’ve been writing for 36 years, but have never collaborated with a fellow author. I don’t know if I simply hadn’t had the opportunity to so, or maybe it’s due to the fact that I’m basically a solo act and comfortable with doing my own thing during the course of my career. But a few months ago, that changed. I was listening to James Newman’s episode of Dead Headspace Podcast, when it hit me that I hadn’t talked to James in quite a while. I’ve known him for years (he wrote the introduction to the original Sick Stuff for the limited edition) and even visited him and his family in North Carolina following his near-fatal encounter with a “widow-maker” tree limb back in 2014. But, like friends tend to do from time to time, we sort of lost touch. Following the podcast, I reached out to Ol’ Hoss (my nickname for him) and we rekindled our friendship and mutual admiration for one another (I attribute James’ Midnight Rain as the book that inspired me to give this writing gig another chance in 2006, following a long ten-year hiatus). We also began to brainstorm on a project we could work together on and came up with an idea almost immediately. So, after sitting on this news for quite a while, I’m officially announcing that James and I are currently writing an extreme, dark crime/suspense novel that we hope to have in readers’ hands by early to mid-2023. We already have an interested publisher, who we hope to announce soon!
Scares That Care book haul!
During this year’s Scares That Care weekend, I was mostly visiting with fans and signing books at the Southern-Fried Horror table, or indulging in readings and panels, so I didn’t have much of an opportunity to get away and buy a whole lot of books. I did get a few, however, and here are the signed treasures I came back home with.
Black Mouth by Ronald Malfi / It seems like I’ve known this guy for years through internet correspondence, but finally got to meet him in person this year at STC. One of the first anecdotes Ron shared with me was about reading my Zebra novels when he was younger and covering up the Kelly on the cover and pretending that the Ronald on the book was him (he told my wife Joyce this same story at our table this year… which was one of my favorite and most touching moments of STC). I’ve heard unanimous praise about Black Mouth recently, so I’m really looking forward to reading it.
You’re Mine by Somer Canon / When you look at Somer Canon, you wonder to yourself “How can such a sweet lady write such dark and atmospheric horror fiction?” Well, she does, and she does it well. I’ve been a huge fan of Somer’s work since Vicki Beautiful and The Hag Witch of Tripp Creek, and I absolutely loved her collaboration with Wes Southard, Slaves to Gravity. Just the creepy cover of You’re Mine alone is the hook that draws this book to the surface of my TBR pile.
Gone To See The River Man by Kristopher Triana / I’ve heard so much about this book in the past couple of years, that I knew I had to read it. Luckily, Kris, occupied the table next to mine, so I got a chance to grab a copy of GTSTRM during a lull in the action. Needless to say, I’m really looking forward into digging into this dark, twisted tale.
The Crow’s Gift and Other Tales by Sonora Taylor / My autistic son, Ryan, is a wealth of historical and scientific information, and once told me that crows possess a memory that spans a lifetime, and that they can hold favor — or a grudge — with generations of a family that either blessed or wronged it or its kind. When I heard Sonora discuss the storyline of The Crow’s Gift on a podcast, I knew I had to read it. Sonora is a dear friend and one of my favorite indie horror authors, so this book was one I’ve been wanting to add to my collection for some time.
He Who Types Between the Rows 1 & 2 by Mark Sieber / I’ve been wanting to get my hands on these two books for quite a while. When I returned to the horror genre in 2006, one of my first online hangouts was Mark’s Horror Drive-In forum. It was my first exposure to many RK readers and fellow horror aficionados, many who have since gone on become good friends. When Mark decided to post original fiction on the site, I was honored to be the first contributor with my dark humor drive-in movie story “The Final Feature”. It wasn’t long before Mark began writing a regular column for Cemetery Dance Magazine concerning the best and worst (books, comics, cinema) that the horror genre had to offer. These two books are a culmination of many of those columns and essays.
Well, when you see the blood-splattered trail left by the little Southern-Fried Reaper, you know that this edition of the Chronicle has come to an end (there may be a less messy way to come to that conclusion, but not nearly as fun!). The Fear County Chronicle #9 will be slithering into your inboxes in a couple of weeks, so until then, Many Happy Nightmares, y’all!
I bought Black Mouth also! He was a funny guy. I’m reading Fear as my next read. It will be my first of yours. I’m very sad about STC, but thrilled that AuthorCon is still on. I met you at both this year. I love your drawings with your autograph. Great Chronicle. I just subscribed.
I'm super--psyched about this collaboration!