These poems — like all poems — were an experiment. What distinguishes these texts is the way they were written and the way they were intended to be read: on a portable handheld computer, or "PDA," like the popular Palm Pilot. Whenever the urge struck, I composed on a 3"x3" screen with a stylus. Consequently, no poem here is longer than eleven lines and each of those lines contains eight words at best. Brevity and word economy was the rule. But if you study them, unique structures and patterns will emerge. The medium certainly shaped the message. As did the genre. Gorelets are "horror" poems: a mode of writing which explores the "dark side" and muses over morbid themes like death, murder, disease, mutation, chaos, mutilation, the uncanny and all things outré. This is the genre I work in, mostly because I believe it is the most experimental popular genre. In it, one expects the unexpected, which requires the writer to break with convention at every turn. Tapping into the popularity of the fiction genre, horror also brings a new audience to poetry. That was part of my goal: to get more readers in the digital age to take notice of poetry. When I began this project I realized that e-books (texts intended to be read on PDAs) were everywhere, but none of them were poetry. And poetry just seemed to "fit" the screen better than long, eternally scrolling documents written for print rather than pixels. Here you are given the opposite: electronic text that has been transported back to the printed page. Gorelets were like applets — tiny computer applications — only darker than the usual fare. I think these pieces will stand up just as well in this slim volume as they did on a screen the size of gauze bandage. Read and bleed. They’ll be quick jabs, but I hope nothing will clot the cut. — Michael Arnzen, Halloween 2003

Gorelets

Michael A. Arnzen

Fairwood Press

Breaking the Commandments Anew Ever broken one of God's "Big Ten"? Of course you have. We all have. Except for murder and adultery the consequences of which are obvious what were the results? A little guilt? Did you disappoint yourself or someone else? Or did no one even notice? Thou Shalt Not... is an anthology of horror and crime fiction where someone breaks one of the Ten Commandments with dire, deadly, or disastrous results. 1. Worshiping false gods 2. Engaging in idolatry 3. Misusing God's name 4. Violating the day of rest 5. Dishonoring parents 6. Murdering 7. Committing adultery 8. Stealing 9. Bearing false testimony 10. Coveting what belongs to your neighbor TWO TABLETS, TEN COMMANDMENTS THEY'VE ALL BEEN BROKEN LET'S BREAK THEM AGAIN!

Thou Shalt Not...

Literature & Fiction

Lawrence C. Connolly

Lee Allen Howard

Chris Stout

M. Stephen Lukac

Genre Fiction

Dark Cloud Press

Nominated for the 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Best Anthology, this book features the latest work from the hottest and most talented horror writers of our day. These are cutting edge selections running the spectrum of the genre, from the spooky spine-tingler to the blood curdling screamer, this book covers it all, hence the title, +Horror Library+.

Horror Library, Volume 3

Jeff Strand

John Everson

Gary A. Braunbeck

Kealan Patrick Burke

R. Michael Burns

Bentley, Little

Cutting Block Press

Proverbs For Monsters

You Can Catch A Good Human With A Bad Hamburger Proverbs For Monsters is an omnibus of the best writing to date by one of the most offbeat and humorous writers working in the horror genre today, Michael A. Arnzen. Hand picked by the author, these are the stories, "flash fictions," and poems most cherished by readers, most enjoyed at live performances, most celebrated by editiors of year's best collections, and most recommended for literary awards from across his career. An Infant Vampire Bites Hardest In Proverbs For Monsters you'll get advice for growing your own man-eating plant. You'll ride the movies of Exorcystland -- the scariest amusement park ever created. You'll attend a bizarre grade school for assassins. You'll meet a dentist with a very disturbing collection of baby teeth. You'll encounter strange children -- from the boy who carries his heart in a metal case attached to his chest to the girl who is completely encased in the carapace of her own giant scab. You'll ride a diseased elephant and witness the death of the last vampire and learn more than ever wanted to know about a perpetual embalming machine. You'll wince and laugh and wince again. Fortune Favors the Cleaver Whether or not you have read Michael Arnzen before or are already a fan of his gleefully twisted imagination, you're in for a very dark treat with this generous collection of thirty stories and thirty poems, many of them impossible-to-find or never seen before. Proverbs For Monsters offers the most delightful and disturbing retrospective of this acclaimed author's career.

Proverbs for Monsters

Dark Regions Press

Johnny had been to the top. Young and slick, he knew how to play the high roller, dress the part, and make his opponents sweat. He'd ridden into Vegas on a winning streak a mile wide. But Vegas took everything, even his lucky gold tooth. You'd think he couldn't fall any lower than a homeless shelter full of the downtrodden. And he couldn't possibly have anything left to lose. But you'd be wrong. Johnny soon discovers there's a game going on at the shelter. A game where before you play the cards you have to make them. A game where the payout is survival and folding means death. A game where the question becomes: are you playing the cards or are they playing you? Using 52 chapters Arnzen's novel-of-cards is stacked with mischief and thrills. Like the most accomplished blackjack dealer Arnzen will keep you guessing at his hand. Are you ready to play?

Play Dead

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

Raw Dog Screaming Press

Grave Markings follows the tortured mental breakdown of Mark Michael Kilpatrick—an artist driven to purge visions of hell from his tainted mind by permanently working his ink into the skins of unwilling victims...the flesh of both the living and freshly dead.  News reporter Roy Roberts finds himself drawn into an obsession with tattoo culture, at the same time as Kilpatrick's own compulsions produce sicker and sicker masterpieces that attract media attention, twisting in a spiral that inevitably brings Roberts and his loved ones into Kilpatrick's morbidly perverse universe, and the artist's deadly inkgun turns toward them...  Now, for the first time in trade paperback, readers can find out why this novel won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Critics Guild Award, and such widespread acclaim across the horror genre. Included in this special Twentieth Anniversary edition are 50 pages of insightful BONUS material by Arnzen: a new preface, five literary essays, and four short stories (two never before published) involving bikers, tattoo and terror.

Grave Markings: 20th Anniversary Edition

”...glutted with graphic scenes of torture, dismemberment, evisceration...” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 
YEAR'S BEST HARDCORE HORROR VOLUME 2. 
Comet Press is extremely proud to present its second annual anthology featuring this year's hardcore corps of authors with the best extreme horror fiction of 2016 that breaks boundaries and trashes taboos. 
Selected from indie publishers and magazines such as Weirdpunk Books, Necro Publications, Splatterpunk Zine, Corner Bar Magazine, Carrion Blue and Raw Dog Screaming Press, these stories represent the state of the art of extreme horror fiction. Whether extreme in theme or with gore galore, these disturbing tales will be hard to forget even though you may wish you could. 
Yes, there will be blood. Lots of it. Gore galore and plenty of the gushy stuff. But you'll also find tales less graphic but with hardcore attitudes, transgressive stories you're not sure you should be reading, stories showing you things you shouldn't see. Visceral fiction. 
This year's best hardcore fiction features work by Michael A. Arnzen, Jasper Bark, Christa Carmen, Marvin Brown, Adam Cesare, Matthew Chabin, Jose Cruz, Andrew Darlington, Paolo Di Orazio, Stefanie Elrick, William Grabowski, Sarah L. Johnson, Eric LaRocca, Alessandro Manzetti, Tim Miller, Alexandra Renwick, Bryan Smith, Jeremy Thompson, Tim Waggoner, Wrath James White, and Stephanie M. Wytovich.

Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 2

Tim Waggoner

Wrath James White

Tim Miller

Alessandro Manzetti

Jasper Bark

Stephanie M. Wytovich

Paolo Di Orazio

Sarah L. Johnson

Adam Cesare

Jeremy Thompson

Stefanie Elrick

Eric LaRocca

Cheryl Mullenax

Randy Chandler

Marvin Brown

Bryan, Smith

Comet Press

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