Inspired By True Events

Yesterday, I finally finished the last of my writing obligations for the month of July. It has been a hell of a month, and though a lot of excitement happened in it, I’m happy to see the back side. Soon I’ll have new writing obligations coming down the pipe, but for the moment I’ve got other things on my mind. Hopefully, the next few weeks won’t be quite as busy as the last few have been, and you’ll hear from me more often. In the mean time, I’ve got a little ground to cover.

A while back, I saw James Wan’s latest The Conjuring and wrote up my thoughts for dictated.com. For those who don’t want to click over; I loved it. I discovered quite by accident a couple of years ago that I’m actually a fan of James Wan’s work, though I recall not liking Saw and still haven’t gone back to it to see if that still holds true. The Conjuring cemented that. While I didn’t like it as much as I liked Insidious, it was, if anything, even scarier, and crafted so expertly that I’m now even more excited for Insidious 2 later this year. I hope they go even farther out into weird comic book territory than the first one did, even though that would probably alienate all of their audience that isn’t me.

So July has been a good month for theatrical movies, between that and Pacific Rim. And speaking of Pacific Rim, here’s an amazing fan-cut trailer for it done in the style of the old Toho Godzilla pictures of my misspent youth:

How great is that? I want the Blu-ray release to have a cut on it that’s just got that filter over it the entire time. I’d watch that all day long.

In other, non-movie-related news, this month also saw me living out a lifelong dream by seeing my name in the table of contents of an issue of Weird Tales magazine, albeit not in the way that I would have expected. I was one of a handful of authors (along with the likes of Ramsey Campbell!) interviewed by Lynne Jamnek for a “Talking Fairy Tales Interviews” feature in the latest issue. Full table of contents, including my name, is here.

Ross Lockhart’s new Tales of Jack the Ripper anthology also made its way to the grimy backalleys a little bit early this month, and you can pick it up now from Amazon and all the other usual suspects. There’s also a Saucy Jack Deluxe Pack available direct from the publisher that comes with a variety of additional Ripper-themed swag. Tales of Jack the Ripper features my story “Ripperology,” alongside a star-studded cast of fellow authors.

Finally, both Never Bet the Devil and Fungi got nice write-ups in Ellen Datlow’s annual Best Horror of the Year volume. Here’s what she had to say about Never Bet the Devil: “This is Grey’s debut collection and showcases ten very good and varied supernatural stories, two published for the first time.” I’ll take it!

So that’s the end of July, more or less. August is shaping up to be its own unique creature, with me essaying my first table (along with Sean Demory) at Crypticon KC August 16-18. More on that as it draws nearer!