I first met Dallas Mayr about ten years ago at a writers’ camp. He was in the audience while author Jim Moore was being roasted, but a lot of good-natured barbs were being thrown at this Dallas guy in the audience. I didn’t know who he was at the time: I felt sort of bad for him, that all these people were poking fun at this shaggy-haired, slightly wobbly man who merely shrugged instead of defending himself.

I learned later on that he didn’t need to defend himself. He was, in fact, Jack Ketchum, and his talent was untouchable. As for the man himself, he was kind, good-natured, and often the first to poke fun at his own chain-smoking, hard-drinking, leather-jacket-wearing, awfully-cozy-with-the-ladies ways. He knew what he liked, and didn’t apologize for it.

What a loss to the horror community when he passed away Wednesday morning.

Casual horror readers are most likely to know Jack Ketchum from his works Off Season, Offspring, and The Girl Next Door. Full-blown aficionados of the genre know he penned many more--thirty, plus countless short stories, long stories, articles and reviews. One of my favorites was the novella Weed Species, loosely based on the Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka case, mostly because it sparked a long-running conversation Dallas and I had over the span of probably five years.

It started like this: We were chatting one summer day about serial killers, and specifically the two that Weed Species is based on. This led to a conversation about another idea he was toying with, basing a story on a cross-dressing cannibal serial killer he’d just heard about that morning.

Me: That’s funny. I actually know a cross-dressing cannibal serial killer.
Dallas: Well, sure. Don’t we all? (I think he thought I was kidding.)
Me: No, seriously, this guy, Hadden Clark, his family has a place [redacted because I don’t want trolls harassing his brother]. His brother was the last person I hung out with and said goodbye to the day I moved away from there.
Dallas: Yeah, him! You’re the second person to mention him today! I gotta find out more about this guy.
I offered to put him in touch with Hadden’s brother, but he wanted to learn more about the case before deciding if it was really something he was interested in.

Then, a year later, in New York City:

Me: Dallas! Hi! (I honestly didn't know if he'd remember me. After all, I'm nobody, and he's Jack Ketchum.)
Dallas: Hey, what was that thing you told me about Hadden Clark’s sister? I remember it was funny, but not exactly what it was. I want to write it down this time.

Two years later in Worcester:
Dallas: Hey, Stacey! I’ve been thinking: I think you should write the Hadden story.
Me: I don’t think I can do that to his brother. How’ve you been, by the way?

The thing is, my encounters with Dallas aren’t much different than a hundred other stories I’ve seen online from writers and readers the past couple of days as we mourn the death of this man. Because he was a genuinely decent human being. He always remembered who I was, greeted me warmly, and picked up our last conversation right where we’d left off, no matter how much time had passed. One time when we were on a panel together, he defended me against a writing bully, and for that, I’ll always love him.

He was not perfect, and he was okay with that. I admired that so much in him.

So rest in peace, you crazy, funny, wonderful man. Thanks for always encouraging the little guys. And for always being up for a discussion on cross-dressing cannibals.

I've been struggling lately with the writing side of my life. This isn't unusual for any writer, though honestly, it often feels like you're the only one when you're going through it. And that you're the worst, most terrible writer in the world. 

I started the week down in the dumps (two story rejections in five days didn't help). My novel My Mom, MS, and a Sixth-Grade Mess had been up for a Preditors & Editors Readers' Choice Award, and by the time I went to bed Sunday night, the book had dropped to third place in the standings. I knew I'd lost.

Imagine my surprise Thursday morning when my editing partner congratulated me and posted the announcement on my Facebook wall that I'd won! (And thank God for him, because I never would've thought to go back and check the final standings.)

I'll admit, it knocked a little bit of the Eeyore out of me.

Later that same day, a contract arrived in my inbox. Now that I've signed it, I'm assuming it's safe to announce my story "Of Giraffes and Men" will appear in Limitless Publishing's Carnival of Fear anthology in April 2018. It's the tale of two men, working as costumed characters in an amusement park. When the zipper gets stuck on one of the costumes, terror ensues . . .

It was a fun tale to write, and also the first time I've sold a story based on a proposal alone. And yeah, signing the contract felt nice.

There was another e-mail in my inbox, this one from the publisher of my upcoming YA novel. He let me know the proof was ready for My Sister the Zombie, and all systems are go for its release in March. I even got the go-ahead to reveal the cover, so here it is!

I will say this: when your inner monologue is urging you to quit writing and find a more suitable trade, like, say, person who doesn't get out of bed, sometimes if you wait a few days, the universe will perk you right up again.

​So thanks, universe. And my friends. And my e-mail server.

​I needed that.

What makes a good horror movie? I’ll admit I’d forgotten the answer to this, and shame on me, because I should be on top of current events in this particular genre. I’m a horror writer, Halloween is my favorite time of year, and I write B-horror movie reviews over at Cinema Knife Fight.

Maybe it’s because of that review column that I’ve forgotten what truly good, heart-skipping, made-ya-jump horror is like. In the past few years I’ve immersed myself in funny, terrible, so-bad-it’s-good scary movies. My view of some utterly awful stuff is rose-tinted sometimes by who’s in it—Meatloaf, Roddy Piper, Barry Bostwick, all actors I love—or some of the wisecracks in the script (the killer turkey in Thankskilling still makes me laugh every time he says “You got stuffed!”).

I can’t blame it all on always looking for the next bad/good B horror gem to review. I grew up in the eighties, and the eighties horror genre is a thing unto itself: gory, corny, full of one liners. Call it the Freddy Kreuger effect. I grew up on those flicks, and that’s what I learned to love and appreciate. But was I scared? And if not, did I want to be?

It turns out that yes, I did. I just didn’t remember.

Thursday afternoon, Jason texted me a picture. It was the DVD cover of the newest version of IT, which came out last fall. I bought IT, he said. We’re watching it tonight, I replied. We’d missed it in the theater, and I’d had a rough week. A scary clown sounded like just the thing I needed to soothe my stress.

That night, I made dinner, we fired up the DVD player, and hit “play.” I had many questions: Would this Pennywise be as good as Tim Curry back in 1990? Would I be able to stand these child actors? And most importantly, would I stay awake? (It had been a really rough week.)

The movie opened, and an amazing thing happened: I put down my phone. Normally when something’s on, I’ve been known to keep working on my phone or laptop, only half-listening to the TV, and okay, yes, indulging in a round or five of mahjong. But the rain started falling on the screen, Georgie lost his boat down the storm drain, and I was enraptured.

I jumped in all the right places. My skin crawled in others. I empathized with the kids and clapped when Beverly threw rocks at the bullies. And I loved, loved, loved, Pennywise.

Jason: You know, I think Bill Skarsgard might be even better as Pennywise than--
Me: Don’t say it.
Jason: I’m just saying--
Me: They’re different. That’s all. They just play Pennywise differently.
Jason: But--
Me: Don’t you dare disrespect Tim Curry or I’m leaving you.
 
After the movie ended, I went to the kitchen to clean up from dinner. I stepped out on the side porch to dump the cooking grease over the railing (don’t judge me).

It was pitch black out.

Below the porch, something rustled.

I screamed.

And that, my friends, makes IT good horror.
____
I need your help! My Mom, MS, and a Sixth-Grade Mess is in the running for best YA novel of 2016 over at the Preditors & Editors Readers' Choice Poll. Voting ends on Jan. 14 and ANYONE can vote! Please vote for my book here: http://critters.org/predpoll/novelyoungadult.shtml (it's listed twice, so please vote for the first listing). Thank you!

My mother’s family is Greek. For New Year’s, it is tradition among her people to bake vasilopita, a bread in which a coin or trinket is baked. Everyone takes a slice, and whoever gets the coin (in our family, we use a dime) has good luck for the year.
 
I can’t prove the dime actually brings good luck. Or that it doesn’t affect the taste of whatever it’s baked into.  But still, though my grandmother and great-aunts are gone, my mother, my sister, and I continue to carry on the tradition. Sort of.
 
My online resources (and the one Greek guy at work) confirmed that vasilopita is actually bread, which was news to me. See, when we were growing up, Mom always made coffee cake (for which I applaud her. Bread is so boring—and it’s too easy to spot the dime in the slices, leading to cheating). The New Year’s Day coffee cake was cut into five pieces—one for Mom, Dad, my sister, me, and the house. (See? If the dime is in your slice, you win good luck. If the house gets it, in theory, you’re looking at a year with no major appliances breaking, which is also nice.)
 
As my sister and I grew up and moved away, we kept up the tradition. Kim has a family of four, so her homemade coffee cake too is cut into five pieces.
 
Then we have me.
 
First off, I’m not so great at remembering to make the coffee cake. I’ll confess I’ve used store-bought in the past, sticking the lucky dime in the bottom and giving it a spin. This year, though, I completely forgot (Jason had to remind me, and there’s not a single Greek in his family tree), and we had the added complication of me being unable to digest gluten. Plus the weather was bad, so the thought of driving to the gluten-free bakery one town over wasn’t appealing. “I’ll just make a cake,” I said. I have gluten-free flour. I have cinnamon. I could handle it, I figured.
 
Except, when I started futzing around in the kitchen, I discovered I didn’t feel like eating coffee cake. I felt like chocolate cake.
 
My ancestors would forgive me, right?
 
I made the gluten-free chocolate cake from scratch. I altered the recipe to add chocolate chips. And on New Year’s Day, we cut the cake into three giant hunks, and had cake for breakfast.
 
I’m not gonna lie: gluten-free chocolate cake, even with extra chocolate chips, is still pretty gross.
 
But I got the dime, as did my mother and sister in their respective households. So sure, we’ve morphed the tradition of vasilopita from bread to coffee cake to chocolate cake. But at least we’re still doing it, right?
​
Happy New Year!