Carole Gill Official Author Blog: Horror Author and Artist, William Cook Guest Posts...

Carole Gill Official Author Blog: Horror Author and Artist, William Cook Guest Posts...: I live in Wellington – the small wind-blown capital city of New Zealand. I have been writing weird stories ever since I was a kid. My firs...

Introducing Katie Dirge - Owner/Publisher of 'Black Sunday Zine'

Hi everyone, recently I had the pleasure of meeting and working with the fabulous Katie Dirge. Ms Dirge produces the publication, 'Black Sunday Zine. Katie was kind enough to publish some of my work and in turn I would like to introduce you to her and what she does. She is a very interesting lady with a penchant for the dark macabre and I recommend you check out all the links at the bottom of the page. 

 

Katie Dirge – from ‘The House of Dirge’ website introduction:

“Katie is my real name, Dirge isn’t. My love of the Victorian era and its death customs inspired me to take a name that reflects my love and interest. A dirge is commonly known as a song that is played at a funeral or a mournful poem or other literary work. The latter is the true reflection of both myself and my writing. This is not to say I do not like my birth name, I just like to keep my family life and my work separate.

I began writing at an early age, I begun as a poet and then moved into writing fiction. As the years went on I was published in a national magazine on a regular basis and then I started up my own publication in the form of a zine. Black Sunday Zine gives me the chance to write some interesting pieces and interview artists and writers. In the past it has featured pieces on cemeteries, satanists, hearses, horror films, zombies… the list goes on.

I am heavily tattooed and I only dress in black. I have been called “eccentric” and “different” which I can only take as a compliment. I have a fake stuffed crow called One Eyed Eric, I collect candles, I dry roses, enjoy draping everything in red velvet, I buy weird art, I love drinking copious amounts of tea, I love self-published works, I like taking photographs, I collect notebooks and I love religious imagery.”

Black Sunday Zine is Katie’s baby (slightly macabre baby at that!).

Black Sunday was born out of a lack of dark zines that covered the morbid, the macabre and heavy metal - all in one publication. So I wrote some pieces and then decided to get some really interesting and talented people involved like Loren Rhoads; writer and editor of the magazine Morbid Curiosity, artist Chuck Hodi, writer and artist William Cook and various others. No subject goes untouched. I have featured pieces on graveyards, satanists, zombies, hearses, horror films and lots more. As much as I enjoy writing the content I am always open to suggestions in the form of weird tales (both fiction and non-fiction), macabre features and poetry.

Heavy metal is my kind of music and is pretty much my soundtrack for life so it only felt right to include this. I openly invite unsigned bands to feature and I review new and old CD’s as a way of promotion and hopefully introducing readers to an album they have yet to discover! The House of Dirge is my emporium that quite literally houses Black Sunday Zine and soon there will be other items available that will include dark prints and chapbooks. You can get yourself a copy at http://thehouseofdirge.com and follow the links to the shop and the blog.

Main website for BSZ and Katie Dirge: http://www.thehouseofdirge.com/
Purchase Black Sunday Zine here: http://thehouseofdirge.bigcartel.com/ 
Personal Blog: http://thehouseofdirge.blogspot.co.nz/
Black Sunday Zine: http://thehouseofdirge.blogspot.co.nz/p/black-sunday-zine.html
Katie’s writing: http://www.scribd.com/doc/79679494/Black-Dominion-Novella-Sample-Chapter

 

RJ Parker – True Crime Author – Interview

RJ Parker

RJ Parker resides in Canada where he spends his time doing what he loves best, reading and writing. However, writing is relatively new since becoming disabled with Anklyosing Spondylitis. He spent 30 years in various facets of management and has a professional designation and is a proud single parent of two teenage girls, as well as twin sons who are 26. RJ Parker has written 7 True Crime books that deal with all manner of criminals and their heinous crimes. His books are all in the genre of True Crime yet deal with such diverse subjects as Spree Killers, top FBI cases, Serial Killers - solved and unsolved, Female Serial Killers, School Shootings and murderous Doctors, including #1 Best Sellers - 'Women Who Kill' & 'Unsolved Serial Killings.'

The following is an interview I did with RJ Parker recently.

RJ Parker, true crime author, talks with William Cook

WC: How did you get into writing about True Crime?

RJP: I have been an avid reader for over 30 years and really enjoyed fictional stories that included serial murders. I also read all of John Douglas books, who is my FBI hero, and he coined much of the terminology used today when talking about serial killers. I don't have much of an imagination so I never attempted fiction, and I wanted to write after reading thousands of books, so I decided to write on what I know best, serial killers.

WC: What draws you to a certain subject? That is, what are the essential things that you look for in determining what will make a good/valid True Crime story or book?

RJP: There have been many serial killers in our history, it's not hard to pick certain individuals, there's an endless list. In my first book, Unsolved Serial Killings, I focused on the ones that got away which really intrigued me. SK's then could literally get away with murder because law enforcement lacked technical skills, not like today with DNA and Behavioral Science, Profiling etc. I also picked the topic of women because they are the least likely to become a serial killer, however, there have been many. People want to read about serial killers who killed many. They are not interested in the ones who only have 3 kills..they like 30 better. It makes for a better read, which is sad, but true. People are fascinated with true crime in numbers.

WC: As a True Crime author you deal with a lot of disturbing subject matter in your work, has this impacted on your own life in any way? If so, how do you distance yourself from the more negative aspects of life as a True Crime author?

RJP: William, when I was writing No Killing in the Hallways, I was an emotional wreck. Being a parent of two teenage girls in school, and to research and write about what happened at V. Tech and Columbine, was draining. My daughters haven't read the book and I don't want them to. They actually only read parts of FBI and Unsolved. My most memorable time was writing about Dahmer. The following is an excerpt from Case Closed: Serial Killers Captured and it broke my heart to write it:

“In the wee hours of May 27th, 1991, Konerak Sinthasomphone, fourteen, was discovered wandering naked on the street, heavily drugged and bleeding from his rectum. Two young women from the neighborhood found the confused young boy and called 911. Dahmer chased after the boy to take him back to his apartment, but the women stopped him. When the police arrived, Dahmer told them that Sinthasomphone was his nineteen-year-old boyfriend, and they’d had an argument while drinking. The two women were not pleased and protested, but the two police officers turned the boy over to Dahmer. The police later reported a strange smell inside Dahmer's apartment, but did not investigate it. The smell was the body of Tony Hughes, Dahmer's previous victim, decomposing in the bedroom. The two policemen did not try to verify the boy’s age and also failed to run the background check that would have revealed Dahmer as a convicted child molester, registered sex offender, and still on probation. Later that night, Dahmer killed and dismembered the young lad, keeping his skull as a souvenir. Author Note: Officers Joseph P. Gabrish and John A. Balcerzak were fired after this incident but appealed and were re-instated.”

WC: How do you choose your subject/s when it seems as though there are so many accounts of the same crimes available, especially the more notorious cases involving Serial Killers and high profile crimes? That is, how do you make your books stand out from the rest?

RJP: Many books are written about 'a' serial killer, but mine are compilations of serial killers or spree killers. If someone wants to read all about Bundy, they will buy a Bundy book. If they want to read about 15 or 20 summary files of various serial killers, I have good choices for them; Women, Unsolved, Children, Doctors etc., then if a person finds one or two that they would like to read more about, there's books out there on individual cases.

WC: Do you plan to, or have you ever, interviewed any of the more infamous/bizarre criminals in your books? In terms of reliable source material, is it best as a True Crime author to stick to validated accounts like court transcripts and previously published materials?

RJP: I would love to interview a serial killer some day but I haven't yet. The dregs of society I wrote about so far I think are all dead: either killed in prison, death sentence or old age. As for spree killers, they most always kill themselves. It is better to stick with Court documents, FBI archieves etc., that are released under the Freedom of Information Act, unless, one gets the rare opportunity to interview a killer such as John Douglas has. He really wrote the book on SK's and has interviewed and analyzed the minds of dozens of them.

WC: Where do you gather your source material from and what is the process you use when researching your subject before drafting your work?

RJP: I've contacted the FBI and have been given quite a bit of information, as well from their archieves. Some things get blacked out however. The FBI policy on extracting information is that you have to rephrase or edit every paragraph, or, every 40 words. If the perp is captured and sentenced, than court documentation is a great source and very explicit in detail. If someone is interested in writing, those are two avenues plus, contacting the local police station that investigated the crime and if the case is closed, they will give you a summary of the crime but not crime scene pictures unfortunately.

WC: What are some of the issues involved with writing True Crime accounts? For example, are there copyright requirements involved in quoting news/source materials and using images etc?

RJP: If you obtain information from the FOIA FBI archieves, you don't have to source it. If you obtain bits and pieces from a newspaper article for instance, you have to source it. As for images, I only use images that are public domain. When you click on an image, it will state whether it's copyright protected. If not, it's public domain and free for the using.

WC: Do you ever worry that the people/criminals you write about revel in their notoriety and the infamy generated by media interest?

RJP: At this point, no, because anyone I've written about so far is already dead. Unless it's an unsolved serial killer which I would have no idea how they feel about their notoriety. Most serial killers do like their moment in the media and enjoyed being coined a name, such as the Green River Killer or the BTK.

WC: I notice in most of your books, you always acknowledge the victims of the crimes you analyse. Most, if not all, of the crimes dealt with in your various case studies are crimes against others, ie. they all leave a trail of victims behind. How do you deal with the victimology of these cases? It must be hard to represent the victims in these cases while being impartial when outlining the crimes themselves, how do you find the ‘middle ground,’ so to speak?

RJP: Good question. I grew up in a Christian home, my father has been a pastoral minister for 57 years. I feel for each and every one of those victims. Yes I write about the killers and the killings because it's a fact, I wish it wasn't, but it did happen. However, they will not get the glory from me. At the end of each case file, I list the victim, their age, and sometimes a little info about them with a prayer for their souls. By way of this interview, I am announcing for the first time, that I have been in contact with the Canadian Resouce Center for Victims of Crime and I am pledging 10% of all my royalties.

WC: Have you ever had any mentoring or formal training as a True Crime author? There seems to be a certain type of instinct, or investigative style, needed to be effective as a writer in this genre – can anyone be a True Crime author?

RJP: Sure, I guess anyone can be a writer, but it takes a different person to write about true crime. Not a harder person without feelings, because that's not the case with us TC writers. To be able to separate yourself emotionally from the criminals and the victims is tough, but essential. There isn't any training for a TC writer really. If you have good organizational skills and can put your own spin on things, you can do it. I have two professional designations in management so I'm very organized. I guess those skills helped me in writing these books.

WC: Who do you look up to or admire as a True Crime author? Can you recommend any other authors/specialists in your field, and any other books, that stand out to you as exemplars of the genre?

RJP: First and foremost, John Douglas is my favorite. Since I was a young boy, I always wanted to be an FBI Agent from watching the show at the time, The FBI starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (who is 93 years young). I found out in my early teens that I couldn't be with the FBI because I was Canadian...what a disappointment, I still remember it. Getting back to John Douglas, I really enjoyed his books: Mind Hunters, Inside the Mind of BTK, Obsession, and The Cases that Haunt Us. He has other books, but those were my favorite and inspiration to write. Other great authors are: Gary King, Brian King, Ann Rule and Jack Olsen, just to name a few.

WC: What are you working on currently and do you have any upcoming projects you can tell us about?

RJP: I am working on a couple of new books. One is about cops who turned serial killer, and the other is about children who killed their parents. I am also going to write volume 2 of Unsolved Serial Killings but with more international content.

WC: Finally, what advice would you give for anyone thinking of writing True Crime and publishing in today’s market place? Is self-publishing the way to go, what would you recommend?
 

RJP: I wrote my books over many years and had no intentions of self-publishing. I was holding out for a publisher and the book was going to be about 500 pages, called, Playpen to Prison. However, a friend and famous NY best selling author of over 80+ books convinced me to self publish in November. I tell you, it's been a learning curve because I no sooner had the books up on other markets, when I retracted them all after Amazon announced the Select Program. It's been interesting and I have mixed views on this program. Self-publishing is definately the way to go. Why spread the royalties around with agents and publishers? Like newspapers being replaced with the internet; paperbacks and hardcopies are being replaced by digital format and it has only just begun. So I say, if you have a book to publish, get it edited and hop on the E-Book train. I also suggest not to put all your eggs in one basket. There are many venues out there and if you want more exposure, spread the book around. Currently, only people who own a kindle can buy my books, which as I said earlier, is a learning experience, er, mistake.

Personal message from RJ Parker:

"The author will gift his books FREE from the Kindle Store to Canadian, U.S., UK or Allied Soldiers, Police Officers, Firefighters, EMT's, Correctional Officers, etc., who are actively serving or retired. Please send a message to the email address below telling the author who you are, and the book(s) you would like to read. It is a privilege and honor to give back in kindness to the brave men and women who sacrifice so much to help keep us safe. Blessings to you all."

For more info on RJ PArker and his books check out the following links:

Amazon Author's page: http://www.amazon.com/R.J.-Parker/e/B006DJ6AAG
Website: http://authorrjparker.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorRJParker
Email: AuthorRJparker@gmail.com
Twitter: @authorrjparker


Check out my review of RJ Parker's 'Women Who Kill' on Amazon.

Gut Full

“Bigger Fish Eat The Little Ones” By Anton Semenov.

For whatever reason, I was at a party. Vodka was the choice drink for the evening, combined with multifarious concoctions aggressively provided by strange fellow guests. Different colored cocktails passed expectantly, or should I say were thrust, into my unsteady hands. I was drunk as usual, this time however it was a wary state of drunkenness, more like a stoned feeling – that is, paranoia began to guide my perceptions. Nonetheless, I was drunk, stumbling, and borderline belligerent.

After a while I realized in my stupor that this wasn’t a ‘normal’ party. The guests looked strange. A lot of them wore outlandish masks and there were as many different nationalities, as there were cocktails. Mainly, scrawny middle-eastern men wearing kaftans and the silent procession of their beautiful wives, hidden beneath black silk burqas. A few Westerners were dressed as Arabs and there was a distinguishable Afghan here, an Indian there, a Turk or Arab over there.

The background lost its scenery and darkness framed the scarred features of the many guests who now appeared to be in slow motion. The sound of a crackling album on an old phonograph broadcast shrill trumpets and an echoing bossa-nova beat, the sound of glasses clinking, women’s laughter, deep mumblings of the men’s alien dialects, all merged into a noise not unlike the booming of waves under a jetty.

On the stone steps of an old church I came to, next to someone I didn’t recognize. I felt I knew her somehow, something vaguely familiar. She certainly behaved as if we were old friends. She was of European heritage, possibly part Jewish or polish, with a soft clipped English pronunciation. I assumed she was an English teacher like myself, stranded in a strange land. I had still not figured out where the hell I was – the architecture surrounding us looked Spanish or Mediterranean – I thought, maybe, Tangiers or some such place.

As we walked I could see that it was a coastal town, the blue ocean meeting with the other blue of the sky on the vast horizon between the buildings. Eventually we made our way to a large faded lime building that looked like a bathhouse, its crumbling plaster façade and Mediterranean style flat roof, gaping arched entrance. I stood on the steps and wondered what the time was, it appeared to be late afternoon and I was still drunk. What had happened at the party? Where had the last hours gone? Who was this person following me around? What was that stench? Where the hell was I? Strangely enough the place reminded me of a place I had been before – an open-air ocean bathhouse set in the surf at Newcastle in Australia. This, however, was definitely not Australia.

We left the twilight behind and entered the cavernous entrance – the smell, of chlorine and sweat mingled with urine, pervaded my senses. The foyer opened into a high roofed room lit with yellow light bulbs, dangling starkly from the shadowed heights. The facing grey brick wall was lined with shower faucets, a gaseous vapor emanating from their stained lips.  Taps spaced at regular intervals – where the end one should have been, there was a plastic curtain surrounding the sound of splashing water. Billowing steam smoked its way towards the dark realms of the ceiling. The place stank like a bad place and looked like an opium den!

Meanwhile, after trying all the other taps, my elderly companion suggested we shower together and began to disrobe his milk white body, his flesh like molasses dripping from his emaciated frame. He looked up at me as he stepped out of his underpants, dark eyes filled with urgency, his heart visibly beating, a pulsing lump of bloodied gristle, blinking at me from the gaping flap of skin, slapping against the glistening bones of his ribcage. I declined his invitation and, looking for a toilet desperately, excused myself to urinate and pissed a stream of blood that seemed to take an eternity to finish.           

The need for fresh air led me back outside to a warm breeze and the sound of the waves gently sieving the white sand. I walked down some steps between two palm trees and pissed against again against a grassy bank that hugged the beach. There were a few people walking around in the dusky light – no one seemed to notice me.  I felt invisible.

Then I was drunk again, lying on the soft cold sand, an empty vodka bottle discarded at my side. I rose to my feet and stumbled back toward the bathhouse, feeling in need of a wash and a drink of water. I saw my former companion was still in the shower cubicle, his feet visible under the plastic curtain, buried in flaking pieces of his rank flesh. Ankle deep. I was drunk, feeling grimy and too tired to care about decorum. I opened the curtain and removed my shirt and pants. No sooner had I disrobed, he quickly gathered his belongings and casting me a fleeting glance, his skeletal face looked like he had scrubbed it clean of any last scrap of flesh. Bleached bone made his former ugly face quite presentable now.  A staring glutinous mess, shone out of the depths of his eye-socket as he wildly glanced over his bare-boned shoulder.

He hunched forward and scurried from the cubicle like a cockroach.  I didn’t care, I wanted the shower to myself and being naked with other males was not normally within my sheltered comfort zones. Besides, I had caught a glimpse of myself in the chromed steel cistern. I had mutated. I turned to step into the shower and saw myself full frontal in the mirror on the wall. I gasped, nearly collapsing.            

I stood, white faced, dark circles around my inflamed eyes, every bone in my face visible under parchment thin skin stretched taut.  Bruises covered my ribs and a large cut across my hip. I focused – a bloody smear slick across my top lip, looking closer – flecks of dark blood covered my face, blood still ran across the bridge of my nose and from the cut in my lip.

 My eyes were glazed and a dull red color filled the cornea. There were puncture wounds on my neck about 2-3 centimeters in length, the blood coagulated on some, others still fresh.

My eyes shifted slowly from the reflection of my face to the gaping wound in my chest. My stomach churned, suddenly aware of a dull pain between my ribs and a terrible empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. There were deep slash marks across my chest and just below my sternum. Near my lower ribs was a central puncture mark bigger than the rest, it must have been deeper for its width was twice that of the others and the caked blood around it was black. I watched in horror as my fingers probed the flaps of skin that hung either side of the wound until both hands could grip the edges and pull back on the inflamed tissue, tearing my own flesh. I could feel my fingers beneath the bones of my lower ribs but felt no pain, just a tension in my biceps as my strong forearms pried apart the bones and skin, revealing what lay beneath slowly, my ribs popped and cracked as they broke, one by one. And then the pain did start to burn inside me.

            Something blinked back at me and I simultaneously felt something, not dissimilar to ‘The Butterflies’. It was the eyelids brushing my intestines in fact. I stared back at the reflection with difficulty, a red haze beginning slowly to stain my vision. The black eyeball, centered in a perfect white orb, wombed with two engorged crimson eyelids, complete with foot-long eyelashes, looking rather like porcupine quills, blinked back up at me from my bubbling intestines, slowly dripping from my barren pelvis, plopping like fish on the floor as they spilled from my gut, blood pissing everywhere.  Slowly, but deliberately, the glistening bloodshot orb winked up at me and then, and only then, thank Christ, I succumbed to the white light of unconsciousness.

Latest Amazon Review for Blood Related

5.0 out of 5 stars The Family That Slays Together Becomes a Legend, January 25, 2012

By 

Bruce J. Blanchard "Darkenwulf" (Des Moines, IA) -  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This review is from: Blood Related (Kindle Edition)

It started off so simple. Dr. Mary Brunswick was the court appointed psychologist to define the state of mind of one Charlie Cunningham. During the course of her talks with Charlie, she meets his twin, Caleb. Caleb consults her later on and tells her a story she will not forget, a story of violence, murder, abuse, mutilation, insanity, abduction, and conspiracy. A story that covers a family background beginning with Grandfather Samael, father Errol, and his two sons Charlie and Caleb. What begins as a subplot and gains an increasing importance is a family feud between the Cunninghams and the Trumans, a family of cops and those who don't mind flying over the dictates of the law. What becomes more disturbing is this: as you read through the book, who are you rooting for - the long length of crimes commited by those in the death house on Artaud Avenue or the less than legal obsession by Ray Truman who will use any means to wipe out the family and their crimes.

The main character is Caleb. He and brother Charlie have been abused by both father Errol and mother Vera. They've been raised in an environment of murder, death, and torture. Throughout the story we identify with Caleb: his actions (mostly despicable), his feelings about his family relations, and a seemingly growing insanity fueled by drugs and alcohol. What remains is a story you can follow with Caleb's entries and excerpts from newspapers and crime books. Blood Related is an awesome and ambitious project in the ways and means of the psychopathic mind. A lot of us are looking for answers as why people kill the others around them and do the inhumane. Blood Related may help you in your quest, though the answers aren't easy ones.
This book is one that should Never be overlooked.

Read more great reviews here and try a free sample.

Meet Cindy Keen Reynders - Writer

Cindy Keen Reynders

For Cindy KeenReynders, writing has been, and always will be, her one true passion. Growing up, she discovered a love of words and found that she had an aptitude for turning those words into sentences. Cindy’s latest novel to add to her ‘Saucy Lucy’ series, ‘A Killer Slice’, has recently been released on Amazon.

Over the years Cindy has won various writing contests and has also written for and edited numerous newsletters. She has also sold several non-fiction magazine articles to “True West” and “Wild West,” as well as writing two earlier novels in the ‘Saucy Lucy’ series.  

Cindy lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming with her husband, Rich, and her little dog, Ewok. Her first two books in the Saucy Lucy series are "The Saucy Lucy Murders," and "Paws-itively Guilty," are available through Amazon. She is looking forward to the release of her next novel, ‘The Seven Year Witch’, to be published early 2012 by Angelic Knight Press.

Cindy’s future goals include being able to travel more as time allows and to write, write, write. She constantly challenges herself to develop more entertaining plots, characters and settings. Nothing pleases her more than to be able to tell a good story.  If it touches someone’s heartstrings and makes them laugh or cry, then she knows she’s done her job.

A KILLER SLICE by Cindy Keen Reynders

Lexie Lightfoot’s move home to Moose Creek Junction, Wyoming, with her daughter, Eva, has been both a blessing and a curse. It’s good to be near her family, even though Lucy, her opinionated, churchgoing sister, makes life interesting in a hair-pulling sort of way.

In the recent past, the sisters have called upon their amateur sleuthing abilities to investigate murders in the small community. If matters had been left to Sheriff Otis Parnell, Moose Creek Junction’s incompetent sheriff, who just happens to be Lucy’s husband, the cases would have gone cold.

When it finally seems the snoopy sisters can settle down to a normal routine, some spicy intrigue is tossed their way. During a shower baby shower the sisters are holding for nine-months-pregnant Eva at their small restaurant, the Saucy Lucy Café, a knock sounds at the front door. The young man waiting on the doorstep claims to be Lucy’s long lost son.

Lucy is mortified, swears he’s mistaken and quickly sends him on his way, but he refuses to leave her alone. When he winds up dead, the local police department considers Lucy a suspect in his murder. The sisters embark on yet another crime-solving adventure to clear her good name.

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Order 'A Killer Slice' from Amazon

Check out Cindy’s blog or her website

Find Cindy on Facebook and on Twitter

Make sure to hook up with Cindy here to get all the latest news and info about her next novel, 'The Seven-Year Witch.'

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You can also read an interview that Cindy did with yours truly on her blog here.

#Tumblr #Blood #Related by #William #Cook

Macabre Art by William Cook - Serial Killer Fiction - Blood Related by William...

BR Bytes

This was my original title for 'Blood Related' and my original idea for a cover.

A Banner if you feel like pimping ;) Please link to http://bloodrelated.wordpress.com 

This was my original cover concept for BR before I handed it over to AKP

Final cover and title

Serial Killer Fiction - Blood Related by William Cook
Available now from Amazon:
$3.99 Ebook edition: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Related-ebook/dp/B006QG1WA4/ref=dp_return_1?ie=UTF8&n=133140011&s=digital-text



“Dark and deeply disturbing.”
- Jonathan Nasaw, author of Fear Itself and The Girls He Adored.

“Blood Related is a nasty but nuanced take on the serial killer genre. Cook’s bruising tale of twin psychopaths who are as cold as mortuary slabs is not for the weak-kneed.”
- Laird Barron, author of Occultation and The Imago Sequence.

“A thought-provoking thriller.”
- Guy N Smith, author of Night of The Crabs and Deadbeat.

“Great - Riveting - Amazing - take your pick. I just read William Cook’s Blood Related for the second time. Both readings were followed with one thought, Wow. A horrific crime-filled tale of terror that makes us understand why we lock our doors at night, Blood Related is by far the best read I’ve experienced in years.”
- John Paul Allen, author of Monkey Love and Gifted Trust

“Blood Related is a terrifying psychological thriller. William Cook is an author to watch.”
- Mark Edward Hall, author of The Lost Village and The Holocaust Opera.

“William Cook makes serial killer fiction exciting again! Expert narrative, bursting with flare, originality, and enough passion and brutality that even a real-life serial killer will love this book … and it’s twisted and complex enough to make you question your own sanity after the first intense read.”
- Nicholas Grabowsky, best-selling author of Halloween IV and Everborn.

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For over two decades, Detective Ray Truman has been searching for the killer, or killers, who have terrorized Portvale. Headless corpses, their bodies mutilated and posed, have been turning up all over the industrial district near the docks. Young female prostitutes had been the killer’s victims of choice, but now other districts are reporting the gruesome discovery of decapitated bodies. It seems the killer has expanded his territory as more ‘nice girls’ feel the wrath of his terrible rage.

Meet the Cunninghams …
A family bound by evil and the blood they have spilled. The large lodging-house they live in and operate on Artaud Avenue reeks of death, and the sins that remain trapped beneath the floorboards.

Ray Truman’s search for a killer leads him to the Cunningham’s house of horrors. What he finds there will ultimately lead him to regret ever meeting Caleb Cunningham and the deviant family that spawned him. The hunter becomes the hunted, as Truman digs deeper into the abyss that is the horrifying mind of the most dangerous psychopath he has ever met.

More info here on the Official 'Blood Related' site: http://bloodrelated.wordpress.com/

Saucy Lucy Wisdom: An Interview with Horror Writer, William Cook

Saucy Lucy Wisdom: An Interview with Horror Writer, William Cook: Today I’m interviewing fellow Angelic Knight Press author William Cook, a very talented writer...

Blood Related by William Cook - available now

Need some holiday horror/thriller reading?

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Want more info, background stories, origin tales etc - click above

Angelic Knight Press: Blood Related

Angelic Knight Press: Blood Related: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Related-ebook/dp/B006QG1WA4/ Look what's up on Kindle! BLOOD RELATED by William Cook! At present, it's in the ...

Modernism, The Waste Land, & Spiritualism

§ I.

In T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922), a society decays while humanity turns upon itself in the name of industry. Even that most rudimentary characteristic of human nature and existence, sexual love, is reduced to a type of capitalist transaction of  ‘automated’ experience.  It is a lasting impression of humanity at its lowest and most fallible point. However, despite Eliot’s reactionary portrayal of the spiritual and cultural death of western society, The Waste Land is not without hope or redemption. Indeed, in the knowledge that the text itself will generate wisdom, through the process of understanding and interpretation, there is a certain degree of optimism present.

Modernism (particularly Modernist writing) was essentially a search for absolutes, or fundamental truths, about human existence and experience. Art (with a capital ‘a’) was the idealized domain for this aggressive hunt; aesthetic autonomy, however, was far from the romantic notion of beauty as the purest aesthetic. Modernist idealism centered on language, or on the limits of language, as the aesthetic principle that governed the range and depth of their ‘meta-fictions’. It was a theoretical dictum, flavored with euro-centric philosophy and anglo-cultural morality that attempted to address the fallibility of the modern consciousness, and ask the age-old philosophical question: ’how do/should we exist?’ This question was one which Eliot felt the need to pose and respond to in The Waste Land.

Throughout the poem, an underlying spiritual quest is underway. With allusion to biblical, mystical, theological references and characters (e.g. St. Augustine, Ecclesiastes, Buddha, Madame Sosostris etc.), Eliot concludes the poem with an affirmation of all things unknown, a ‘shantih’. This spiritual motif is the organizing and thematic device by which Eliot structures the disjointed contexts of western culture. Each sequence displays literary and classical/mythological allusions that reflect a decaying society whilst positing a philosophically spiritual affirmation of religious idealism, either in motif or analogy.  The spiritual themes and recantations subtly and forcibly emphasise the need for spirituality, in a society ignorant of its lack of faith and the consequential connection to social ills.

After Nietzsche’s proclamation in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883–1892) that “God is dead”, and his recognition of the over riding human will and its tendency toward self gratification and sin, Eliot continued to address the questions raised by the German philosopher in regard to the state of his adopted nation. The use of biblical concepts and classical ideas is present in the description Eliot gives of a 'fallen' world where darkness reigns supreme. Through the clutter and chaos, discord and despair, light breaks through the haze and ‘fog’ of this Babylonian abyss.

It is not the ‘western dream’[i] that lights upon a progressive metropolis, but an eastern sun that illuminates the decline of western civilization. Through the symbolic parallels and contrasts, a message is relayed: the west is no longer the pantheon of the civilised modern world. Now the ancient grace and customs of the east[ii] are the new provider of light in the heart of darkness. In other words, the depiction of the negative suggestively emphasizes the positive or the alternative. Eliot’s subtle proposal in The Waste Land integrates religious idealism into a society whose access to ‘high’ cultural aestheticism has previously been discouraged or impractical. If society at large can believe in the numinous doctrine of religion, then it would follow that their belief in the divinity of aesthetics as a social cure is not beyond grasp. In this respect, the ideal behind the art proposes autonomy on a par with divine doctrine, yet also interdependent on an audience’s faith and understanding of theological principles and concepts.

§ II.

Modernist texts like Eliot’s were part of a development of an aesthetic sensibility, that was not merely an expression of the interior psychological world, but an experience in itself that forced the reader to decipher their own individual existence as much as that of the text. This reliance upon the reader to navigate their way through the dense forest of metaphor and allusion makes interpretation difficult in relation to the reader’s own knowledge and experience. The author is needed to provide a critical compass to guide through the intellectual organization of the text that would otherwise remain inert to the average reader. Hence, the courteous notes Eliot put together in consideration for an audience that may not ‘be in the know’, after writing The Waste Land. This in itself is a significant aspect of Modernist literature; effectively it generates the necessity for coherence and education through its use of complex symbolism, literary tradition, myth, and philosophy. When one attempts to interpret the Modernist text, one also attempts to decipher the major (and minor) texts of western philosophy, science, literature, and religion.  

 The Waste Land is constructed with literary remnants and images of a fragmented western civilization that values materialism above wisdom. Apparently unrelated references and contexts evoke a pervading sense of confusion and disharmony, in a cultural, social, and spiritual sense. Despite the negative impressions, all perspectives seem to end with a different proposition, or connection, to larger fundamental issues of human existence and meaning. These remnants are the literary ramparts of Eliot’s craft; used categorically and historically, they form a profound literary image (or montage of images) of post-war Europe and London in particular. A dense allegorical landscape that is as much a reflection of society (literary and social) as it is of Modernist literature, The Waste Land is the epitome of the Modernist tendency in poetry of the Twentieth Century. 

Moreover it is a poem consisting of differing viewpoints (from different sources) that ultimately and resolutely provides an overall perspective of a culture (western) without absolute ideals. It is a satirical depiction of a modern world that is supposedly advanced with all its industrial, technological, scientific, and accumulated resources of knowledge. It is a world without coherence and solidarity, despite this great historical capital, that The Waste Land addresses, with its intellectual organization of sensibility and society.  Paradoxically, the poem’s complex web of intellectual and literary meaning imposes its boundaries on any attempts at interpretation. For Eliot it is his coup de grace, his poetical entrance into the elevated world of ‘fine art’ as defined by the institution of the literary canon. However, there is a sense of affinity with those outside the institution within the poem. A seemingly moral empathy with the people who populate his landscape of cultural woe and fragmentation. 

It is the ‘machine’ of capitalist industrialization, which Eliot undermines in the poem. This is perceived as the enemy of ‘high’ art; with its subtly coercive social structures and powers of mobilization, its ability to envelop whole nations, to process its individuals into social robots, to transform the living into the dead. Above all, The Waste Land attacks modernity’s capacity to ‘dumb down’ its masses, in order to increase economic productivity at the expense of literacy, education, and its culture’s producers that are the writers, poets, and artists. It is a poem that requires (demands!) intelligence, literacy, wit, and above all a certain amount of courage, not just in the reading but ultimately in the writing of it. Like Joyce’s Ulysses, it is a work that is designed to achieve an absolute resolution of literary, aesthetic, and social malaise, that was so much a part of the early Twentieth Century period.

As is the case with most (if not all) Modernist literature, there is a heavy investigation and saturation of selected significant events of the past. It is this quality of Eliot’s poem that connects the reader to all humanity; especially the modern being, to a historical tradition and the “dialect of the [mythic] tribe”. The final stanza of the poem is the best example of this. The solipsistic figure of the Fisher King; the ‘every-man’, the poet, stranded in The Waste Land is revealed “upon the shore, / Fishing, with the arid plain behind” (WL, V, 423-424). In this, the poem’s finale, all the motifs, allusions, and language converge in a chaotic textual reconnaissance, not dissimilar to a battle zone:

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina

Quando fiam uti chelidon-- O swallow swallow

Le Prince d’Acquitaine a la tour abolie

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

     Shantih shantih shantih

(WL, VI, 426-433)

The use of “shantih” is interesting, not only, because it is the final line to the poem, but because of its characteristic conformity to the Modernist principle of discontinuity and metaphoric allusion. It has a phonetic resonance that itself imparts meaning. It could be the tolling of a bell; the shuffle of the crowd flowing over London Bridge, the ticking of a clock, the ebb and flow of the tide. Alternatively, it could represent “a savage beating a drum in a jungle”,[iii] the sound of the origins of poetry.

As the sound creates multiple impressions, the literal meaning conveys a complex construction of theological and literary metaphor. Within its Hindu context, ‘shantih’ is a mantra, an affirmative ending to the Upanishads which tell of the personal self or “atman”, originally part of the Godhead. This individual self is seen as separated from God by imperfect knowledge and experience, the redemption being, that “the obligation of each individual is to realize this original oneness by means of extensive and complex spiritual, moral and physical disciplines”.[iv] In this respect, the usage and meaning fits nicely into the general theme, of western spiritual decay, as a counter point and as a redemptive allegory.

In keeping with the classic response to Modernist literature, further analysis also places significance on the symbolism of the line; the three lines resound with exegetic meaning. In light of the questions of western spirituality, one could read the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost (or Mary) into the three Shantihs. There is a sense of overlapping, of one religion taking prominence over another, of a shifting set of values that are fundamentally the same yet experienced in completely different ways due to cultural values.

Tradition, in The Waste Land, is never an obvious foundation for western culture, although it is implied. Tradition presents itself in the form of an assortment of allusions (and illusions) that does not unify itself in any one perspective, as the ambiguous culmination of the poem demonstrates. Consequently, set against this fragmented tradition, the individual proves unstable. Tiresias fails to unify the poem’s disparate voices in a conventional allegorical way; instead, his sexual division creates a tone of ambiguity between the languages and characters of the poem. Each character in The Waste Land, is individualized to the extent that the only common trait to be found amongst them, is either their respective genders, their madness or despair, or else the characteristic and monotonous lack of volition which they possess:

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

(WL, I, 61-65)

Thus, with individuality becoming socially detrimental and cultural foundations awry, the hope of unifying social values or of an autonomous moral ideal seems doomed. Eliot’s explanatory note on the character of Tiresias gives the reader an apparent, yet unsatisfactory and somewhat misleading, insight into the technique used in employing such devices in the poem:

Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a ‘character’, is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.  Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman, and the two sexes meet in Tiresias.  What Tiresias sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem.

           (Note to line 218)

Indeed, what Tiresias perceives, is the substance of the poem, in that his character occupies the majority of the middle section of the poem (hence his centrality). Eliot’s notes prove somewhat ambiguous in relation to the text itself. Whilst they do provide a certain amount of elucidation regarding literary references and modes the notes seem deliberately innocuous. They are almost salutatory in their superficiality, in relation to the metaphoric density of the poem as a whole. This set of token guidelines traces the history of the English literary tradition, albeit at the expense of philosophical or theological explanation. Consequently, this has the effect of encouraging a wider interpretation that in turn questions the possibility of connecting aesthetic appreciation with moral expression.

There are no conclusions however, no affirmation of an ideal world or society. Insinuation and suggestion are the only indicators of any logical answers to the illogical problems besetting The Waste Land. In this sense, Eliot has achieved an absolute of sorts in an artifact that is so metaphorical, that its politics defy definition. All that remains is the text; the aesthetic temporal object, that is as much from its own time as it is from all. Like most other Modernist texts, the ideological goal has been achieved; the work has stood the test of time, to affect discussion and debate about fundamental cultural and anthropological issues up to the present day.

§ III.

Poetry should not interpret experience for the reader, it should provide the objective means by which the reader themselves discover meaning. Ezra Pound in How To Read argued that rationality of speech, in science and in art, did not come from logic, but from the combination or juxtaposition of objective images. This was the main Imagist tenet that Eliot himself endorsed in his essay on Hamlet. It was he who introduced it as a significant critical term for use in discussions of art and literature; he called it the ‘objective correlative’:

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.[v]

The artisan was not so, unless they could relay the complexities of the human mind through their art. Image must represent intellect and emotion in such a way, as to invoke the same response from the audience, without the guidance of the artist’s persona or the dysfunction of the art. Therefore, poetry should not concern itself with conventional representation and technique like iambic, regular rhythms. This was the main aspect of tradition the Modernist’s wished to revolutionize. Formal restrictions and convention was avoided and modern poetry freed itself from the past, through the employment of the avant-garde influenced vers libre (or ‘free verse’) as their characteristic literary mode.

The Waste Land is perhaps the most poignant and effective example of the Modernist use and style of free verse in poetry; switching styles, languages, form, narration. The poem epitomizes the liberating use of all words, language, and styles within a modern world where ‘anything goes’. Whilst Modernist verse addresses the world with language and images appropriate to the modern experience, it also feels free to use any thing from all literature to do so. If poetry was to communicate intellectually and popularly to a modern metropolitan audience as well as to the intelligentsia, then its ingredients would have to reflect the present culture as much as any other reference to the past. Eliot’s The Waste Land established a transformed tradition of modern poetry that influenced writers across the globe, especially American poets like Hart Crane, and William Carlos Williams. Eliot’s poem is the main literary doctrine of the modern western consciousness of the early twentieth century.

It is a reflection of a time when language, culture, and society was in a state of flux; the sense of disharmony and instability conveyed, gives a historically accurate picture of a society between wars and between poles of modernity. Cultural definition and identity occurs when the present redeems a reconcilable past. This awareness, of the importance of the past to the continuation of a progressive present, is deep-set within Modernism’s fundamental idealism. Modernism’s involvement with the urban environment reflects a realization that society and its demands determine ‘culture’. The opposite view for critics like Andreas Huyssen, is that Modernism:

constituted itself through a conscious strategy of exclusion, an anxiety of contamination by its other: an increasingly consuming and engulfing mass culture. Both the strengths and weaknesses of Modernism derive from that fact.[vi]

Modernist texts like The Waste Land attempt to integrate, whilst remaining true to intellectual and aesthetic principles, an industrialized capitalist market place without becoming part of the ‘other’ institution of industrialization. Modernist text resists the commonality of mass-produced commodity, by excluding the market from its message. It is the main reason for the tendency in Modernist art to propagate styles that defy mass-appeal, despite their characteristic dealings with fundamental issues of human existence. The language is simply too intellectual, literate, and metaphoric for the average consumer with no prior literary education. It is a significant and characteristic aspect of Modernist poetry, fiction, and art.

Consequently, despite its sophistication and humanitarian idealism, the Modernist style divided the institution of art from the public consciousness. It effectively (whether intentional or not, is a matter for another essay) elevated art up and away from the public’s grasp. This had the effect of incurring the wrath of the avant-garde who basically held the same principles, yet were slightly more politically correct and vocal in their anthropological concerns, about the place of art in society. Therefore, the avant-gardes protected themselves from claims of ‘elitism’ by critics and the public, that otherwise affixed and generalized the project of Modernist art.

After everything said, Eliot shall always have the last word on his poetry and on the style that others referred to as Modernism. Unlike the effect of Modernism and The Waste Land and its imposition of deep analysis and indefinable conclusions, Eliot achieves a retrospective summation of the characteristics of modern poetry and what good poetry should achieve, in rather simple and rarefied terms:

Poetry is of course not to be defined by its uses. If it commemorates a public occasion, or celebrates a festival, or decorates a religious rite, or amuses a crowd, so much the better. It may effect revolutions in sensibility such as are periodically needed; may help to break up the conventional modes of perception and valuation which are perpetually forming, and make people see the world afresh, or some new part of it. It may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we

rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves, and an evasion of the visible and sensible world.[vii] 

In this, one of his final lectures (‘The Modern Mind’), Eliot concludes with the essence of his, and ‘Modernism’s’, ideology; that there is a need for cultural and individual experience that transcends the ‘unreal’ to achieve a ‘real’ redemption of culture and the self. It is as much redemption of learning and literature as it is of spirituality that The Waste Land proposes. Culture appears to need a kind of religious haut monde in order to create art that is divine in nature, yet the religious ideal is seen as a redemptive feature applicable also to the degraded society. It is as if before worshiping art, there needs to be a re-installation of fundamental principles of faith, in order to see the divine in the aesthetic. The Modernist style encourages conclusions such as this. As can be seen, it is not necessarily a negative response to the intellectual idealism of writers like T.S. Eliot, whose quest for absolutes dictates a characteristically deep analysis of the ideas and concerns expressed within the text.  

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NOTES/BIBLIOGRAPHY

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[i]  Which is more of an American Modernist ideal than English, as seen in the works of writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald Scott, and Hart Crane.

[ii]  A very ‘orientalised’ notion that Edward Said investigates in Orientalism (New York: Random House, 1978), which is also apparent in the ideologies of the Modernist avant-garde movement, especially the ‘Primitivists’.

[iii] The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, T.S. Eliot (London: Faber & Faber Ltd, 1964), p. 155.

[iv] See The Wordsworth Dictionary of Classical & Literary Allusion, ed., by A.H. Lass, D. Kiremidjian, & R.M. Goldstein (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1987), p. 228.

[v]  Selected Essays, by T.S. Eliot (London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1972), p.145.

[vi]   From After the Great Divide, by Andreas Huyssen, in ‘Introduction’ (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. vii.

[vii]The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, T.S. Eliot (London: Faber & Faber Ltd, 1964), p. 155.