Monday 3 November is our 15th anniversary party. In honor of this, we cornered our once and future volunteer Eric Cherry (who served as our CEO in between) to share some of his thoughts at having been involved with Twilight Tales through many of our changes.
Following are his answers to our interview questions.

1. This week we celebrate Twilight Tale’s fifteenth anniversary. In your own words tell us how Twilight Tales has grown and changed while you have been involved.

Eric: I walked into Twilight Tales for the first time in April 2002, just as the organization was hosting the World Horror Convention. I threw in as a convention volunteer, then starting coming early every Monday for the show. What’s changed? We were at the Red Lion for most of the years that I’ve been aboard, but now we’re at the Mystic Celt. We were a greater or lesser part of many conventions and bookfairs, we published anthologies and short story collections, and our website took on more dynamic properties.
We’ve been an unofficial, all-volunteer operation. We’ve incorporated, earned not-for-profit status, and we’ve continued thriving due to the efforts of our volunteers. The core crew has changed over time. When I walked in the door, Larry Santoro handled staging, Lisa Rogers-Lowrance did things with books and inventory, Andrea Dubnick managed scheduling and emceeing, and Tina Jens worked with everybody on all manner of things. Tina is on the Board of Directors, and the rest of the core crew is wholly different.

2. What is the biggest accomplishment the group has made?

Eric: There’s no secret that I’m focused on writing production. The biggest accomplishment we’ve made is the standing network of authors who are forever working their butts off to turn out better fiction. How many of the writers who started off writing in a closet are now out and published? More than a couple. How many once thought that a novel was an impossible dream, and are now novelists? I can think of at least four who’ve recently finished their first drafts.

3. What one thing in the group’s history makes you proud or pleased to have been a part of?

Eric: I’m going to side with my above answer: I’m most proud of our authors’ successes. They did all the hard work, certainly, but Twilight Tales — embodied in its regulars — has been a part of their path. There is no higher achievement, in my not-quite-humble opinion.

4. What changes have you seen that make you confident the group will continue to be successful over the years to come?

Eric: It’s the passing of the baton that makes me most confident. I named some of the core crew from back when I first walked in, but that was by no means the end of the crew list. When an all-volunteer meeting came together, twenty people would show up. We’d draw in an easy dozen now, and a goodly number of those weren’t on the roll call in 2002. And how many of the regulars from 2003 or 2004, how many of that volunteer crew, came and went in that time? Plenty.
Yet the show has gone on weekly for all this time. We incorporated, and the show went on. We increased and decreased our convention involvement, our publishing schedules, and even experimented with a suburban presence. And whatever else went on, every Monday night there was a show (unless some #@$%^! holiday got in the way, of course).
There’s a vibrant and active crew now, and they do an amazing job. And when the time comes for a crew shift, they’ll hand the baton along. That’s how it’s always been, and I’m never in doubt it’ll continue.

5. What direction do you hope Twilight Tales takes in the years to come?

Eric: One of my favorite answers to that now is: “That’s not my job.” I’ve been a hanger-on, a volunteer from the fringe to the core, a member of the Board, and CEO. Now, I’m merely a fringe volunteer: I emcee.
What I hope is that the core crew of volunteers does what the core crew has always done: exactly what it thinks would be fun. History suggests the weekly show will continue to be fun, but even the content and shape of that show is mutable.

6. Finally, what one event or incident sticks out in your mind as something everyone should know about Twilight Tales and why its a great place for authors and reader to gather and exchange ideas?

Eric: The open mic is one event that everyone should know about Twilight Tales, and it’s why we’re a great place for authors and readers to gather.
Yes, it’s not one event, unless there’s a cosmic sort of open mic (not unlike Terry Pratchett’s L-Space, but with more noise and alcohol, and fewer bananas). But it’s what I call the front lines of fiction. It’s where the best of what we have and do comes out.

We hope you’ll join us on Monday November 3rd at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) for our 15th anniversary party…with free appetizers, the usual cash bar, and plenty more discussion!

October at Twilight Tales has always been something special. This year we’re trying something exciting: a featured reader paired with a themed open mic for each week from now until Halloween!
Martel Sardina writes award-winning short fiction, along with book reviews and other oddities, and she recently edited the anthology Hell In The Heartland for Annihilation Press. She once served as the Money Goddess for Twilight Tales as well, but now is happily…unstructured, in her involvement with us.
Following are Martel’s answers to our interview questions.

Let’s start with the basics, what’s your story called? If you can, please tell us briefly about it.
Martel: The story I’ll be reading, “Desperate Times Call For Cunning Linguists,” is a transgendered love story involving Frankenstein.

What inspired your story, or what inspires you to write?
Martel: I wrote this particular story for an anthology that was looking for gay/lesbian/transgendered horror stories. After a softball game last spring, I was telling my teammates that I needed to come up with a story idea. A few bottles of beer later, I had the seed I needed and wrote the first draft after returning home. I sent it off to Brian Salgado and Mark Wegren (two of my teammates who helped in the brainstorming process) for some feedback. Many thanks to Brian and Mark for their help and willingness to listen to me natter on about various story ideas over the years. They’ve both actually been characters in other stories I’ve written but that’s a story for Red Light Night

Each week in October features a specific genre, tell us what draws you to the genre featured your particular week (Oct. 27; Monster Bash).
Martel: I grew up on monster stories. As a kid, I watched all of the horror classics (Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi.) I grew up on Svengoolie and thought Berwyn was some magical place where monsters lived. Talk about a let down.

What sorts of books do you find yourself seeking out when walking the aisles of bookstores and libraries?
Martel: I probably read more crime fiction than anything else these days. I read a lot of true crime and other non-fiction related to law enforcement. I like to read case studies that analyze criminal motivations and behaviors. Maybe I’ve been picking the wrong books, but it seems that the crime fiction I’ve been reading is scarier than the horror fiction has been. I feel a bit jaded toward horror these days. Maybe it’s a phase…I hope so.

Any advice you’ve been given as a writer that’s either very good, or very out there that you would like to share with us?
Martel: A ruthless editor is a writer’s best friend. I wrote a poem recently and shared it with a writer friend. He told me that the meat of the poem was the last stanza and that if I cut everything else that came before it, the poem might have more impact. After re-reading the piece, I hated to admit he was right because that meant throwing away more than 3/4 of the original poem. Learning to “kill your children” is hard, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do.

Anything else you’d like to share about your writing or upcoming publications/events?
Martel: My story, “Better Left Unsaid,” will be coming out shortly in the TRAPS! anthology (edited by Scott Goudsward) from DarkHart Press. I am a contributing editor at Dark Scribe Magazine and have lots of book reviews, articles and interviews available to read for free at www.darkscribemagazine.com; I’ll be workshopping a novel at the Borderlands Press Novel Bootcamp in January and will share more about that experience at some future TT event. Oh yeah, I almost forgot…I’m happy to report that I’m headed for merry old England in 2010. I’m going to be hosting/coordinating the reading series at the World Horror Convention 2010 which will be held in Brighton. I’m stoked about that for sure!

We hope you’ll join us on Monday October 27th at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) to hear Martel’s fiction (along with open mic fiction in a Monster Bash theme), and perhaps more discussion!

October at Twilight Tales has always been something special. This year we’re trying something exciting: a featured reader paired with a themed open mic for each week from now until Halloween!
Jay Bonansinga is a local author who has read and presented at Twilight Tales numerous times in the past. His novels include The Sleep Police, The Killer’s Game, and the Ulysses Grove series of thrillers (Frozen, Twisted, and Disturbed) among others. Jay also wrote The Sinking Of The Eastland: America’s Forgotten Tragedy, a nonfiction narrative accounting of the capsizing (into the Chicago River) of the S.S. Eastland in 1915. Several of Jay’s books are under option at major Hollywood studios, and he has more than one screenplay currently in studio development.

Following are Jay’s answers to our interview questions.

Let’s start with the basics, what’s your story called? If you can, please tell us briefly about it.
Jay: “STEAGAL’S BARBER SHOP AND SMOKE EMPORIUM,” which is an anti-war tale I wrote a couple years ago in the tradition of Rod Serling and Paddy Chayevski, first published in the February 2005 issue of AMAZING STORIES. I am so jacked up about what the current regime has done to our country, I cannot resist reading this again (I think I might have read it in public a couple of times).
Go Obama!!!

What inspired your story, or what inspires you to write?
Jay: I have always been attracted to the “socio-political fantasy” of Harlan Ellison, Rod Serling, George Clayton Johnson, Ambrose Bierce, Richard Matheson, and H.G. Wells. I have always attempted to tell surreal, weird, funny horror stories that have a deep and angry subtext about something real and relevant. I hope this story has that to some degree.

Each week in October features a specific genre, tell us what draws you to the genre featured your particular week (Oct. 20; Ghosts, Goblins, and Dead Guys).
Jay: Ghosts stories are all — to some extent — about one thing: GUILT. They were invented in the Victorian era when everybody was riddled with guilt. I — being a lapsed Catholic — understand guilt. I guess that’s why I LOVE ghost stories.

What sorts of books do you find yourself seeking out when walking the aisles of bookstores and libraries?
Jay: Since the horror genre is all but dead — no pun intended — I currently seek out dark and comedic stuff. I guess this is due to the fact that our world is currently a dark and comedic place.

Any advice you’ve been given as a writer that’s either very good, or very out there that you would like to share with us?
Jay: Don’t use adverbs or adjectives. This is one of the great myths among geeks who have bought that old Hemingway crapola about all great writing being lean and minimal and…yawn…boring. I say give me extra mayo on that sandwich, and while you’re at it, throw some brown mustard on it, and then deep fry it in seasoned batter!!!!

Anything else you’d like to share about your writing or upcoming publications/events?
Jay: Please, everyone, go out and order or purchase my new book, PERFECT VICTIM (Pinnacle 2008), which comes out in December, so that my children can get their dental work and text books and medicine. And also so we can put a gallon of gas in the tank.

We hope you’ll join us on Monday October 20th at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) to hear Jay’s fiction (along with open mic offerings in a Ghosts, Goblins, and Dead Guys theme), and perhaps more discussion!

October at Twilight Tales has always been something special. This year we’re trying something exciting: a featured reader paired with a themed open mic for each week from now until Halloween!
Richard Chwedyk is a lifelong resident of the Chicago area whose short stories and poems have appeared in several anthologies, as well as in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. His short story “Bronte’s Egg” received the Nebula award in 2004 in addition to picking up both Hugo and Sturgeon nominations that year. Richard has been a guest of Twilight Tales several times over the years, and always manages to at least delight us if not flat-out amaze.

Following are Richard’s answers to our interview questions.

Let’s start with the basics, what’s your story called? If you can, please tell us briefly about it.
Richard: I’m frantically working to complete a piece called “The Man Who Put the Bomp.” It is a saur story. I don’t know what it’s “about,” a good story always being about the “something else” that the story contains. What happens in the story is that the saurs meet their “maker” — a man who contributed the significant pieces of the genetic sequence that made the saurs possible. And Axel’s first question to him when he arrives, not knowing who he is or what he’s done, is, “Are you a bad guy or a good guy?”

What inspired your story, or what inspires you to write?
Richard: What inspires me at this moment is raw panic and desperation to meet the deadline — and an overwhelming desire not to disappoint the audience.

Each week in October features a specific genre, tell us what draws you to the genre featured your particular week (Oct. 13, Science Fiction and Fantasy).
Richard: Fantasy stories affect me most when characters discover the world as something greater than they first conceived — when they find the door that leads to another world, or look at the street and for the first time see that there’s a whole other world hiding within the quotidian. There are more parts than the sum of the whole. I think that’s what drives my interest in any literature: anything and anyone that suggests that there’s more to the picture than the picture.
For science fiction, I tend to look for the stories that focus not upon what “the future” will bring, but how we will live with it. Perhaps all literature takes on the topic, directly or indirectly, of what makes us human, but recent science fiction takes a unique approach of posing that question by expanding our technology, our territory and our knowledge, seeing if we can still recognize human beings in the milieu. If one can summarize (at great risk) the work of a Samuel Beckett by saying that he keeps taking things away from humanity to see what remains recognizably human there, science fiction has been adding things to a character while looking for what humanity persists. And of course I’m fascinated by the questions of what makes us human as reflected by beings other than humans.

What sorts of books do you find yourself seeking out when walking the aisles of bookstores and libraries?
Richard: All sorts of books — new and used. Right now I’m waiting for 7 Stories Press to finally (finally!) get out their reprint of two Nelson Algren books in one: “Who Lost an American?” and “Notes From a Sea Diary.” I’ve been an eclectic reader since before I knew how to spell eclectic. It’s very difficult for me to pin down what I’m looking for. I’m looking for the books that reveal the secret threads that hold the universe together. One book brings me to another, which leads to another, and another.

Any advice you’ve been given as a writer that’s either very good, or very out there that you would like to share with us?
Richard: 1. (from me) Never work for a newspaper. 2. (from City News Bureau) Never do a bad job well. 3. (from Ray Bradbury) Don’t think — write. 4. (from Jeff Ford) Just tell the f—ing story! 5. (from me) Trust the story. Stories are smarter than their authors — listen and follow.

Anything else you’d like to share about your writing or upcoming publications/events?
Richard: I’ve been frustratingly unproductive of recent. So much to write and the time shrinks away. Keep poking me with sticks and keep sending that guy with scythe over to knock on my door and I’ll finish some of this stuff. Recent stories are listed on my Web page http://www.sfwa.org/members/chwedyk/” I hope to be updating it soon.

We hope you’ll join us on Monday October 13th at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) to hear Richard’s fiction (along with open mic fiction in a Science Fiction and Fantasy theme), and perhaps more discussion!

October at Twilight Tales has always been something special. This year we’re trying something exciting: a featured reader paired with a themed open mic for each week from now until Halloween!
John Everson first came to Twilight Tales as a reader and a staff member, and even co-edited the anthology Spooks with Tina Jens before moving on to form his own imprint, Dark Arts Books. His short story collections include Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions, Needles and Sins, and Vigilantes of Love; and his work has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines. His first novel, Covenant, received the Bram Stoker award for best first novel in 2005, and it has just become available in paperback.

Following are John’s answers to our interview questions.

Let’s start with the basics, what’s your story called? If you can, please tell us briefly about it.
John: Covenant is about a reporter who “runs away” to a small coastal town to escape his dark past… and gets embroiled in the dark past of the small town, where a series of suicides have been occuring from the cliff outside of town. Nobody wants to talk to the reporter about the deaths, and as he digs deeper, he finds that there has been a death from the cliff on the same date every year for one hundred years…

What inspired your story, or what inspires you to write?
John: Covenant was inspired by a newspaper clipping that someone once handed me that talked about a bar at the top of a cliff in England. Apparently, this was the biggest suicide spot in the country: people would go to the bar, have a last drink and then walk a few yards away and jump.
As for what inspires me to write — inspiration sparks from anywhere. I’ve always written stories and poems and lyrics and I love the way words can take you to a place in a heartbeat that is so far from where you sit now… just by opening a door in your imagination. Writers opened those doors for me as a reader and I want to do the same for others…

Each week in October features a specific genre, tell us what draws you to the genre featured your particular week (Oct. 6, Horror and the Dark Arts).
John: I love the sense of the “unexplored” and “unexplained” and “otherworldly” in horror and dark fantasy; there’s a sort of “anything can happen” feeling that I relish. As a reader, I picked up books because I always wanted to escape into another world — to be transported into a place that was unfamiliar. So growing up, I read a lot about alien worlds because they were exotic and offered wild opportunity and often featured characters with powers and experiences very different from anything we could ever come in contact with. I loved the sense of wonder that those wildly imaginative novels brought. That’s why I don’t have any particular interest in writing horror that deals with real-world problems like a psychological study of a serial killer. I can see that in the newspapers and as a reader I want to escape the troubled realities of this world, not explore them deeper. So virtually all of my horror truly has a dark fantasy element to it - something about my fictional worlds is generally outside the realm of our existence, unless you fully believe in ghosts, or erotic creatures who can suck away memory, or taxidermists who embalm people in a way that immobilizes them yet keeps them conscious forever or boys who perform the unspeakable and in doing so create an all-consuming pumpkin queen.

What sorts of books do you find yourself seeking out when walking the aisles of bookstores and libraries?
John: Fun, fast, can’t-put-’em-down ones. At least, I used to. I haven’t “sought” a book in a store or library in years at this point. I run a small press, Dark Arts Books (www.darkartsbooks.com) and proof books for other small presses (Necro Publications and Cemetery Dance). So manuscripts are always turning up on my door — I don’t go looking for them because I have no free time to read beyond what is already sent to me!

Any advice you’ve been given as a writer that’s either very good, or very out there that you would like to share with us?
John: Getting up at the mic at Twilight Tales is a very useful way to test your fiction — it allows you to listen with fresh ears to what you’ve written in a way that you’ll never be able to repeat sitting at your computer at home. By watching the audience’s reaction, and hearing how easy or difficult the phrases are to read out loud, you’ll know where the “soft” spots are in your prose, and conversely, where to “tight” bits are that should be left alone when you go back to edit.

Anything else you’d like to share about your writing or upcoming publications/events?
John: Covenant is, of course, out now and for the next few weeks I’m dedicating all my free time to a book tour to promote it. Sacrifice, the sequel, will be out from Leisure in June of 2009. This summer I finished a new unrelated novel called The 13th, which I’ll be turning in to Leisure this month (I’m doing some final proofing and edits now). That will be out in 2010, I would imagine. I’ve also got some short fiction due out any day — I just finished co-writing a Halloween tale for Doorways Magazine with Gary Braunbeck and JF Gonzalez, which will be out in October. My novelette “In Memoryum” should be out in the next few weeks in the Dark Hart anthology Fearful Symmetry, Deadly Beauty. And another novelette, “Fish Bait,” which [I] wrote after a visit to some of my old CyberPsycho’s Magazine friends in Denver a couple years ago, will be out soon in Cutting Block Press’s Horror Library Vol. 3 anthology.
Anyone who wants to check in about my projects, read some free fiction or check out some of my horror-related art and music can visit www.johneverson.com where you can also read my blog and signup for my monthly e-newsletter. Thanks for interviewing me about my “Dark Arts”!

We hope you’ll join us on Monday October 6th at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) to hear John’s fiction (along with open mic fiction in a Horror and Dark Arts theme), and perhaps more discussion!