John Weagly & Tina Jens will represent Twilight Tales at a book fair
Saturday, Oct. 20th
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Randolph Cafe @ Chicago Cultural Center
77 East Randolph Street, downtown
(Building occupies the block bordered by Michigan Ave)
John and Tina will join 28 other authors at the fair hosted by the Illinois Woman’s Press Association.
Plenty of Twilight Tales books will be available.
The event is free to the public.
The Dead have been wandering all across Chicago for events to celebrate the release of Book of Dead Things. Now, in classic zombie fashion, they swarm the upstairs of the wooden building that is home to Twilight Tales.
Monday, July 30th, 7:30pm – 10:00pm
Twilight Tales at the Red Lion Pub (2446 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago)
Readings and signings by:
C.S. E. (Claire) Cooney
Brendan Detzner
Joshua Alan Doetsch
Tina L. Jens
Chris Kozlowski
Craig D.B. Patton
Mike Penkas
John Weagly
Join us for “Better Dead & Red!” a joint debut event for Book of Dead Things and Tales From the Red Lion.
Thursday, July 26th, 6:30pm – 10:30pm
Kate the Great’s Book Emporium (5550 N. Broadway, Chicago)
There will be readings and signings by:
Richard Chwedyk (RED LION)
Claire Cooney (Dead)
Brendan Detzner (Dead)
Joshua Alan Doetsch (Dead)
Tina L. Jens (RED LION)
Chris Kozlowski (Dead)
Mike Penkas (RED LION)
Larry Santoro (RED LION)
John Weagly (Dead)
We’re happy to present you with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners in this year’s Flash Fiction Contest held at World Horror.
The rules for the contest are simple - stories must be read in five minutes or less, and they must have a beginning, middle, and end. A panel of celebrity judges choose the winners. Read all three stories in the posts below.
A kid walks. Late afternoon. All alone, he walks along rail lines. He’s walked for miles; for as long as he can remember the day, he’s walked it. Trees push close to the tracks, one side; the other, a graveled drop-off leads to more trees. Pine covers the hillside down to water, maybe a river, a lake, but something watery is off that side of the tracks and down there. He can smell it, the water; mud, fish, mosquito eggs, that kind of smell rises from that side. It’s summer afternoon, late summer, not hot, but warm. Nice. No place to go from here but home. The smells, the feel of the gravel way underfoot, the scent of creosote bubbled from the ties, it smells, yes, like home. Like near-home.
He walks easily, not thinking, not looking, then, a soft click, a sound that would be metallic if it weren’t smothered by leather and the softness of his foot, and he isn’t walking. Now, he looks. The boot, his ankle in it, is caught in a switch. Jesus Christ. Along some track, middle of nowhere, a guy’s walking along, alone, and the thing just closes, thump, like that. It doesn’t hurt, it simply holds him. Fact is, he couldn’t tell if it closed on him, or if he just stepped in it and got wedged there. Doesn’t matter. Point is, he cannot get out.
ROADKILL ANGEL
By Mark Zirbel
He will arrive in your town one day.
You will notice him walking along the side of the road, holding a smashed animal carcass in his grimy hands. Perhaps it will be an opossum, the creature curled into a fetal position as though it tried to retreat to some place of comfort in the last horrible moments of its life. Or maybe a cat, a fluffy Maine Coon or a sleek Siamese, its eyes wide open and staring at the heavens, its rigor-mortis limbs pointing skyward.
Hopefully you will not give this man and his roadkill a second thought – just some dirty bum, a derelict, a drifter. Because if you should decide to stop and take a closer look, you are not going to like what you see.
BLACK LAKE
by Nicole Castle
Travis has no car so we have to walk out to the lake.
“Damn, am I stupid,” I mutter to myself.
I kick at the dirt. There’s been no rain for months and the dust blows up into my face. Travis laughs, his real dumb ignorant laugh. “Shut up, shithead!” He doesn’t like that. “Travis, you know you ain’t getting’ none, right?”
“Come on. You know I don’t think that way ’bout you.”
I shoot him the eye. And I stop dead. “Is that what this is about, you asshole?”
“Naw, honest. I gotta show you somethin’. Somethin’ you ain’t never seen before.”
(more…)
A grand time was had by all at the Drinking and Writing Festival at the Hopleaf Bar. It was just half a block away from the Andersonville street festival, which added to the charm.
Many thanks to John Weagly who not only discovered the event, but arranged for us to participate in it. John and I were there all day, joined by Marty Mundt and Larry Santoro for a signing and schmoozing block in the early afternoon. We were soon joined by Martel Sardina, who went on to win the Two Drink Minimum Writing Contest, with a story about a clown fetish. Yay, Martel! Yay clowns! Yay fetishes!
Approximately 75 people attended the event, a mix of young and old, writers, beat-readers, beer brewers, and beer connoisseurs. We sold just shy of $200 in books, and had a lot of new authors promise we’d be seeing them at the next open mic. All in all, a great success: a very good sell-through for a crowd that size, and it was pure profit, as there was no vendor fee. Hell, you might say they bribed us, considering they gave the vendors and authors 10 free tickets to taste all the marvelous micro-brewery beers.
The Drinking and Writing Festival/Brewery also has a monthly radio show, and they’ll be featuring Twilight Tales, with an emphasis on our book set in a bar (drinking and writing, ya know) TALES FROM THE RED LION, in the next month or two. More details on that as we know them.
Once again a big thanks to John for setting it up, and to Martel, Larry and Marty for coming by to sign, and to Mary Duros who provided the transport.
And once again, a big congratulations to Martel for winning the highly-competitive writing competition. (More than half the crowd appeared to compete.) Her story will be published on their website. Do let know when it’s up, Martel!
Just a reminder, the TT team will be at Printers Row all day tomorrow, and the fun continues at the grand double-debut party for the two new books, at 6 PM, at Villains, 649 S. Clark (look for the balloons on the door) just around the corner from the festival. Come join the fun!
-Tina Jens
Join us at the Twilight Tales booth all weekend long at Printers Row Book Festival. (And don’t forget to join us at the Drinking & Writing Festival on Saturday, too!)
Our Printers Row author signing schedule is:
SATURDAY, JUNE 9TH
10AM - 12 PM
Todd Stone
Lawrence Santoro
Paul Dailing
David Walker
12 PM - 2 PM
Raymond Benson
Michael Black
Dave Case
George Castle
2 PM - 4 PM
Libby Fischer Hellmann (3-5)
Mary Frances Zambreno
E. E. Knight
Tim Broderick
4 PM - 6 PM
Jay Bonansinga
Martin Mundt
John Everson
Bill Breedlove
SUNDAY, JUNE 10TH
10AM - 12 PM
Marcus Sakey
Sean Chercover
Theresa Schwegal
Wayne Allen Sallee
12 PM - 2 PM
Jody Lynn Nye
Sam Reaves
J.A. Konrath
Richard Chwedyk
2 PM - 4 PM
Scarlett Dean
Jerry Gilio
Craig D.B. Patton
Michael Penkas
Martel Sardina
Joshua Doetsch
4 PM - 6 PM
TT Transition Event –
Two-Book Debut Party. Join us at the tent, then head over to Villain’s, around the corner. (See details below)
Come to big debut party for TALES FROM THE RED LION and BOOK OF DEAD THINGS!
This special signing will be held right after Printers Row on Sunday, June 10th,
6 PM - 8:30 PMat the all new Villains Bar & Grill, at 649 S. Clark
just around the corner from the festival.
There will be plenty of free food and a cash bar.
Assuming we don’t sell out during the festival, books will also be on sale and anyone who purchases a book (or brings one that they bought earlier) will be eligible to win some very cool door prizes.
Both books will be available during the Printers Row Book Fair at the Twilight Tales tent. Authors of the new books will be stopping in and out all weekend in addition to many other authors of previous books for signings! Be sure to stop by! For more information
on the Fair visit www.printersrowbookfair.org
The debut party is open to everyone - not just folks who attended Printers Row! Come by and celebrate the two latest additions to the Twilight Tales lineup!
The 3rd annual Drinking & Writing Festival happens Sat. June 9th, Noon - 5 PM. The festival (blearily) focuses on drinking, writing, and writing about drinking.
Twilight Tales will be there, debuting Tales from the Red Lion - a collection of stories by 14 Chicago authors, telling tales of booze, barmaids, and barflies, all set in Chicago’s own haunted Red Lion Pub.
Authors from the book will be onhand all day to sign books, quaff beers, and have an all-around rip-roaring time. Other Twilight Tales books will also be on sale.
TT authors in attendance will include John Weagly, Tina L. Jens, Martin Mundt, Martel Sardina & Larry Santoro.
This year the focus is on the man who inspired the creation of Drinking & Writing Brewery, Charles Bukowski, with special guests to talk about Buk and beer.
Other events will include the “2 Drink Minimum Writing Contest.” After quaffing some afore-mentioned ale - provided by multiple award-winning small breweries, participants will be given pen, paper,a theme, and 2 minutes to write a story. Marvelous beer-related prizes go to the winner.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door.
Come join the fun at the Hopleaf Bar, 5148 N. Clark (Clark & Foster)
For more info, visit: http://www.drinkingandwriting.com/
