Cemetery Dance Publications

Today we're also very pleased to announce Cemetery Dance #62, the William Peter Blatty special issue, which is shipping now from the printer. This very special issue features an extensive interview conducted by Brian Freeman, a wonderful essay by Kealan Patrick Burke, as well as several never-before-published rarities, including the "lost" Epilogue to The Exorcist, a "lost" Prologue to Exorcist III: Legion, and a very unique short story that was written in the 1960s but never saw print because no one would believe it really was based on a true event! Our sincere thanks to Bill for being such a pleasure to work with.

This issue also features the second installment of Douglas Clegg's amazing serial novella, The Innocents at the Museum of Antiquities; a classic short story and an exclusive novel excerpt from longtime Cemetery Dance favorite David Morrell; plus original short stories from Gary Raisor, Cody Goodfellow, and Nate Southard!

In addition, as you can see to the right, the always amazing Les Edwards painted the beautiful cover artwork inspired by the Blatty novel and film that changed the course of the genre forever. This is definitely one of our favorite covers of all-time.

Plus, as always, there are numerous contributions from our brillant columnists! There's definitely a little something for everyone in this issue!

Cover Artist: Les Edwards
Interior Artists: Glenn Chadbourne, Steven C. Gilberts, Dan Grant, Chris Hill, Alex McVey, Keith Minnion, Russell Morgan, Nick Tripiciano
Page Count: 128

Fiction
• "Sacrifice" by Gary Raisor
•"The Innocents at the Museum of Antiquities" by Douglas Clegg (part two of an original novella)
• "Dead Image" by David Morrell
• "The Curious Odyssey of James Deacon (AKA James Dean) & Where Darkness is the Only Light" by David Morrell
• "Wasted on the Young" by Cody Goodfellow
• "The Message" by Nate Southard

Special Features
• "Epilogue: The Exorcist" by William Peter Blatty
• "Prologue to Exorcist III: Legion" by William Peter Blatty
• "Terry and the Werewolf" by William Peter Blatty
• "An Invitation To The Dance, Legion: Exorcist III" by Kealan Patrick Burke

The Usual Suspects
• "Words from the Editor" by Richard Chizmar
• "The Mothers and Fathers Italian Association" by Thomas F. Monteleone
• "Stephen King News: From The Dead Zone" by Bev Vincent
• "MediaDrome" by Michael Marano
• "Editorial Perspectives" by Don D'Auria
• "The Last Ten Things I've Read" by Ellen Datlow
• "Spotlight on Publishing" by Robert Morrish
• "Fine Points" by Ed Gorman
• "Horror Drive-In" by Mark Sieber
• "Cemetery Dance Reviews" edited by Nanci Kalanta
• "The Final Question" by Brian Freeman (featuring RC Matheson, Brett Alexander Savory, Dale Bailey, Scott Nicholson, Bev Vincent, Holly Newstein, Glen Hirshberg, Gerard Houarner, Gary Raisor, Norman Prentiss, John Skipp)

Invisible Fences by Norman Prentiss
Cemetery Dance Novella Series #19

"Carefully crafted prose… a lucid reflection on life's inevitable burden of fear and fractured memory."
— Booklist

"If you're missing the work of the late Charles E. Grant, you'll find what you're looking for here."
— Richard Dansky, Green Man Review

"Beautiful, creepy, and haunting. A dark literary gem from an exciting new voice in the horror field."
— Douglas Clegg, New York Times bestselling author

Do you see the point of the story, Nathan? We all cut parts of ourselves away, but we never lose them. Things stay with us—souvenirs with memories attached. We can't always choose what to keep, what to throw away.

Nathan's parents devised cautionary tales for him and his sister—gruesome stories about predatory cars racing along the "Big Street" at one end of their neighborhood, or dope fiends lurking in the woods behind their house and ready to plunge hypodermics into the skin of foolish young trespassers. These stories served their purpose during Nathan's gullible childhood, essentially constructing an invisible fence around the yard and keeping the boy close to home where he'd be safe.

Such barriers are not so easy to discard in later life. As an adult, Nathan no longer believes his parents' stories, and yet they still confine him. He lives cautiously, avoiding serious relationships, avoiding risk. But despite his efforts, something from his parents' cautionary tales threatens to creep beneath that invisible border…and the enclosed yard might not be as safe and secure as it always seemed…

About the Author:
Norman Prentiss lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and works as a high school English teacher and part-time editor. His fiction has appeared in Tales from the Gorezone, Damned Nation, Postscripts, the Shivers anthology series, and at the Horror Drive-In website, and his poetry has appeared in Writer Online, Southern Poetry Review, and Baltimore's City Paper. Invisible Fences is his first published book.

Praise for the Book:
"Cemetery Dance's short novel program yields another gem with this sobering story about the imaginary barriers of fear we place around our life circumstances as we grow up… Carefully crafted prose… a lucid reflection on life's inevitable burden of fear and fractured memory."
— Booklist

"Prentiss handles a story that could have been melodramatic or slight and instead infuses it with a quiet dignity and an admirable style. If you're missing the work of the late Charles E. Grant, you'll find what you're looking for here."
— Richard Dansky, Green Man Review

Catching Hell by Greg F. Gifune
Cemetery Dance Novella Series #20

Summer, 1983.

As fall approaches and the summer stock theaters on Cape Cod close for the season, three promising young actors and a stagehand pile into an old Ford Fairlane and head for a vacation resort in Maine. Hoping for a relaxing getaway before pursuing their dreams in New York City or going on to college, they instead encounter a bizarre storm while on a lonely stretch of state highway and soon find themselves stranded in the strange rural community of Boxer Hills.

At first glance it seems a harmless little backwoods town, but Boxer Hills has a horrible secret and a deadly history. It's a place of horrific age-old rituals and a legendary evil that will let no one escape without paying a terrible price.

Before the sun rises on a new day, they will have to fight their way through the night and out of town, or risk falling prey to an endless cycle of depravity and violence at the hands of a demonic creature so profane few will even speak its name.

They were young, reckless and chasing hell.

What they hadn’t counted on was actually catching it.

About the Author:
Called "One of the best writers of his generation" by both the Roswell Literary Review and author Brian Keene, Greg F. Gifune is the author of numerous short stories, several novels and two short story collections. His work has been published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies all over the world.

His novels include The Bleeding Season, Deep Night, Saying Uncle, A View From the Lake, Night Work, Drago Descending, Dominion, and Blood in Electric Blue. Along with his short story collections, Down to Sleep and Heretics, his work has been consistently praised by readers and critics alike across the globe. In addition to working as a full-time author, he also serves as Associate Editor at Delirium Books. An avid film buff, reader, and animal rights advocate, Greg resides in Massachusetts with his wife Carol and a bevy of very cool cats.

The Corpse King by Tim Curran
Cemetery Dance Novella Series #21

From the fields of the dead, the harvest was brought forth.

Tended by resurrection farmers with grubby fingers, cold hearts, and greedy minds, the fields were worked with shovel and spade and sweat. Beneath a pall of thin moonlight, the crops were plucked from the moist, black earth, torn from wormy boxes and mildewed shrouds like rotting corn from corrupting husks.

The harvest of cadavers was piled in the beds of muddy wagons and taken to market, sold to the highest bidder to supply dissection room and anatomical house. The farmers worked their bone fields night after night, thinking they were alone in their grim harvest.

But there was another who worked the graveyards and mortuaries, another reaper whose cultivation reached back to antiquity. Moon-faced and skeleton-fingered, he was the grand lord of the charnel harvest, master of graveyard harrow and yield.

Enter the world of the late-18th century and join Samuel Clow and Mickey Kierney as they earn their living in the resurrection trade... little realizing that they will soon meet The Corpse King.

About the Author:
Tim Curran is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, and Skull Moon. Upcoming projects include the novels Resurrection, The Devil Next Door, and Hive 2, as well as Four Rode Out, a collection of four weird-western novellas by Curran, Tim Lebbon, Brian Keene, and Steve Vernon. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, as well as anthologies such as Flesh Feast, Shivers IV, High Seas Cthulhu, and Vile Things. Find him on the web at: www.corpseking.com

As we mentioned in our last update for The Secretary of Dreams (Volume Two), all of the artwork is now in place, the book is undergoing one more proofread, and the signature sheets are almost done. This book is officially set for an end of year publication, just like Volume One was. We found that schedule worked very well considering how many extra warehouse employees we have to hire for the month this book ships. If you're on the CD Insider mailing list, keep watching your in-box for updates because we plan on doing one more special preview of new artwork.

Volume Two continues where the first acclaimed volume left off: combining classic tales of terror from the mind of Stephen King with the haunting artwork of Maine artist Glenn Chadbourne. This unique book displays an incredible and original blend of King's words with Chadbourne's one-of-a-kind illustrations: text and artwork brought together to tell these chilling stories in a whole new way.

As you venture into this new volume of The Secretary of Dreams you'll discover "The Monkey," "Strawberry Spring," and "In the Deathroom" presented on beautifully designed oversized pages. These stories are heavily illustrated with spot artwork, full page illustrations, and even multiple-page art spreads. Dozens of painstakingly crafted illustrations bring King's characters to life.

Also within this collection are "Gray Matter," "One for the Road," and "Nona," which appear for the very first time in full graphic format as imagined by Chadbourne. Not one word from King's original manuscripts has been left out. Instead Chadbourne presents the stories through a variety of techniques: traditional paragraphs of text merged directly into the artwork, handwritten bursts of dialogue to convey emotion, and even multiple fonts to match the mood of each scene.

Like the first volume, The Secretary of Dreams (Volume Two) is a new collection of Stephen King's greatest short stories presented in a way never before imagined. Glenn Chadbourne has spent over two years creating the artwork within these pages, digging deep inside the text to make each of these classic tales burst off the page.

There will be HUNDREDS of illustrations in the final book, but we just wanted to give you a taste of what's to come. Here is the link to the preview page: CLICK HERE

An original Cemetery Dance Publications publishing event, this deluxe oversized hardcover edition is the World's First Edition and there are no other editions planned of this title at this time. As with the first volume (of which there are only a few hundred copies remaining), we will not be selling this title at a discount, and we will not fill any orders for distributors who will be selling it at a discount. Amazon wanted over 2,000 copies of Volume One (which would have sold it out on publication), but The Secretary of Dreams (Volume Two) will only be available directly from Cemetery Dance and a few independent booksellers we've worked with for years.