Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Brian Keene's End of the Road1 Comment on The Year That Roared 
“It’s hard to love, there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope, when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above, say it’s much too late
So, maybe we should all be praying for time…”
George Michael – ‘Praying For Time’
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Video Visions6 Comments on Welcome to the Videodrome! 
There was no way of knowing how much that top loading Fisher VCR with wired remote control would change all of our lives. We were a family of movie addicts. We had a theater called The Kent two blocks away that showed double features and had a balcony where all sorts of shenanigans ensued, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. There was also the drive-in just ten miles away in Elmsford, a mecca for families and horny teens all throughout lower Westchester County.
But this VCR contraption, which my father brought home with a buzzing glee, was about to take us to a whole new level. Continue Reading
Hello again, folks. This is the third installment of monthly double reviews studying the structure of great horror fiction published in our beloved Cemetery Dance.
Last time I reviewed David B. Silva’s “Fury’s Child” from CD #1 (1988) and Lisa Morton’s “The Rich are Different” from CD #74/75 (2016).
If you haven’t read either one, do check them out. The Silva story in particular is hard to find… of course. 😉
This month we’ve got another 2 stories from the same 2 issues…Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Brian Keene's End of the RoadLeave a comment on The Dark Highway
“Everybody thought it was a big joke… It was so funny, I just kept on going…Everybody thought I was just going to go on tweaking the Major’s balls to the very end. Which was what I did. Then one morning I woke up and I was in. I was a Prime Walker…So I guess it turned out the Major was tweaking my balls.” Stephen King, The Long Walk
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Horror Drive-InLeave a comment on Cautionary Splatter 
I’ve been in the process of moving over the past few months. As you may imagine, there are a lot of books, magazines, and other items to be gathered and transported. I’ve been taking it slowly, and looking over a lot of the items I have. Some of which I had almost forgotten about.
I came upon the Footsteps Press chapbook edition of Douglas E. Winter’s Splatter: A Cautionary Tale. I had not read the story in many years, and it has always been a favorite of mine. So I propped up the pillows, climbed under the warm blankets, and read this chilling short story.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Brian Keene's End of the Road3 Comments on God and Country
The audience in Morgantown, West Virginia was small—easily the smallest since Albuquerque—but the dozen or so people who showed up were enthusiastic and engaged. One guy, Jarod Barbee, had traveled all the way from Texas. It is December as I write this, recounting events that occurred at the end of July, and I’ve been going back through these columns, collecting them into manuscript format so Cemetery Dance can eventually publish them as a book. Many recurring things jump out at me as I re-read them. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Brian Keene's End of the Road1 Comment on Dickens’s Ghosts
“The allegorical nature of A Christmas Carol leads to relatively simplistic symbolism and a linear plot. The latter is divided into five Staves, each containing a distinct episode in Scrooge’s spiritual re-education. The first Stave centers on the visitation from Marley’s ghost, the middle three present the tales of the three Christmas spirits, and the last concludes the story, showing how Scrooge has changed. The Ghost of Christmas Past represents memory. The Ghost of Christmas Present serves as the central symbol of the Christmas ideal—generosity, goodwill, and celebration. Appearing on a throne made of food, the spirit evokes thoughts of prosperity, satiety, and merriment. Within the allegory, the silent, reaper-like figure of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come represents the fear of death, which refracts Scrooge’s lessons about memory, empathy, and generosity, insuring his reversion to an open, loving human being.” – Spark Notes
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Exhumed4 Comments on “Fury’s Child” and “The Rich Are Different”
Hello again, folks. This is the 2nd installment of “Exhumed”—monthly double reviews studying the structure of great horror fiction published in our beloved Cemetery Dance.
Last time I reviewed Steve Rasnic Tem’s “The Double” from CD #1 (1988) and Michael Wehunt’s “The Inconsolable” from CD #73 (2016). If you didn’t catch that one, do check it out. Both stories are well worth your consideration.
Let’s see what we’ve got on the docket for this month… Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Brian Keene's End of the Road2 Comments on Scares That Care (Part 2)
You ever heard of a crowd being described as “an ocean of people”? That’s what the third annual Scares That Care Weekend Charity Event was like—an ocean of horror movie and television celebrities and their fans, filmmakers and their fans, authors and their fans, publishers and their customers, haunt professionals and enthusiasts, comic book creators and their fans, paranormal investigators and their fans, make-up and special effects artists and their fans, cosplayers, and everyone else—all descending upon the convention hotel in Williamsburg, Virginia, to raise money for burn victims and children and women with cancer.
I was exhausted, but I had no choice but to cast myself into that ocean, to dive into that sea of humanity and hope I wouldn’t drown. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Brian Keene's End of the RoadLeave a comment on Scares That Care (Part 1)
Scares That Care is an IRS approved 501 (c)(3) horror-themed charity that I donate my time and name to. We fight real monsters of childhood illness, cancer, and more by financially helping families experiencing these overwhelming hardships. Each case is unique. We provide money, toys, utilities, and other items to help sick children and their families. We do the same for women fighting breast cancer. And we also partner with actor Kane Hodder (the Friday the 13th series) to aid children who have suffered serious, life-altering burn injuries.Continue Reading
Over the span of my thus far short writing career, I’ve been fortunate to experience several moments of clarity; moments which have changed me as a writer and a person. One of them came in the form of my first actual critique from an editor, regarding the first short story I ever submitted. The critique stung with its stark, unflinching truthfulness, but it forced me to face my writing weaknesses head on, and showed me the immeasurable value of honest feedback. It set the tone for how I approach editorial critique, to this day.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Brian Keene's End of the Road1 Comment on Time Bubble
And thus began the most grueling part of the book signing tour since Tod Clark and I had driven across the American West—John Urbancik and I spent five days in mid-July crisscrossing Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. That no doubt sounds romantic and adventurous to some of you. Hell, up until a few years ago, it would have sounded romantic and adventurous to me, as well. It would have been my idea of fun. Sadly, it’s not so fun when you’re approaching fifty. Continue Reading
There is a bit of lore that exists around the origins of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. It was a novel he never intended to publish, the one he felt was “too dark” to unleash upon us Constant Readers. That is somewhat difficult to believe, considering it was only two years before Pet Sematary’s publication in 1983 that King picked up his typewriter and hit us over the head with Cujo, wherein five-year-old Tad Trenton dies by the novel’s final pages. King has said on numerous occasions that he received a lot of flack for that one, to be sure. One of the most popular questions he would get asked at the time is: Why, Steve, why? Why did you have to go and kill the kid?Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Horror Drive-InLeave a comment on Looking Back on Scares That Care 2016 A funny thing happened at Scares That Care Weekend 3. I was in the Celebrity Room, and I noticed something. The room was laid out with media personalities all around the perimeter, against the walls. Writers were mostly in the center. It occurred to me that, at least at the moment in question, there were more people engaging in conversations and sales with authors than with the actors and such.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Brian Keene's End of the RoadLeave a comment on Brian Keene’s End of the Road: Balance
Welcome to End of the Road, a nine-month weekly column in which I talk about my ongoing cross-country promotional tour for my new novels Pressure and The Complex. If you’re just joining us, a quick recap—everything was going swimmingly and our hero was triumphant until he received a dire warning from what is either a) the spirit of his deceased best friend, or b) his subconscious tricking him into thinking it is the spirit of his deceased best friend. Since that warning, things have gone from swimmingly to terribly awry. Our hero—having consumed two bottles of bourbon after learning that a) a major signing has been cancelled, and b) he is now orphaned at his mainstream publisher (who published one of the books he is currently out on the road promoting)—is currently passed out in a hotel room in Chattanooga. We now rejoin the column, already in progress…Continue Reading
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