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Cypress Lawn's Book Club

Cypress Lawn’s Book Club

Loren Rhoads:

My book of cemetery travel essays is going to be a Book Club selection at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park. I’m so honored!

Originally posted on Cemetery Travel: Adventures in Graveyards Around the World:

Colma’s lovely Cypress Lawn Memorial Park is trying something new:  a book club!  The club idea is so new that they don’t have it listed on the Heritage Foundation’s website yet, but the…

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The Art of Nothing

The Art of Nothing

by Ron Samul

Sometimes, the things that keep me up at night aren’t the monsters and zombies, but rather a subtle fear that comes from dark corners and empty spaces. I didn’t know what to call this kind of fear. I didn’t know where this article was going to take me, but I did know that I was probably going to write about the creepy state of nothing. And I had a few examples. My two favorite…

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The Grimorium Verum launches Friday the 13th

The Grimorium Verum from #horror editor @deanmdrinkel launches Friday the 13th. #darkfiction #anthology

Launches Friday, February 13, 2015

What better date than Friday the 13th to launch the third and final installment in the Tres Librorum Prohibitorum anthology series created by Dean M. Drinkel. The Grimorium Verum, or the Grimoire of Truth, was the 18th century textbook of magic attributed to Alibeck the Egyptian and coveted by ‘The Great Beast’ Aleister Crowley for use in his Magick ceremonies.

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FEAR CLINIC: Shocked Treatment article in FANGORIA #339

FEAR CLINIC: Shocked Treatment article in FANGORIA #339

dtgriffith:

WLP’s own founderz, John Palisano, has authored a feature article in Fangoria #339!

Originally posted on John Palisano:

I’ve penned a feature article for Fangoriaabout Director Rob Hall’s feature film version of FEAR CLINIC. It’s in this month’s issue. It was wonderful speaking with cast and crew, like Robert Englund, Robert Hall, Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Ted Dekker, and many more.…

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Subscribe to our list for updates on our #horror and #darkfiction releases. We promise we won’t spam you!

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The Grimorium Verum - Table of Contents Western Legends is excited to reveal the table of contents for our newest publication and third installment in the Tres Librorum Prohibitum series: The Grimorium Verum.

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Trinity.

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Black Friday – Cyber Monday eBook Sale

Black Friday – Cyber Monday eBook Sale: 99 cents all weekend!

If you haven’t already heard, the Kindle editions of all of our books are on sale for $0.99 through the weekend. Click on a cover below to purchase on Amazon.com.

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Phobophobias arrives this week.#halloween #horror #darkfiction #shortstories It's almost Halloween, which means one thing for us at Western Legends ... Phobophobias from editor Dean M.

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Announcing Phobophobias for Halloween 2014

Announcing Phobophobias for Halloween 2014

Western Legends is proud to announce our latest horror anthology from editor Dean M. Drinkel: Phobophobias. The release date is set for October 31, 2014.

Twenty-six original stories by established masters of horror and talented new voices comprise this anthology of terror, mystery and suspense. Phobophobias continues the explorations of our darkest fears that started with the 2011 indie hit Phob…

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Edward Mordrake was a 19th century English nobleman who had an extra face on the back of his head. According to the story, the extra face could neither eat nor speak, but it could laugh and cry. Edward begged doctors to have his ‘devil twin’ removed, because, supposedly, it whispered horrible things to him at night, but no doctor would attempt it. He committed suicide at the age of 23 by poisoning himself because he could no longer stand having to live with the face on the back of his head.

"The true tale of Edward Mordake (Mordrake) has been lost to history. His unusual case occurred early in medical history and is referenced only in tales handed down. Indeed, the tale of his life has become so muddled through the passage of time that no solid date of birth or death is evident to modern researchers.

The story always begins the same way. Edward is said be have been heir to one of the noblest families in England. He was considered a bright and charming man – a scholar, a musician and a young man in possession of profound grace. He was said to be quite handsome when viewed from the front – yet, on the back of his head there was a second face, twisted and evil. In some versions of the story, the second face of Edward is a beautiful girl. This is an impossibility as all parasitic twins are of the same sex. Often it was said that it possessed its own intelligence and was quite malignant in its intentions. It has been said that the eyes would follow spectators and its lips would ‘gibber’ relentlessly and silently. According to legend it would smile and sneer as Edward wept over his condition. While no voice was ever audible, Edward swore that often he would be kept awake by the hateful whispers of his ‘evil twin’.  The story has always concluded with young Edward committing suicide at the age of twenty-three. The method of his death also differs, sometimes poison does him in and in other versions a bullet ‘between the eyes of his devil-twin’ puts him out of his misery. In both versions Edward leaves behind a letter requesting that the ‘demon face’ be destroyed before his burial, ‘lest it continues its dreadful whisperings in my grave.’Is the story of Edward true?   The 1896 text Anomolies and Curiosities of Medicine mentions a version of the story and Edward has been featured in many texts, plays and even music as the Tom Waits song ‘Poor Edward’ is based on the story. However, the tale was considered false for quite some time. It was simply too fantastic to believe and, obviously, many parts of the story simply do not make medical sense – years of retelling warped what was likely a very real occurrence.

How can one make the assumption that there is fact beneath this tale? Chang Tzu Ping was discovered in China in the late 70’s or early 80’s. In his 40’s, Chang had been born with a second face consisting of a mouth, a malformed tongue, several teeth, a patch of scalp, and the vestige of other facial constructs. The throat and the lips of the second face could not move independently, but the mouth did reacted in tandem to Chang opening his.  Shortly after being discovered he was brought to the United States to have the second face surgically removed. The entire case was documented – including the surgery – on the 80’s television program ‘That’s Incredible’ - and yet there exists almost no secondary evidence of his existence. The operation was considered successful and Chang likely went home to his village to live the remainder of his life without his ‘devil face’. It does not require a great leap of faith to conclude that the tale of Edward is based on some nugget of fact, perhaps he had something similar Chang’s condition – mutated by storytellers over time. Consider that the case of Chang Tzu Ping is relatively unknown despite only occurring a few decades ago or the strange tale of The Boy of Bengal. These are indeed very rare cases and the human mind has a tendency to classify the unusual as impossible – it often helps us sleep well at night.

via Memorias Perdidas

Tom Waits’ song: Poor Edward

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My Influences by Andy Taylor

My Influences by Andy Taylor

A couple of weeks ago a friend and I were getting together for our weekly “What movies should we bash this week” meeting in which we bitch and moan about the movies we hate, sounds like an awful time I know, but we enjoy it. After our movie bitchfest we turned toward books and the fact that he had just finished reading my The Bestiarum Vocabulum (book 2 in the TRES LIBORUM PROHIBITORUM…

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Island of the Dead

Island of the Dead

by Loren Rhoads

Of all the cemeteries I visited to write Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel, the scariest was the cemetery island of San Michele in Venice.

The cemetery itself is a maze of interconnected gardens where the permanent graves are dug into the sod. These include a garden dedicated to the dead of World War II, a Russian Orthodox section, and a section for strangers and…

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13 Questions with John Palisano

13 Questions with John Palisano

Originally posted on Joan De La Haye:

Hello my Freaky Darlings,

Today on 13 Questions we have John Palisano, who I share space between the covers with in Tales from the Lake Vol 1 (out 30 May) and in Horror 101: The way Forward. Over two dozen of his short fiction pieces have been put out by an equally diverse range of places. NEEVES came out under Bad Moon, and DUST OF THE DEAD marks the…

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Ad in Fangoria #332 We're excited to share this little bit of advertising with everyone for The Bestiarum Vocabulum!

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For more jackalope reading, we recommend our debut book, Unnatural Tales of the Jackalope.