I now have permission to spread the news. Coming from Dark Myth Publications in 2010: my collection of short stories BLACK HEARTS AND RED BLOOD DREAMS.







Happy dances all around! Another thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Have a good one!
~Sara

Dennis McDonald's 13 Nightmares is a damn creepy book and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Each story is good in its own right, but two stood out as my favorites.

"Seesaw" is about a little girl (named Sarah!)who lives with her Auntie Marge, who is about the meanest witch with a capital B I've ever come across in a story. The sad truth is: there are a lot of Auntie Marges out there in the world. When Mr. Beasley shows up, he wants to play seesaw with the little girl. Does he mean her harm or does he have another agenda?

"Live Bait" is about fishing...but who's fishing and what are they fishing for? I enjoyed the flavor of this backwoods story of hicks and those who come up against them. Dennis adds a nice little twist to this one.

So...all in all, I highly recommend 13 Nightmares...I even read the story with the roaches (during lunch, no less). And a movie is being filmed from his story "The Last Trick-or-Treater". I can't wait to see it!

http://soonercon.eventbrite.com?ref=myspaceshare

SoonerCon 2009

Multi-genre convention geared toward fun! Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and all genres in between. There will be artists, authors, film makers, dancers, etc. Come join us!

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Lesa interviewed me! We talked Horror, Paranormal Romance, my new print release Trust the Night and writing. A great time was had by all. Thanks, Lesa!

Black Hound ran a Valentine's writing competition and I must say the winning entries are great. Congratulations to Dave, Allan and Andrew, wonderful writers all.
Just for fun, I'm posting my entry. Hope you enjoy it!

HEART OF STONE

By: Sarah Basore

.. ..

Like a legend…tall and fierce…a gargoyle guarded the surrounding grounds. The center of the garden, it demanded her attention.

Ashley sat on a granite bench. She studied the figure: larger than man and formidable.  A heavy mane of curling hair crowned its head, its scowl frozen in stone.  Goat-like horns jutted from its brow. Bat-like wings grew from its back. If flesh, Ashley imagined its wings would feel like supple leather, crafted from skin, sinew and bone.  Arms corded with muscle ended in taloned hands.  Such strength, those hands, closing around my throat.  She shivered and wondered at the source of the thought.  The sculptor had chiseled only a loincloth, as if to reveal the magnificent form. A tail, long and forked, completed the myth.

Twilight darkened the surrounding colors, transmuting them with the moon’s gentle touch.  Luminescence painted the sky with brushstrokes of silver. Stars peered through breaks in the clouds. 

Soft moon-shadows danced along the walkway and hid between arches covered in blooms. The sweet fragrance of roses drifted on the breeze. She closed her eyes.  Simple pleasures…simple life.  A zephyr brushed her body, tantalizing her with a hint of rain.

The fountain gushed water.  Her eyes opened. Same fountain…same location.  But the statue was gone.

            Gripped by a sense of foreboding, Ashley clutched the seat of the now familiar bench.  Where had the statue gone?  ....

            It came from behind her, without warning and silent. Taloned nightmares reached out.  Closed on her throat. She screamed; a sound both garbled and unsure as the creature used its grip to pull her to her feet. It lifted her until she stood on the bench’s slab seat.

            It pressed its hard unyielding body against her. “Do you like this form…this beast you held under your scrutiny?”

            She fought to nod.  “Yes.” A strangled whisper.

            “Do you now?”  The deep voice raised in a note of surprise. “I wonder if you’ll like the man.”

            All at once it released her.  No longer supported, Ashley stumbled as she tried to regain her balance on narrow granite. Her foot slipped. She fell to the side and her shin scraped unforgiving stone.  The newly exposed nerve endings burned like embers.  His hand grabbed her arm to steady her. It felt hot as a brand.

            His hand?  Ashley looked up—he was so much taller than she—into a face better fitted for one of Heaven’s warriors than an earthly creation.  Chiseled and masculine, high cheekbones marked features noble of nose and strong of chin.  He returned her stare with eyes of fathomless black. 

            “How about now?  Do you like what you see?”  His was the same booming voice.

            “Yes,” she croaked, blushing at the discordance, despite the fact that his hand had bruised her voice box.  How do you know?  It was the creature’s monstrous grip.  But something inside, some instinct told her they were one and the same.

            He stood before her, same height, same body, minus talons, horns and tail.  Her blush deepened. Same loincloth.

            His knowing smirk said he knew the reason for her heightened color.

            Attempting to hide her discomfort, Ashley stared down at the ground.  He took hold of her chin. Raised her face.  His lips took hers like a dare. She didn’t fight… refused to fight.  Her life had been devoid of such passion. Not any longer!

            His tongue speared her mouth and she welcomed it, relishing the feel and the taste of him. Salt and spice, he took her breath away.

            He pushed her back on the bench. Cold, hard granite beneath her, unyielding strength above. He shoved her skirt up around her thighs. Suddenly the stone was inside her, thrusting, tearing, and giving no mercy in its demand. 

Pleasure tainted with pain: sensation built, unfamiliar and fierce. Ashley had never known the joy of union. Blood surged through her veins. Hormones released endorphins to sear her blood.  A scream built in her throat.

Climax claimed her in a rush of sensation so intense she thought she would die.

Taloned hands closed on her throat. Her eyes opened wide to stare into the face of the beast.

“The gypsies cursed me,” he said.  “Saying my heart was stone, they gave me a form to match. By day, I am a statue. By night, flesh.  I will never die…but you will, my dear. You will die.”  

The hands tightened.  And darkness swallowed her life.

.. ..

THE END

.. ..
 

Tornadoes swept through Oklahoma last night. My friend's daughter's car got its windows blown out, but she wasn't injured. A small town down south got hit really hard, a place I'd driven through many times on the way from my ex-inlaws' home in Wilson to the more urban town of Ardmore, in search of pizza, the bookstore, or entertainment. So far, the death toll is 8, with dozens injured, but they're still searching.

All that damage dredged up feelings I'd thought long gone, residuals from the disaster my family survived in 2001. It was October. The weather was doing the same old fickle Oklahoma break dance. One minute it was sunny, the next storms. My daughter Lauren finally came home from school and her father got back from visiting or a meeting. My son Sean was still out on a band trip.
It began to hail, big suckers, golf ball sized chunks of ice. Then the sun broke through the clouds, the rain stopped and so did the wind. It was an eerie calm, the sky shining green above us. Lauren (who was 10 and loved to dance in the rain) scampered out on the front lawn to inspect the hail.

The siren went off. I was inside monitoring the weather on TV. Jon yelled for me to come out on the front step. "You're never going to see anything like this again!"

There, across the empty lot, on the other side of the highway, not even a block away, we watched a funnel cloud pick up a farmer's silo. "Run!" Jon ordered.

He didn't have to tell me twice. I had piled pillows in the hallway.  I threw myself on top of my daughter (poor child). "Mom, you're squishing me," she said. "I don't care," I replied. "I want you safe." Hell, I figured if something caved in, my body would give her at least a modicum of protection. Jon said a prayer. Lauren kept saying, "Oh, oh, oh, oh." We heard the raging wind as it approached the house. "Is that it?" I asked. I kept telling Lauren, "You're safe...you're safe." Something told me I told the truth.

Funny, but I felt calm. We'd done what we could to protect ourselves. What happened next was beyond our control. So, writer that I am, I hunkered over my daughter and told myself to pay attention. Maybe, if I survived, I could use this in a story.

The sound was incredibly loud. Nails screeched as they were pulled from the studs. The booms of our belongings as they hit the walls, the crash of breaking glass formed a cacophony of distruction. The smell of friction filled the air, a burning odor mixed with the scent of dirt and dust from the attic that hadn't been disturbed in years. An horrendous pressure shoved itself into my ears until I thought my head would explode with the push of it. Lauren was still whimpering. I was still telling her she was safe.

Then it was gone. I looked down to see our cat Ginger huddled in the crook of my leg. We had closed all the doors to the hallway, and somehow the ceiling remained over our heads. I opened the door to the master bedroom and saw broken glass and debris scattered throughout the room. Ginger made a break for under the bed safety. She was the only injury...she cut her leg on glass as she made her dash. She needed two stitches.

The roof was gone. So was the ceiling in Sean's room and over most of the house. The Ceiling Fan had landed in my computer monitor. A board had impaled one of the cabinet doors. The neighbors' boat was in the tree outside.
But we'd survived. Later, Sean said he could see the tornado from his school bus window. He said it looked like it was heading for our house. Lauren went through some PTS, and didn't eat for two weeks. That was scarier than the tornado.

I took it as a wake-up call. Life is short. We need to find our happiness, look for our joy and embrace the love with which we are blessed. That's all. No sermons. Just an observation brought on by last night's events and a shared camaraderie with those who went through the storm.

Lucky me. I just finished reading Nightfall by Andrew Wolter. Perhaps you've heard of him? That up and coming writer who graces us with a free short story once per month? Andrew deems himself the "homoerotic horror" writer, and in Nightfall he couldn't be more correct.

Andrew has a wonderful imagination. In Nightfall, our hero Stefan Powell is a music store employee by profession but a poet by vocation. His work in progress is called Dark Hearts. Stefan has a habit of going into the nearby desert to write. The darkness in his work calls to the evil that is Nightworld. Stefan's poetry becomes the catalyst that opens a portal, which allows all kinds of hell to break through into our world.

Nightfall is a novel of good vs. evil -- my favorite kind. It's a novel where ordinary people must look inside themselves to find the power to confront that which almost certainly will destroy them. It's a novel of courage and heartbreaking loss.

I truly enjoyed my visit to the world of Nightfall. Andrew has the wonderful ability to make a reader care about his characters. He tapped into my every emotion. What more could I ask?

Do yourself a favor and read Nightfall.

~Sarah

Saturday, having come into some unexpected entertainment cash, Bear took me to the Warren Theater. I was like an open-mouthed hick agog at the lights of Las Vegas. The Warren is gorgeous! Patterned after elegant theaters from Hollywood's prime, the Warren has every amenity a person could want. It even has a screening room where they serve you dinner while you watch your flick of choice on a 4 story screen. The arms of very plush velveteen seats have call buttons in case your popcorn or coke runs low. That day, we didn't partake of such luxury. But we plan to partake, probably for the new Bond film or maybe Twilight.

Instead, we went to the 3-D screening of The Nightmare Before Christmas. It will come as no surprise I own this movie. My family watches it often. It's one of our favorite Halloween and Christmas joys. That said, I'd forgotten how great it is on the big screen. Add some 3-D glasses and it becomes a brand new experience.

TNBC is one of the best claymation type movies there is. Danny Elfman has scored a genius soundtrack, and he's not a bad singer, either. (He sings as Jack.) Tim Burton is a sick puppy after my own heart. I've enjoyed almost every movie with which he's been involved. In TNBC, each character is a work of art from his humoriously twisted imagination. It has great sets, great creatures, great story, so what's not to like?

If there's a Warren Theater in your area, check it out. They have a dinner area upstairs by the bar. We had salad and some of the best potato soup I've every tasted, all for the reasonable price of $5.95.

Be sure to go see the 3-D version of TNBC. It's a must!

See, told ya I'm a nerd.

~Sarah 

This is about other people's writing. The work I've read lately defies categorization. I'm guessing if it has vampires, werewolves and beasties that go bump in the night, it can be called Horror.

Let's take books. The fourth in a series, Odd Hours by Dean Koontz is about a Pico Mundo fry cook who sees dead people. But it's so much more. Odd Thomas is a character I'd want to know in real life. Positive and pure in the face of the most horrible circumstances. He's who I'd like to be when I grow up. Start with Odd Thomas and then read the others in order.

Then there's Duma Key by Stephen King. King is in fine form here, writing from the viewpoint of a main character with brain damage. SK says to always tell the truth and he does here, detailing the trials of a once successful man who must learn to live again using his remaining strengths. Duma Key is peopled with great characters and a truly scary evil. I was sorry to reach the end.

Last but not least, I just fininshed the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. This may qualify more as Urban Fantasy, but it did have its monsters. And not always the ones I expected to be the bad guys. Mercy is a mechanic and a walker, a part Native American woman who can change into a coyote. She lives next door to a pack of werewolves. The Fey have just come out to the public eye. And she works on a vampire's car. There are three books in the series so far: Blood Bound, Moon Called, and Iron Kissed. Let me say there's enough action and horror in these books to keep a Horror fan satisfied. The characters struck me as real. Or, let me put it this way, the next book in the series doesn't come out until February 2009. Damn.

As for short stories, I just finished Pressure Points by Craig Wolf. There's a wonderful story in the anthology called "Dripping Water Carves the Stone", which isn't your typical Horror story. It's told from the POV of an Egyptian after the "killing of the first-born". DWCtS definitely isn't politically correct, but then the best Horror stories are the ones that hit us in the gut and make us think. There are several other stories in Pressure Points that I enjoyed.

Then there's several stories in an anthology close to my heart: Sinister Landscapes. SL is jam packed with great stories, but the one which haunted me most is My Elf by R. Vance. It's not hard to make a reader feel sympathy for the victim, but it takes great skill to make me pity the villain. In some twisted way, I almost wanted them to find happiness together.

There's so much more on my TBR pile, a lot of it from my MySpace friends. You're next, guys.

Have a great week!

Sarah

*Read with Rod Serling's distinctive voice.*

Journey with me to another place, another dimension. Imagine, if you will, a convention about all things Halloween, peopled by beings dressed in black. Some have green or purple or rainbow hair. Belly dancers gyrate to songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Music plays in another room, the hard, headbanging sounds of the Razorblade Dolls. We are treated to sideshow acts like The Carnival of Cleavage and the Dead Girls, out of Dallas. One girl ties thread to razorblades, all using her mouth. One man chews a lightbulb.We have just entered...(duh duh duh da duh) the TrickConTreat Zone.

I will definitely attend next year's TrickConTreat. The atmosphere was one of complete acceptance, even for this "mom-looking" person who, at age "over forty" was a "virgin" in the live-action, audience participation showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That's okay, I took my kids, Sean age 20 and Lauren age 18, and my "adopted" son Sam aged 21. They were "virgins", too. (No, I don't want to know.) We had big lipstick Vs drawn on our foreheads, along with a few unprintable words. It was a blast, due in part to a hilarious woman named, aptly, "Boobzilla".

There were belly dancers. Females and males in all shapes and sizes, dressed in everything from traditional garb to "Goth" attire, moved with such beautiful grace.

I met several writers. Craig Wolf was the guest of Honor. He's a smart, personable man who made me feel like I'd known him forever. I was priviledged to buy one of his books Pressure Points. I can't wait to read it.  Steve Wedel, who I knew from OWFI, brought some of his werewolf books. I got Ulrik, part of his werewolf saga. I recommend them. Beverly Hale was nice and funny. She had some great stories to tell us. She gave me in depth advice about the writing industry. I got her book The Essence of Stone...it has a talking cat...right up my alley. Bill Allen was so much fun. I'm looking forward to reading Gods and Other Children and Shadowheart. (Check out www.okiehorror.com )

I met Count Gregore! That won't mean much to those who aren't from Oklahoma, but I grew up watching Count Gregore (John Ferguson) host scary movies on late night TV. He's part of the reason I write Horror. I even got a hug from him. Dr Fear was there. He hosts scary movies and has a radio show in Enid, OK. He also writes. He sent 2 novellas home with me. I can't wait to read them!

The Haunticon Ball was a blast. We all dressed in costumes. Sean was the Joker, his hair, sprayed green, was perfect. Lauren was a sexy nurse. She looked beautiful. Sam dressed in fatigues with a tie-died shirt and was a Nam-bie. Very creative, that Sam.

If you can't tell, I'm fried. Part of the walking dead. My brain has left the building. But I had a wonderful weekend!

~Sarah