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Shameless Self-Promotion Time! Help Fund “Unknowing: An Anthology From Beyond the Veil”

19 Apr

Unknowing an Anthology From Beyond the VeilUnknowing: An Anthology From Beyond the Veil [edited] by Jeff Kowalski
Genre: Fiction, horror, anthology, short stories, suspense, dread, the unknown

Summary (taken from the Kickstarter page):

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” – H.P. Lovecraft

Our goal with this anthology is to publish some underground and unpublished authors, while exploring a genre near and dear to us: Horror. We’d love your help in this endeavor! In exchange for your pledge, we’ll send along an e-book (PDF, ePub, and perhaps other formats) collection of the stories once it’s complete.

Dear ladies, gentleman and tentacles, I thought I’d do something a wee bit different this week and talk a little bit about a horror anthology Kickstarter that my fellow Cassie (Cassie-wa) and I are contributing short stories to.

So we all know what I’m really saying is…

IF YOU LOVE THE SITE AND YOU LOVE US, OR YOU JUST LOVE HORROR SHORT STORIES YOU SHOULD SERIOUSLY DONATE TO OUR KICKSTARTER SO WE CAN GET SOMETHING IN PRINT THAT WASN’T PUBLISHED AT THE AGE OF TEN IN ONE OF THOSE TERRIBLE POETRY BOOKS. WE’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

Did that read as desperate? Nah, I played it cool.

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Winter Is Already Over, You Know Nothing, Jon Snow: Getting Ready for “Game of Thrones” Battle Lemon Cake Style

29 Mar

Ommegang Iron Throne AdLast year for the premiere of “Game of Thrones” season two, I embarked on a seemingly never-ending quest to find the best lemon cake recipe inspired by the Song of Ice and Fire series. This resulted in countless trips to the grocery stores to buy lemons and bags of flour, hours of trial and error and a whole lot of oven related burns. Although none that burned like having a pot of molten gold poured on my scale-less skin.

Thankfully, for season three (WHICH COMES OUT ON SUNDAY, OMG IT’S ALMOST HERE!!!) I know exactly which lemon cake to make, so I don’t have to waste my time. Bonus: Ommegang brewery has graciously provided Iron Throne Ale to drink while watching everyone you love die.

In anticipation of the season which will contain a whole lot of weddings and funerals- as in more than any Hugh Grant movie- I decided to share my lemon cake journey in a culinary adventure I like to call: Battle Lemon Cake.

This was originally posted during season two, throughout 2012, over on my personal blog (which gets very little use): Fli Brish. It has been touched up/edited accordingly to reflect all the shenanigans in season two and I have included appropriate yelling because I still have serious Team Lemon Cake feels.

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Kelly’s Last Minute Gift Guide for your Literary-Minded Loved Ones

16 Dec

grumpy-cat-christmas-themeIf you celebrate Christmas, I’m sure the constant barrage of emails, 5 pounds of fliers in your newspapers, and incessant commercials promoting the LOWEST PRICES OF THE SEASON FOR REALSIES THIS TIME have alerted you to the fact that you have NINE days to shop for your loved ones. And perhaps you are like me – procrastinator extraordinaire with no stomach for advertisements hawking soda machines.  (Personal soda machines are like fetch, they’re never going to happen). Also, since you are presumably a fan of books and literary fun times, maybe you want some cool gift ideas for the bibliophiles in your life. You are in luck, my friend.

Below, I’ve compiled a pile of presents any book lover would love to see under his or her Christmas tree. And any applicable discount codes if I could find them. Happy procrastinating, friends!

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Kelly’s Literary Adventures in London

13 Jun

Oh hey there. So it’s been a few months since I’ve posted – grad school kicked my butt for 16 weeks straight. After which I went almost immediately to London for a summer class on libraries and archives in the United Kingdom. I spent two glorious weeks in “class,” if one can call attending tours of libraries, museums, and archives (with supplementary lectures and biscuits!) class. Yet the library gods have deemed it credit-worthy, and I am certainly not complaining.

Besides getting credit for drinking cider and visiting awesome libraries, I was of course thrilled to be in England for literary reasons. It’s the land of Shakespeare and Austen, Phillip Pullman and JK Rowling. London permeates the texts I’ve read throughout my life, and even the streets are filled with constant reminders of literature. Metal placards are placed casually on the sides of buildings, proclaiming my favorite authors lived and worked around me. Yeats worked in a house around the corner from my hotel, which is now a shop of some kind. Freaking Yeats! Walking around London was this weird collision of fiction, history, and the present, and I’ve tried to articulate some of my favorite/nerdiest moments below. Continue reading →

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I See Brains in Your Future: Cassie-la Tests Out the Zombie Tarot from Stacey Graham

11 May

Coming June 5th from one of our favorite book publishing companies Quirk Books is a tarot card set with a fun unique take on all themed tarot card sets before it. With a detailed 96 page instruction booklet from Stacey Graham and gorgeous artwork from Paul Kepple, this 78 card tarot deck is a double threat. Triple if you take into consideration the zombie theme. The Zombie Tarot: An Oracle of the Undead is perfect for getting yourself out of a sticky undead situation.

What makes this deck so unique is how it takes the theme to a whole new level. I have a Vertigo themed deck, and while it is beautifully illustrated by Dave McKean, that’s as far as the theme goes: the illustrations on the cards. The Zombie Tarot on the other hand is both illustrated with a zombie theme and then takes that theme to another level. This set was created to guide those during the zombie apocalypse out of certain situations. Inside the fully illustrated instruction booklet is detailed how the undead started to rise- after a toxic spill- and explains how the cards should be used, to get yourself out of a sticky situation. Stuck in a location with limited supplies? Not sure where to hide or what provisions to stock up on? The Zombie Tarot can help make informed decisions for your future.

For a quick look at why you should buy the Zombie Tarot, please read my Product Spotlight on the geek-centric website CulturSHOCK. For an in-depth look at the un-boxing and specific tarot card spreads, keep reading. Or you can do both. ::puppy dog eyes::

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May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor: Cassie-la Discusses Her “Hunger Games” Preparations

23 Mar

It’s finally here! After much internet excitement, a butt load of merchandise and more than enough internal squeeing, it is finally the official release day of The Hunger Games!!! An unlimited number of exclamation points could not explain my excitement. Hopefully I won’t be regretting all of this after tonight and walk out of the theatre grumbling that “the book was better”, but let’s be honest, that’s a distinct possibility. Especially if they pull a Watchmen and change the ending to appeal to the masses. Such is the damage of being a rabid bibliophile.

The plan for tonight is for myself and the other Bibliomantics along with some close friends and my sister to see a 6:30 screening of the film, and sometime next week review it in lieu of a typical Bibliomantic Book Club book, so be on the lookout for that soon. Or soonish, depending on when we all have time to write stuff up.

My first step in preparing for the film was to re-read the novel. I initially bought and read it at Infinitus 2010, which was pretty dangerous because all I wanted to do was keep reading and we had Harry Potter things to do! Thankfully I was able to slip some reading in poolside, before bed, and on planes. I was a little scared to re-read the novel to be honest because I loved it so much the first time and I was afraid that re-immersing myself would somehow tarnish my first impressions. In retrospect this was a ridiculous fear since it was just as good (if not better) the second time around! Again, I devoured the text, reading for hours just to see how Katniss’ story evolved, even though I had already read it less than two years ago. Suffice it to say it broke my heart all over again. That’s a post all in itself.

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When Social Media and Literature Meet: Cassie-la Explains Rabbit Hole Day

27 Jan

Today my apartment flooded. It wasn’t your normal type of flooding, but rather like a bubble bath had overflowed into our apartment. It was warm and smelled like cinnamon so besides the waterlogged nature of my library, I didn’t have too many complaints. The pets are another matter, as Boxcar and Jameson do not like water, no matter how warm it is or how much it makes the house smell like Cinnamon Buns.

When I called our 24/7 Emergency Maintenance Hotline I was told it was a widespread problem and they were working to stop the overflow as soon as possible. Which was fine by me since the house was super warm and it didn’t add to my electric bill.

Someone did eventually come fix the problem, although their Wet Dry Vac looked like something out of the “Flinstones” and it eyed me rather suspiciously the whole time. Sorry Wet Dry Vac, in this economy beggar’s can’t be choosers.

Today is Lewis Carroll’s birthday, which also means that it’s time yet again for the internet to celebrate Rabbit Hole Day. Let the fun and confusion commence!

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Stephanie and Cassie-wa’s Magical Time at Wrockstock

8 Nov

Wrockstock 2011. Potosi, Missouri. The YMCA Trout Lodge. Oh my wizard god, did Cassie-wa and I have an awesome time.

This was the 5th Wrockstock – all of them having been held at this lodge in Missouri. Where is Missouri you may ask? Well it’s kind of like…..in America…in the middle… Yeah, we don’t leave Jersey much, but now we’ve been to Missouri! We booked this trip I think around April or May and I am so so glad we decided to go.

After staying up until midnight getting costumes together, we finally went to bed…and took a short nap before getting up at 3:30am to catch a plane to St. Louis. As we were descending, we looked out the window wondering…where is the city?? We were getting lower and lower to the ground and there were only a few scattered neighborhoods, but no city, no arch… Later we learned we were actually just in St. Louis COUNTY – not in the actual city. So right away Missouri was meeting our expectations. At the airport, we ate the worst bagels ever made ever and then met Crissy and Nathan – our Knight Bus conductors! Or sleepy-time conductors really. We made a motley crew of nerd happiness/tiredness as we waited for everyone to arrive for our noon departure. At noon, we piled onto a big yellow school bus along with all our luggage and set off to get as far away from civilization as possible.

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Why I Love Reading: Escapism

5 Aug

In hindsight, I probably should have read Jaws and written a review of it in honor of Shark Week. But instead, I’m drinking Yellow Tail and thinking about how much reading makes my life worth living. Plus, there’s always Shark Week next year.

So I have this job. I would define it as joyless, soul sucking, and just downright depressing. During work I think about one of two things: 1. How I wish I were reading or 2. How I plan to hang myself above the coffee bar. I try to focus on the wishing I was reading part.

Thankfully, tomorrow is Saturday (which means no work) but also it’s DO NOTHING BUT READ DAY (or DNBRD for short)! The best day of the year. The day I don’t have to think about the job that makes me want to drink Draino or my mountains of debt or the spiders waiting to avenge the death of their fallen comrades. Instead, I have an excuse to just read. ALL FRICKIN’ DAY!

So I was thinking to myself, why does it hurt so much to pull a wine cork out with your teeth? Is it friction? Is it that I buy cheap wine and that it’s not really made of cork? Is it the fact that I’m supposed to be talking about reading as escapism and how awesome DNBRD is going to be tomorrow!?! Is it the fact that this post is probably riddled with spelling errors?

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