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Behind the Scenes of Epic Fantasy Creation

What the hell was I thinking?

I’ve worked part-time at my local regional theater for the past fifteen years. I’m lucky my job lets me work with one of my best friends, often as a professional shopper in the wardrobe department. I’m also lucky that my place of employment is filled with fabulous, funny, creative people—and that the theater is a mere two blocks from my house.

For several years during that time, I worked as a dresser. It was quite an experience, some of which I chronicled (with copious creative license) in my backstage horror novel, Final Dress. Sometimes, when the cast was large and the costume changes were numerous, I ran around backstage like a crazy person without so much as a bathroom break. Other times, when it was a one-person show with a single costume, I still got paid to sit backstage according to Equity rules, just in case something went wrong: a broken zipper, a missing shoe, an actress forgetting to put her pants on under a robe for a quick change (true story), or any other conceivable clothing emergency.

It was during one of those one-person shows—a production about Erma Bombeck—that I sat backstage with a notebook (I never use my phone) and began jotting down the ideas that would eventually become Starlight Over Oran, my first epic fantasy series.

This was way back in 2018, when HBO’s Game of Thrones was all the rage—back before they destroyed the series with that terrible ending—and my love of fantasy fiction had been regenerated with dragon’s breath and intrigue.

Fantasy was a genre I’d loved as a kid, although mostly through comics and movies rather than fiction. I was very late coming to Tolkien, but I devoured those epic ’80s fantasy films like Conan and Krull. Heavy Metal magazine was another passion. But GOT was what really got me back into fantasy.

I started with George R. R. Martin’s series (incomplete as it is), then moved on to The Lord of the Rings, which I read twice, followed by the brilliant film adaptations. Then came The Wheel of Time (unfinished), The Witcher, and quite a few vintage paperback doorstoppers. I dipped into some newer works–sorry, N.K. Jemisin, I tried. But it was really the old-school epic fantasies–Franzetta paintings brought to life!–that really moved me.

Sitting backstage in my theater blacks, with several indie horror books and two series already under my belt, I began to wonder:

Dare I?

Could I write my own epic fantasy?

The notes started flying. The pistons of my cognition began firing. And before I knew it, I’d created an entire world called Ardelym.

It took me forever to write that first book. I posted the first draft on Wattpad, then moved it to Amazon’s short-lived Vella, where it actually gained some traction while the platform lasted. Eventually, after investing quite a bit of money in all the bells and whistles that come with self-publishing, I finally released it on Amazon.
And then…

Crickets.

I was so discouraged by that outcome that I quit writing and suspended my BookTube channel for a while. I discussed what happened in a recent video.

In a nutshell, I’m back—to writing, to creating. Honestly, I just needed a break.

Since that video, I released a new book, Black and Blue Ivy, and the response has been good. I’m also writing Book Two of my fantasy series. I’m in the final editing phase, and it’s a bear.

Writing an interplanetary epic fantasy with multiple points of view has challenged me as both a writer and a thinker. The mental exhaustion of keeping track of these worlds, people (and a few beasts) while weaving together what I hope is an interesting story is something I never anticipated when I was sitting backstage, excitedly jotting down notes in the dark.

But here I am.

Hyperia Rising, Book Two in the Starlight Over Oran series, should be out before the end of the year. I hope you’ll check out Book One, Starlex, and let me know what you think.

And as I get closer to the end of Book Two, I’ve realized I’ve already set things up for Book Three.
Seriously.

What the hell am I thinking?

The world of Starlex!

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Call for Submissions – Book Worms #12

Halloween Edition – Occult Horror

What’s Hiding in the Dark?

This Spooky Season, Book Worms Horror Zine is celebrating the kind of horror that truly gets under our skin: the things we’re not supposed to know.

Secret societies. Demonic cults. Government conspiracies. Forbidden rituals. A frat/sorority house with a hidden basement. A pajama party Ouija board game that goes horribly, horribly wrong. If there’s a secret—and something sinister lurking behind it—we want to hear about it.

We’re looking for stories that explore the fear of what’s hidden, what’s forbidden, and what might be waiting just beyond the veil of what we think we know.

As always, we’re accepting:

Original flash fiction — 1,500 words or less (no AI generated material, please)
Poetry
Topical essays

Please read the submission guidelines below for all the details.

So, dig into the darkness, uncover something you wish you hadn’t, and send it our way.

Good luck—and happy Spooky Season!

Deadline: October 1, 2026 (must be received by deadline, so please mail early).

Word Count: 1500 words or less (we mean it).

No reprints, please. Exclusive print rights for six months after publication.

Payment is 8 cents a word for fiction and non-fiction, $25 for poems 20 lines or less.

ACCEPTING MAIL-IN SUBMISSIONS ONLY! (*see exception below)

Mail your submissions to: La Regina Studio/Grundy Commons/925 Canal Street/Bristol, PA 19007

Decision notices are sent through email so there is no need to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Please include your email address and your mailing address with your submission. All submissions must be typed (cover letters preferred but not mandatory) and be properly formatted. Also, if you have a social media presence, please include those beneath your email.

Be sure to:

Send only one submission, meaning don’t send multiple short stories or poems or a combination of both. Send only one piece and send your best.

DO NOT send your submissions using registered mail or any kind of correspondence requiring a signature. It probably won’t get to us and you’ll be wasting your money.

*If you’ve had work previously published in Book Worms (you know who you are) you may email your submission to bookwormssubmissions@gmail.com (same deadline) Please write Returning Author Submission in the subject line.

Please use the EXACT mailing address listed above. Please don’t write Book Worms on the address. This is a side project and our mailman might get confused. The mailbox is in a huge industrial complex and unfortunately, letters have gotten lost in the past, so please follow the instructions and mail as early as possible.

Curious what’s lurked in our pages before? Check out Book Worms Horror Zine.

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Rest in Peace, Reggie Bannister

I never had the pleasure of meeting Reggie Bannister at a horror convention, but friends of mine who had attested to what I’ve always suspected: that the unlikely hero in the amazing Phantasm movie franchise was pretty much the Reggie in real life, maybe without the ice cream man outfit. Phantasm creator Don Coscarelli confirms this in his lovely, heartfelt tribute to his friend and collaborator. Reggie the man inspired Reggie the character, which is probably why he became such a singular, unforgettable character: a true icon in the horror pantheon. Reggie earned that place.

Since the first time I watched Phantasm at a drive-in as an impressionable high school kid, I became an instant fan. I’ve seen the original film more than a hundred times — even taught it in one of my film classes to the delight of my students. Coscarelli’s Phantasm has the mark of a young and talented filmmaker who is a true American auteur. Even in the digital age, where you can make a film with your buddies in a weekend, few films carry the imprimatur of authenticity and wacky weirdness as Phantasm does. You can tell there was no production company oversight, and that’s a good thing.

Phantasm has meant a lot to me over the years, maybe because it imprinted my mind back in 1979. I’ve spoofed it, and I’ve created an homage to it in my web series Gemini Rising. It’s never left me. Reggie was a true original, the ultimate cool best friend, and popular with the ladies too, despite the balding mullet. Aura such as Reg’s can’t be faked. He’ll be greatly missed, but his legend lives on–hot as love forever!

Watch my Phantasm discussion video from a few years back HERE.

Phantasm tribute

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Camp Wormy!

Book Worms Issue #11 is out, and it’s a big one!

Now, first a bit of an apology. We were late getting this summer issue out because–life. We’re a two-person team and sometimes one of us gets a new job and moves, as James recently did, or one of us breathes in some Canadian wildfire smoke and ends up sick for two weeks, which recently happened to me. So, yeah…life.

But the good news is it’s here, and it’s jam-packed with all kinds of wormy goodies. For one thing, we’re calling this our JUMBO issue because I believe it’s our biggest one yet–at least that’s what I gathered from looking at the printing bill, but I digress. So, what can you look forward to in this fab issue….

Well, the OG of old-school horror, Will Errickson is back–have we mentioned we love his blog! At this point, we’re just going to give him a regular column if he’s down with that because we can always trust his takes on the old paperbacks from hell reading recs, so you don’t want to miss that. We also have some fabulous new fiction and poetry (as always) featuring new-to-us contributors as well as a few former favorites.

And let’s not forget our fun, hand-made artwork, Book Worms fans love! Remember, Book Worms Horror Zine is a print only, limited run, handmade horror zine and once the issues sell out that’s it, so start collecting them now! We may be late sometimes because we’re human, and we’ll definitely be back for another fabulous issue for Spooky Season. Enjoy what’s left of your summer. There’s still a lot of camping left.

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Reviving Creativity: My Journey Back to Writing

After a little hiatus where I did a little more (creatively, that is) than post my daily outfits on TikTok, which was quite fun actually, I’m finally getting back to business and back into writing. Honestly, I needed a break, and now that my creative coffers are full again, I’m thrilled to share this new book that I started maybe three(?) years ago as a serial for the short-lived Kindle Vella. After reworking it a bit, I’m proud to get this baby out there. Black and Blue Ivy is a YA gothic story about a girl who travels from the tough streets of Kensington, Philadelphia, to a home for wayward girls, then eventually lands in Providence House, the sprawling estate of a wealthy family in Philadelphia’s Main Line. If you know anything about gothic novels–especially the V.C. Andrews ones, which were an inspiration for this book–then you’ll know that’s when the trouble for our main character really begins.

There are religious themes in this story, which reflect–and challenge–my own Catholicism. I was thrilled to see the book reach #1 New Release in Teen and Young Adult Christian Social Fiction. I didn’t even know there was such a category, but I’ll take it. Please note, there is nothing preachy or proselytizing about this work, so atheists and other (fill in the blank) are welcome to partake. If there is a religious theme, it has more to do with examining and weeding out hypocrisy than anything else. I strongly believe writers should explore ideas that are important to them. That what makes a voice unique and interesting.

There is a disturbing trend in publishing today where it’s all about hitting the right “tropes.” If I’m not mistaken, “trope” used to be considered a negative term, a cliché, but it seems to have evolved to be synonymous with conventions, which is the term I prefer. I used plenty of gothic conventions in Black and Blue Ivy: the Jane Eyre orphanage and awful neglect, the tony mansion hiding diabolical secrets, the creepy housekeeper, the list goes on. My homages to V.C. Andrews, including a metaphor of powder sugar on doughnuts, abound. There’s also an attic or two. But this story is my own, meaning it comes from my own twisted (at times) heart. I’ve certainly given it my own spin, and with so many changes happening in publishing: the seemingly almost daily AI scandals, the bizarre AI witch hunts on Threads, the fact that “tropes” seem to be telling the stories, not the writer/creator, and the head scratching that goes along with why the hell is this book popular–yes, Romantasy I’m looking at you! Well, you get the picture.

I needed the break, and I’m excited to be creating again. I’m heading over to my studio this morning to record my first YouTube video in about six months. It’s good, no, it’s great to be back!

*Watch my first video in six months:

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We’ll Tear Your Soul Apart—Then Spit It Out!

Book Review: Wretch: or, The Unbecoming of Porcelain Khaw by Eric LaRocca

I’ve been disappointed by new horror. I recently returned three(!) new library books I ended up DNF-ing. Now, one, I admit, was a new romantasy. I was curious about why it was so popular. After taking a dip, I still am. But the other two were recent horror releases. I got about 100 pages in on each and thought, “Since when did horror become so safe, so self-aware, so annoyingly pedantic, so—dare I say it—afraid?”

I don’t want soft cuddles when I read horror. I want high stakes, operatic peaks, hatred and self-loathing of the most abominable kind, spectacular crashes into burning pits of hell! I want blood spilling out on the page by someone who understands my suffering, who dares to go there. To quote Blanche DuBois, “I want magic!” albeit of the gruesome kind.

LaRocca brings the dark magic, and then some!

Trawling through Barnes and Noble while my car was getting serviced, I happened upon Wretch, a new release by Eric LaRocca. Now, I had read one of his books — Everything the Darkness Eats — and enjoyed its off-the-rails over-the-top goriness. It gave me old-school Edward Lee chills. Pulling up the Goodreads page now, I’m shocked, shocked! to discover the book receiving such low ratings. Even respected reviewers in the horror community failed to recognize the undeniable talent in our midst that is LaRocca. Sometimes I wish some of these influencers would influence some other genre than horror — romantasy, for example.

But, back to browsing in Barnes and Noble. I was scanning the new releases and pleased to see a horror title. I recalled I liked the author’s style and took a chance on the hardcover, which, in case you haven’t noticed, ain’t cheap anymore. The cover looked cool, the author’s Clive Barker dedication and opening quote intriguing, so I took a gamble.

Well, I wasn’t just pleasantly surprised; I was gruesomely enchanted!

Quick synopsis: Simeon (Biblical significance?) is grieving his dead spouse, Jonathan. Depressed and failing at work, he takes a leave of absence and, through a dark web chatroom, wanders into an underground society of the desperate and grief-stricken, a strange support group where members attempt to detect the images of their deceased loved one through photographs of inanimate objects and boring landscapes. Simeon attends awkward meetings with the Wretches, which is part Fight Club, part Order of the Gash—the author freely admits to these influences in the afterword—but he’s longing for something more. He wants his lover back, in the flesh, and he’ll do anything to make that happen. Be careful what you wish for, because Simeon is eventually led to a character named Porcelain Khaw, a dark entity (I kept imagining Pinhead) who promises reconnection, but at a stiff price.

Besides the general plot, which intrigued me, one thing I loved about this book was that LaRocca doesn’t play it safe with emotions. He’s honest about his main character’s shortcomings; his self-loathing in particular rings true. He doesn’t play it safe with the queerness either. Parts of this book reminded me of the shocking underground scene of downtown New York I recall reading about in The Village Voice. I tried to capture some of that underground scene that titillated and horrified my imagination in my horror thriller Fashion Victims. I still consider it one of my best novels, although tragically neglected.

But back to Wretch.

I applaud LaRocca’s brutal look at the self-hatred that can turn us into empty vessels searching for love to fill us while callously draining those who love us. There is a tragically melancholy subplot concerning Simeon’s rejected former wife and their neglected teenage son in a way that shows the selfishness of grief and obsessive love in general. The concept of “reverse haunting” could have been explored more, or perhaps I’m just unfamiliar with that sub-sub-genre. One flashback scene involving an alligator enclosure at the zoo left me baffled. If I was supposed to identify with the protagonist, that almost ruined it for me.

Yet, I couldn’t stop reading.

There are a few quick and painful “gotcha” twists at the end, reminding the reader that horror is, after all, a thrill ride, or at least it should be. I closed this book feeling very satisfied and determined to read all of LaRocca’s books. If Stephen King proclaimed Clive Barker the future of horror, LaRocca may have just picked up that mantle with Wretch. Let’s hope more writers daringly follow his lead. I certainly am inspired.

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Bring Back the Big Sexy Novel!

I finally read one of my Dad’s favorite books, that 70’s pulp classic, The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon. It was one of those “dirty” paperbacks I’d find stashed under his bed next to the Qui magazines. Perhaps the “forbidden” nature of my Dad’s reading stash kept me from absconding with it then, but now, reading it decades later, I know exactly why my Dad loved it because I loved it too.

Despite the — ahem — titillating sensuality of which there is plenty, the book spans several continents against the backdrop of World War II. Again, I know why he loved it. My Dad was a decorated war hero who told his children stories about what it was like to fly in bombers and the thrill of partying in London on VJ Day. Despite dropping out of school in 8th grade, he was a self-educated man: an avid reader, not only of cheap paperbacks, but nonfiction books of all kinds, and scores of National Geographics that he’d quiz us on after giving us reading assignments. He knew more about history than my AP History teacher. Sadly, I lost my Dad many decades ago, yet after finishing this book—one of my most enjoyable summer reads—I can’t help but feel close to him.

I got the name, Big Sexy Novel, from Dean Koontz’s Writing Popular Fiction, published in 1972, where he offers advice for aspiring writers who wish to make money from their efforts. Kind of like writing-to-market advice media pre-internet days. Yes, I remember that time well. Was it better because I was young, like really young? Maybe a little bit, but to be honest, it was just better all around–a brief period of American history where freedom really did reign.

And the books were better too. Imagine reading a new book today that you literally can’t put down, even as the paperback is literally falling apart in your hands–I broke down and purchased the ebook–you don’t want to stop reading it. Eating, sleeping, working, showering–all tasks to be rushed through until you can return to the story. And what a story it is!

Imagine a beautiful—I mean beautiful—young French woman so bent on gaining revenge against the lover who jilted her that she aborts their child in the most painful way possible (for the baby) just to get even with him. And that’s only the beginning. That her lover is an impossibly handsome psychopath with a long-suffering, sweet wife willing to follow him to the ends of the Earth (and her own doom) only adds to the dramatic possibilities. Throw in an Onassis-style billionaire, private yachts and planes, Greek islands, and a nail-biting courtroom drama, and one can see why today’s potboilers can’t compare.

Oh, and did I mention the twists? There are many, each one more jaw-dropping than the last–right down to the very last page!

As the Garbaugust reading challenge is right around the corner, I’m filling my Kindle with more Sidney Sheldon novels, rereading Jackie Susann’s tomes, cracking the spine of The Carpet Baggers, and watching a Tyler Perry series, the closest modern thing I’ve found to the Big Sexy Novel. Tacky? Yes, but oh, so entertaining.

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My Midnight AI Confession

Back when we were shooting Gemini Rising during the digital stone age, I recall the habitual stoner guitarist Jah (beautifully portrayed by Matt Fischer) improvising a line of dialogue that proved to be quite prescient nearly twenty years later.

AI has become inevitable, and, like the switch from vinyl to cassette, I’m not sure how I feel about it. The problem is, no one asked me then, and certainly no one cares now.

It’s everywhere and has been for a while. But more and more, I see it encroaching on the creative space like some kind of Cthulian (try writing that one without spellcheck) vaporous monster. Apparently, you can write an entire shitty (romance? tee-hee) novel using it, upload it to Amazon along with an equally shitty cover, and rake in the cash. As an indie author who’s yet to hit “Shrimp” status on the 20Bookto50K Facebook Group, it’s, frankly, tempting to create a new pen name, feed the A.I. monster, and have it spit out next month’s PECO bill.

There’s only one big problem with that: it’s not why I write, not why I create. To quote a genius who’s inspired centuries of writers: I cannot heave my heart into my mouth enough to fake that. And also, I enjoy the writing process too much to take that leap.

So, have I ever used AI? Full disclosure, yes! I’ve run my prose through Grammarly for years. It’s good at catching errors that slip by my blind spots, although I typically ignore its stylistic suggestions. And most recently, I’ve asked Chatgpt to “tighten” the ad copy for some of my Facebook posts, and although it’s been enlightening to see how much I suck at writing ad copy for my own books–much too humble and beseeching, I see how my friendly chatbot assistant could be as seductive as a gorgeous secretary in a sleazy 70s potboiler when it comes to “expanding my ideas.” So far, I’ve resisted, although a reviewer recently accused me of using it in a book written before I’d ever heard of generative AI. For the record, I’ve always used em dashes (although I prefer parentheses).

It’s a weird time, and I’m not militant, like some of my peers, about other authors using it. I get it, and I also get that books written by real people are better. And speaking of sleazy 70s potboilers, I’m currently chewing my way through a well-thumbed copy of Sidney Sheldon’s The Other Side of Midnight and loving every minute of it.

Okay. One last AI confession. While burning the midnight oil the other night, I cheekily asked ChatGPT to create a portrait of the characters from my soon-to-be-released novel, Black and Blue Ivy. I fed it the character descriptions, asked it to make a picture resembling an old V.C. Andrews cover, and this is what it spit out. And frankly, I’m astonished (and frightened) at how closely these characters resemble the ones formed in my head now committed to the page. Dare I use this image in my promotional materials?

I admit, it’s tempting. Would I prefer hiring a real artist for the job? If I had thousands of extra dollars lying around I would, but I’m already spending hard-on money on actual cover designers, line editors, ad creators–real people with real skills whom I’m happy to hire for the job. But this picture is so cool. It sums up the theme and style of my story so well, and if it got eyeballs on my book… Again, seductive.

As you can plainly see, I’m somewhat torn. Are the La Résistance authors who blatantly refuse to engage in anything AI and who love to call out anyone who does the true heroes, or are their careers destined to perish on the barricades while the robots take over?

I don’t know, and I’m frankly a bit scared to find out. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your honest thoughts about this topic.

*No AI was used to write this post. All awkward phrasings and clunky metaphors are my own.

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See You at Blobfest Tomorrow!

Just a quick announcement to let you know that I’ll be at Blobfest tomorrow, Saturday, July 11—and I’d love to see you there!

Be sure to stop by my booth and say hello! My Book Worms partner, James Ippoliti, will be there with me, and we’ll have copies of Book Worms Horror Zine, several of my books, and a few other spooky goodies for sale.

We had an absolute blast at Blobfest last year, and we’re excited to be back for another weekend of wonderful weirdness.

So, if you’re anywhere near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, come experience the fun, soak up the wonderfully bizarre atmosphere, and don’t forget to stop by our booth to say hi. We’d love to meet you!

FYI, keep your eye out for the next issue of Book Worms, which is all about camp horror, slated for release soon.

I’m also thrilled to see my latest novel, Black and Blue Ivy, climbing Amazon’s Hot New Releases charts! If you love the twisted gothic family sagas of V.C. Andrews, I think you’ll feel right at home. You can pre-order your copy now ahead of its release at the end of July.

I hope you’re all enjoying a wonderful summer filled with sunshine, relaxation, and plenty of great books. Happy reading!

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New Release!

Black and Blue Ivy Is Now Available for Pre-Order!

If you grew up devouring the dark, unforgettable family sagas of V.C. Andrews, I have something special for you.

My newest novel, Black and Blue Ivy, is a gothic coming-of-age story filled with long-buried family secrets, a sprawling estate, forbidden love, and a young heroine searching for where she truly belongs. Inspired by the haunting atmosphere and emotional intensity that made V.C. Andrews one of my greatest literary influences, this is the book I’ve always wanted to write.

Without giving too much away, expect an isolated mansion, complicated family dynamics, shocking revelations, and plenty of gothic twists along the way.

Black and Blue Ivy is available for pre-order now, with a release planned for the end of July. I can’t wait to finally share Ivy’s story with you.

Thank you, as always, for your support. I hope you’ll join me on this dark and unforgettable journey.

Pre-order your copy today!