Tag Archives: Eric Nolan Mary Washington College

Don’t Look Under the Bed! Actually … scratch that. Go look. Look now.

“Under the Bed” is an outstanding horror magazine that pleasantly reminds me of the ones I grew up snatching off the newstands and begging my parents to buy me.  It’s a great source of horror reviews, interviews, news, opinion pieces, and much more.  For good old fashioned, creepy fun, check it out and peruse it just before bedtime.  Monthly subscriptions are just $1.99 an issue:

https://www.fictionmagazines.com/shop/subs/under-the-bed-monthly-subscription/

I was honored recently to have my supernatural horror story, “The Song of the Wheat,” selected for publication.  It will appear in Under the Bed’s next issue, which will be released on May 5.  Managing Editor Wednesday Lee Friday, who has a keen eye for story revision and who is a pleasure to work with, shared the issue’s cover image with contributing writers today.  (If you’re a zombiephile like me, you’ll love it.)

I’d like to thank Ms. Friday and her colleagues for allowing me to be among the fun group of readers and writers of Under the Bed!

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Dirty Dishes and Memory Lane

My big brother and Mary Washington College Alum, Russel Morgan, visited campus recently and took some terrific photos  — MWC has changed a LOT since 1994, but there are still many places I recognize.

The first picture is of the dining hall where I worked as a student employee — horsing around with the other kids, constantly drinking coffee and that sweet red “bug juice” punch, and adopting cookies, cheeseburgers and tater tots as staple foods.  It is also where I worked countless hours on “Dishline,” the assembly-line-like workspace where I and the other kids cleaned all the dishes that were returned.  Wow.  That was a lot of wet work.  I believe that I still smell of ketchup to this day.  I indeed capitalize “Dishline,” as it is both famous and infamous, and figured largely in the formative years of many past students.  If you attended Mary Wash and you know what being “on carts” was, then you are a “Seacobeck Alum.”

Also pictured, in the second photo, are New Hall and Alvey Hall.  (I’m certain new Hall must have been dubbed with a donor’s name in the intervening years since I graduated.)  The men and women I lived among here are among the finest I’ve ever met.  To quote the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, “I Accuse My Parents,”  “I threw some kickass parties here.”

In the third photo are Mason and Randolph Halls.  My college girlfriend (and possibly the sweetest person I’ve ever met), Kim Haun, lived in Mason.  That low-lying structure linking the two was a literal tunnel, where dorm rooms existed at the time.  (We quite creatively nicknamed it “The Tunnel.”)  Here is where I partied as a Freshman with Steve Miller.  (No, not the musician, Steve Miller — but the irony here is that my pal Steve was a huge fan of the eponymous star and played all of his albums while we sipped rum and cokes on the weekends.)  My college experience would never have been the same if Steve and his upperclassmen friends hadn’t taken me under their wing.

[EDIT — It was actually MWC Janet Walbroehl Winston who took these photos!! Russ, you scene-stealer!!!]

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Seacobeck Dining Hall.

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New Hall and Alvey Hall.

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Mason and Randolph Halls, with”The Tunnel” in the middle.

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Ball Hall.

FEET, DON’T FAIL ME NOW.

“The funk, the whole funk, and nothing but the funk.”

This song was recently shared with me by my editor in Britain.

If people abroad derive their image of Americans based entirely on this song, I am more or less on board with that.

 

They … tore down Chandler Hall?! I HAVE been out of the loop.

This is a picture from The Free Lance-Star in 2013.  It shows the site of my undergraduate psychology classes at Mary Washington College.

Perhaps the demolition of the building will finally silence the demons connected with that D I got in Statistics of Psychology in 1993. 

http://news.fredericksburg.com/newsdesk/2013/06/17/chandler-hall-to-be-razed-at-umw-in-fredericksburg/

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Another funny sent to me by a reader. :-)

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My Interview With Bunbury Magazine

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Bunbury Magazine, in the United Kingdom, about “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More.”  Bunbury is a beautiful online magazine focusing on the arts, with outstanding photography, artwork, poetry, short stories and interviews.

I had great fun with the interview, which included a lot of thoughtful questions, and more than a couple of fun ones.  

As “Dogs” is a post-apocalyptic science fiction story, the editors at Bunbury featured my interview in Issue Four, the Dystopian Special.  I’d like to thank Christopher Moriarty and Keri-Ann Edwards at Bunbury for their kind attention to a new writer, and to Reg Davey at Dagda Publishing for arranging this wonderful opportunity for me.

Enjoy the Dystopian Special here:

http://issuu.com/bunburymagazine/docs/bunbury-issue-four

 

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My best friend is a woman; I call her my Girl Friday.

What does that make me? Her Guy Monday? Guy Tuesday?

Nooooo … MISTER SATURDAY NIGHT.

“A character is never the author who created him.”

“A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.”

– Albert Camus

 

I love this quote.  (Thanks, Dagda Publishing Facebook page!)  I need to remember this the next time someone suggests that the main character in my book is an author proxy.

Or, as my Longwood High School pal Tim Gatto so tactfully asked, “Is Rebecca just you in drag?”

I will plead the Fifth, however, on whether or not any Mary Washington College pranks involved me getting into drag.

Just look at that handsome rogue …

This is the nutty friend who went to a party dressed as his favorite character from “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More.”

He’s the Army Major and cognitive ethologist at Fort Ronald Reagan who teaches wolf psychology and interrogates wolf prisoners.

And Special Animal Warfare Service Squad Captain Rebecca O’Conner discovers that there’s more to his work than she initially expects …

But that’s cool — because he’d “do anything for a fellow carrot-top.”

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Guerilla marketing for a guerilla war?

I am laughing my @$$ off!!

A college pal and a reader of “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More” is going to a party tonight dressed as a character!!  

I know exactly what the Special Animal Warfare Service emblem “looks like,” but I have zero artistic ability, so I cannot render it.  Maybe someday when I am wealthy, I will hire graphic designer John Celio to get it down for me.

Have fun, Greg, you NUT!!!  😀