Tag Archives: Eric Nolan

Zombies, time travel, small towns and scary sewers — check in with me at The WIP Blog Tour!

Hello, all!

I’m honored to be able to report tonight that I’ve been accorded a rather nice honor by my fellow novelist and poet, A.K. Hinchey – nomination for The WIP (Work In Progress) Blog Tour. Ms. Hinchey is a lovely voice and a friend from across the pond, hailing from Lancaster, Britain, where she is a prolific young writer and also the busy mother of a new baby girl. Her publications include short fiction in Dagda Publishing’s “All Hail The New Flesh,” as well as Dagda’s 2013 poetry collection, “Threads.” She has completed her first novel, “Incarnate,” and is hard at work on its sequel, “Bound.” She is also a terrific supporter of the independent publishing community, with in-depth reviews that introduce readers to new voices. To get a little better acquainted, check out Ms. Hinchey’s writing blog, “The Torn Page,” right here:

https://akhinchey.wordpress.com/

The WIP Blog Tour lets readers and writers catch up with one another. When nominated, indie authors can update the community about what they are working on, and share excerpts to whet their appetites. Authors are then asked to nominate a few of their peers. Read about it here:

WIP Blog Tour – Bound, Incarnate, Teasers and More

I’m happy to say that I am still hard at work on my prose. While Dagda Publishing and Dead Snakes have been kind enough to share more of my poetry, my major works in progress include two books. The first, of course, is the sequel to my post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More,” published by Dagda. While “Dogs” was primarily a character study of Rebecca O’Conner and her role in the global war between humanity and super-intelligent wolves, I hope that this new book will change the series’ pace and tone, with more action and horror to turn this into a frightening war epic.

Another project that I am quite excited about is a collection of short fiction. I began this project after being encouraged by colleagues in the community, and let me tell you, it’s great fun. “Dogs” and its sequel gave me an opportunity to take a single fictional universe and explore it in depth. But working on short stories gives me plenty of new sandboxes in which to play.

What’s ahead? Well, some of the stories will be traditional horror tales, while others will be darker mainstream fiction. We’ll take a look at what happens when time travel goes disastrously wrong, and consigns one woman to a truly unique hell. We’ll join a pedophile and child pornographer on his thirsty hunt through New York’s Penn Station – then watch as his plans go delightfully, horribly awry. We’ll tremble alongside two members of the New York City Department of Pest Management, as they discover unexpected threats in the labyrinthine subways. We’ll visit an ostensibly idyllic Virginia town, where a supernatural danger segues sadly into a horror that is all too common in the real world. And, for good, old-fashioned, gorehound fun, we’ll take a detailed, blow-by-blow look at what happens when spirited average Joes defend a supermarket full of customers from a ravenous zombie swarm.

And more. If you’ve enjoyed my writing before or want to take your first journey with me, rest assured, I do hope to please you.

Well, The WIP Blog Tour invites participants to share three lines of their work in progress. I thought I’d share the first three lines from the above-mentioned time travel story. Its title is “Today, Tomorrow, the Next Day and Forever” (c) 2015 Eric Robert Nolan.

(And, what the heck, I’ll make it four lines.)

I am going insane. I have watched my husband burn to death at least 500 times.

It always begins the same. It begins with beauty.

(c)  2015 Eric Robert Nolan

I’d like to thank AK Hinchey for nominating me for The WIP Blog Tour! I’m always grateful for her attention, and this was a lot of fun! In the meantime, be sure to check in here for my own nominations for the tour. 🙂

A veritable flood of ideas for short stories —

— characters, motivations, voices, plot connections.  Their lives touch or intersect when an overarching mystery threatens them all.  I can hardly write fast enough to get it all down.

And yet … I can’t manage a single word of poetry.  Assonance, aliteration, metaphor … I reach and it’s just not there, which has never really happened before.

The human brain is a strange thing.

Anyway, alums … with the above, I am starting what I hope will be a set of five closely connected short stories — Mary Washington College will be in the backstories of many characters (i.e., college students on holiday break).

What on earth was my COSTUME supposed to be?!

Burn victim?  Zombie?  Guy at the zoo at whom the monkeys accurately threw their feces?!

Anyway, this is me, circa … 1989 or so, at a Halloween party at Carrie Schor’s house (then Carrie Harbach) in Lake Panamoka, New York.  Carrie always did throw the funnest parties at her house.

I lament this picture a bit because, as a child, I had a veritable FLAIR for Halloween costumes — you should have seen my incredible homemade Ghostbusters costume in 1985.  It was the toast of Lake Panamoka.

But the makeup job depicted above just speaks of minimal effort.

The young lady pictured is Julianne Whitehead, another Longwood High School Alum, a great old friend, and one of the coolest girls I have ever been privileged to know.

Thanks for the photo, Carrie!!

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A quick review of “Family Guy: It’s A Trap!”

I’m blogging some of my earlier reviews from Facebook:

*****

“Family Guy: It’s a Trap” (2010) is funny as hell and lampoons “Return of the Jedi” (1983) perfectly; I’d give it a 9 out of 10.  This is right up there with a decent episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in terms of how much it made me laugh.  As with the other “Family Guy” satires of “Star Wars,” I was also impressed with how it used conventional animation and CGI to seemingly reproduce scenes shot for shot.

The only thing the detracted from this was the consistent potty humor (not really my thing) and one apparent joke that is too tasteless even to describe.

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This movie was possessed by the demon of bad film-making.

I am blogging some of my past movie reviews from Facebook.

*****

Allow me to summarize those portions of “The Exorcist II: The Heretic” that I was able to watch before needing to turn it off:

  • A still-too-young Linda Blair tap-dances braless on stage, with short-shorts that are nearly illegal.
  • Louise Fletcher is a therapist who treats patients with a machine that actually allows people to literally enter the subconscious minds of others. Nevermind that a technology like this could revolutionize the human experience, especially with respect to psychology, art, literature and religion.  It is quietly tucked away in a treatment center for children with autism (where, for some reason, a psychological trauma victim is also being treated).
  • A giant , sentient, demonic locust chases wildebeests across the African veldt. James Earl Jones gets pissed andmagically turns into a leopard.    This was a thing.  This happened in the movie.

WHY did I not just turn it off?!  WHY DID I NOT JUST TURN THE MOVIE OFF?!?!

(Perhaps I was possessed.)

Exorcist II The Heretic (1977)

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Publication Notice: Dagda Publishing Features “A Muted Iris”

I am honored to have my latest poem published by Dagda Publishing!

Enjoy “A Muted Iris.”

http://dagdapublishing.co.uk/2014/10/15/muted-iris-2/

Publication Notice: Microfiction Monday Magazine to feature “Girl’s Best Friend”

I received some great news today from Editor Gayle Towell over at the online Microfiction Monday Magazine — they will be publishing my flash fiction horror story, “Girl’s Best Friend,” on October 20th.

In advance of Halloween, the magazine was seeking horror stories of 100 words or less.  It sounded like a fun challenge, so I gave it a shot.

Microfiction Monday Magazine is a great online publication that specializes in bringing busy readers brief narratives that nevertheless tell a compelling story.

Check it out here:

http://microfictionmondaymagazine.com/

Publication Notice: Dead Snakes features “Girl On A Film Screen”

I’m honored to have another poem, “Girl On A Film Screen,” published over at Dead Snakes.

Dead Snakes remains a terrific place for newer authors to find an audience.  It is quite easy to submit, and Editor Stephen Jarrell Williams always seems to have an encouraging word for contributing writers.

Here is the poem:

http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2014/10/eric-robert-nolan-poem.html

America’s Best Small Town.

The following are pictures of Culpeper, Virginia, which I was lucky to see again, even if it was only briefly, on the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains this past Labor Day weekend.  (There was a time I would name Fredericksburg as America’s best small town, of course, but I’m not sure that Fredericksburg meets the definition of a small town any longer — more on that in the future.)

I remember Culpeper fondly indeed.  I found my first job after college here — working as a reporter for the Culpeper Star – Exponent newspaper.  (Third photo.)  I lived right on Main Street, which is pictured in the first two photos.  It wasn’t New York, but it was a warm community of good neighbors that I was lucky to join.

Yes, I did say newsPAPER.  There was time, kids, when news was actually printed in ink on a refined paper product that required hand delivery to your home.  Either that, or you could purchase it from a mechanical metal box on the street corner.

Check out the fourth photo of Mount Pony at the edge of town– this is something my friend pointed out to me.  (I know you can hardly see it — the picture is blurry because taken from a moving car.)

Until nearly the end of the Cold War, this was a 140,00-square-foot, federally operated “continuity of government” facility, housing people underground and designed to keep our government going in the event of a nuclear war. There were dormitories, food supplies and wells, protected from blasts and radiation by steel-reinforced concrete and lead shutters — it even had an indoor pistol-range and a helipad.  There were also just billions of dollars housed there by the Federal Reserve, to jump-start a post-apocalyptic economy.

It was decommissioned in 1992, and was bought in 2007 by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. It’s now a national film archive operated by the Library of Congress, with more than 6 million pieces of original film and television artifacts.  (Apparently old film stock can be dangerous to store, because it’s extremely flammable?)  It’s open to the public, and has its own theater that screens classic films for free  — it even has an organ that ascends to the screen when the theater shows silent films.  The Library of Congress has a running schedule right here:

http://www.loc.gov/loc/events/#eventlist9

That sounds pretty damn cool.  I’ve been dying to see a bunch of silent films I’ve never seen (particularly “Nosferatu” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”)  I might try to take a trip out there if they screen any such vintage movies around Halloween.  Because seeing classic horror films in an underground facility designed for the end of the world has got to be a unique experience.

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I wanna be your go-to flick-nerd.

If you enjoy my movie or television reviews, follow “ericrnolan” at the Internet Movie Database:

http://www.imdb.com/user/ur52622160/comments