Christmas Trees Suicide Girls Dreadfuls No Smoking and more

As usual, we're insanely busy. I feel like we're always driving in haste to get someplace. It's a good thing, I could be bored, right? We don't have much bored in our house. 

SG

First on the updates is that we got to go to The Suicide Girls Blackheart Burlesque in Seattle at the Showbox. The Showbox is awesome by the way. Very cool place with a domed ceiling and chandeliers all over the place. Oh, and the place has been a club for 75 years... That's insane! So on to the Suicide Girls. Picture this, wonderful tattooed ladies dancing around in sets of sheer modern day nerdy goodness. They did sets of Adventure Time, Donny Darko, The Little Mermaid, and yes... Star Wars! I mean come on, they came out to Die Antwoord's Cookie Thumper that totally set the mood. The show was better than I imagined and I would go back in a heartbeat so if there are any stops left coming to your town, you should totally go. It's pretty awesome. Oh, and their merch is pretty awesome too. 

This is "The Green Machine" WWE North West Heavyweight Champ. 

The Tree

We have been getting live trees since we moved to Washington. There's nothing quite like having that awesome pine smell floating through the house during the holidays. This year, we continued the decorating tradition with the purple lighted tree with 90% Star Wars ornaments. 

House

I saw my first random episode of House MD when I had a fever and was entertained by anything that was on. But this wasn't just an infomercial kind of blind entertainment. This was intriguing! Wonderfully flawed characters, weird medical mysteries and genius ways to solve those mysteries. Lizzie and I started watching more of them as they came on Oxygen or some odd network and we started to fall in love with the show but we wanted to see them all... in order. (Mind you there are 8 seasons with 20+ shows each) Well, Netflix had them all!!! So we did it... Every episode, in order and it was Marvelous! It was such a fun ride and honestly, I'm super sad it is over. I could watch it forever. But they wrapped it up very well and there were so many great twists! I put it on the top shelf along with my other favs, Lost, Twin Peaks and Firefly. 

Next Up

I love the American Horror Story series. Lizzie won't watch the latest one because of the murderous clown so I'll have to see if I ever have time to squeeze those in on my own. Somehow I missed the second season, Asylum... and it has Chloe Sevigny... So we started that and are zipping through pretty quickly. The first season is my favorite but they are all good. 

No smoking for me!

So as of today, I have been smoke free for one year and eleven days... I'm pretty excited about that as I really have no desire to ever go back. Yes, I'm still vaping but I feel so much better and there's no coughing, super extended sicknesses and I don't have to go outside every two hours or so, It's so nice to be done with that. 

Dreadfuls

Finally, our penny dreadfuls are in their final days on the holiday sale, so if you'd like to get them at a discount, time is running out. Enter the code holiday2014 at checkout and get your single copies or yearly subscription at www.thedreadfuls.com 

Cyber Monday Dreadfuls Sale

In honor of Black Friday/Small Business Saturday/Cyber Monday Lizzie and I are getting in on the madness with a 10% discount on your entire order starting today! We figure The Dreadfuls fit in all those categories, so get your single copies OR your yearly subscription with the additional discount now at: www.thedreadfuls.com

Just use the coupon code: holiday2014
at checkout to get your additional discount!

Who doesn't like getting good mail in the ole mailbox? Honestly, it's rare, so we can bring you something fun to brighten your day once a quarter. :)

If you like scary steampunk stories, naughty steampunk stories or fantasy steampunk stories, we have drqadfuls for you! What is a dreadful you might ask? They are small inexpensive publications with an original short story just like the old Penny Dreadfuls of yesteryear. They also contain tips, recipes, ads, and all types of fun information related to steampunk and Victorian culture. So head on over to www.thedreadfuls.com and get your copies or subscription today. We can deliver them to your door before the holidays!

Happy shopping!
Be sure to order soon so you can get your first copies of Naughty and Scary Dreadful before the holidays!

The 32 Days of Halloween

Every year during the month of October and the few days surrounding it, Lizzie and I make it a point to only watch horror movies in honor of our favorite holiday. Halloween! The awesome part is we get to discover a lot of good movies that we'd never give a chance before. This year was no different. we laughed at some and were quite impressed with the others. Here's the breakdown for 2014:

Anna
The Signal
The Haunting of Helena
Rosemary's Baby (the 4 hour miniseries one)
Silent Hill Revelation
A Haunting at Silver Lake
A Hunting in Connecticut Ghosts of Georgia (Yeah, the title confuses me)
Haunter
The Bell With Haunting
American Mary
The Awakening
Devil's Pass
Children of The Corn
Forbidden Girl
Bloodwork

Apparently, this was the year of the "Haunting" movies.

The finalists for the best of the bunch are:
The Signal
American Mary
Bloodwork
Devil's Pass

And the winner is:
American Mary
A weird, gory story of a med student that gets into the world of body modification not only for revenge.

The Big Loser for 2014 was;
Forbidden Girl
Talk about lame, and bad acting, overacting and not in a funny way. Just bad, so bad in fact, I can't remember much of the plot. Perhaps because there wasn't much of one. The pic below looks much cooler than it was.

So check the top 4 out. Although some of them might be a bit low budget, Bloodwork (Not Clint Eastwood) and Devil's Pass, were pretty cool takes on some fresh horror ideas.

Devil's Pass

The Dreadfuls

Lizzie and I are so excited to announce the arrival of our new website for our new quarterly publications of The Dreadfuls. The Dreadfuls are a fresh take on the Penny Dreadful but with new stories, new monsters and new adventures. 

We want to provide inexpensive yet quality publications every four months delivered straight to your mailbox that not only gives you fresh stories but also an array of new twists for your entertainment.

The Naughty Dreadful

Each issue of The Naughty Dreadful has a spicy (18+) short story in it as well as Victorian-esque tips for ladies. The first issue features practical beauty tips that may have been forgotten through time. To add to the excitement, each naughty dreadful comes with a custom sexy color photo shoot inside each edition. Yes, a centerfold if you will. But wait, there's more! To add to your ocular pleasure, every issue will have full color posters from the photo shoots with pictures not in the magazine (sold separately and once again quite inexpensive)

The photo shoots are done by some of the brightest and most talented photographers in the region, professional makeup and we feature some of the most red hot up and coming models in the industry. Lizzie wrote the first story, The Sanguine Deceit, a twisty yet sexy yarn about a mysterious woman that ends up on the doorstep of a lady inventor.

The Scary Dreadful

Want a little more chills in your read? The Scary dreadful features a braand spanking new spooky story from some of the best Steampunk and Horror writers in the underground and will feature custom art from new talented artists in every issue. I had the pleasure of writing the first story, called The Age of Wonder, about an private investigator in Lexington, Kentucky that encounters some otherworldly artifacts that lead him to a life changing and world altering adventure.

The best part is our website is NOW UP AND RUNNING! Check it out for more information on each issue as well as a store where you can get individual issues, posters and Yearly subscriptions for a very reasonable price!
www.thedreadfuls.com 

We debuted The Dreadfuls at this year's Steamposium in Seattle and it was a huge success! So, if you'd like to get something fun in your mailbox, check out an issue of The Dreadfuls at the website!

Steamposium

Sadly, 2013 was the end of the Steamcon, the con that started it all for steampunk conventions. That left a huge void in Seattle for a large steampunk-centric convention. I was overjoyed to hear that a new one called Steamposium was going to try their hand at it at a convention center right on the pier in downtown.

Like so many cons, I can't say enough good things about it. First off, the staff was shockingly amazing. This was Steamposium's first year and everyone was over the top kind and helpful in every way. The convention center itself was magnificent, a large beautiful place with huge windows, and easy access for all the events. We were located in the artist alley area, with the other authors and artists and I have to say we were pleased as punch to see so many of our old friends as attendees, panelists and vendors. It really was some of the cream of the crop all the way around.

We did well selling our brand new Naughty and Scary Dreadfuls and the entire con was so laid back. There was no pressure from any direction. When there was a slight parking mishap, the con's executive producer personally met us and helped us navigate to our space. For a guy that had everything riding on the con's success, he was the calm, cool and like the rest of the staff, so nice.

While we spent most of the days in the vendor area, we were able to catch the Firefly panel which was awesomely timed right when the vendor hall closed. It was such a treat to see Jewel Staite and Sean Maher speak. After attending we headed back to our hotel, changed and ran right back out for dinner at the once upon a time morgue turned Irish pub, Kell's. Awesome food by the way. We attended the late night birthday ball with music and bar.

We were able to sneak out and see steampunk model, Kato and her steamgirls in their custom made lounge and I got to meet Sean Maher! Yes, the wonderful actor that played Simon on Firefly and the inspiration for my character, Thomas Riley. I was nervous but he was so nice he quickly put me at ease and I was actually able to give the man that inspired Thomas Riley a copy of the book! I got a picture with him and as I was walking away, he stopped me and asked me to sign it... I about fainted. What an honor! Yes, I fanboyed a bit but it was such a great experience! I'll never forget it. And it was a super awesome treat to see John Strangeway, AKA Steampunk Boba Fett, our friend from Atlanta running around being amazing. He even took the time to do a mini photo shoot with the kids and sign pictures for them. We hope to see you soon John!

The con was wonderful and it was successful! We heard they are already planning next year. So stoked to go back. There's not enough thumbs up I can give the entire con.  Before this gets too lengthy, on with the pictures!

Check out this spot on the news about the con:

http://www.king5.com/media/cinematic/video/15064024/steamposium/

Lizzie looking amazing outside by the pier. 

Me with Sean Maher!!!!!

The Kids got to meet Jewel Staite! and her puppy Charlotte. 

Lizzie and her brother Brian in our hotel.

Me with the one, the only, the amazing Steampunk Boba Fett

The kids got to meet Kato and the Steam Girls

Lizzie by the fire escape in the hotel. Yes, they served free beer and we could walk around with it. 

A selected shot from the kids/steampunk boba fett mini photo shoot. 

Us with our good buddy Andy

A customer inspecting the centerfold for our Naughty Dreadful

Steampunk is for everyone

This lady Dressed as Jayne. Epic Costume

Advertising and Updates

First off I need to make a call for anyone that would like to get some free advertising for their project. Lizzie and I are working on a cool project that we will reveal at Steamposium in Seattle on Sept 26th. We're looking for anyone that has a book, project, movie, short film, website. store, anything etc... We will make your ad for you, we just need to know what you'd like to advertise and what you'd like to say in the ad. So please, anyone that would like some free exposure, shoot me an email. Hazeltherabbit@yahoo.com

We even did a photo that you're sure to like. Here's a behind the scenes shot:

Secondly Lizzie will be re-releasing her short Depths of Passion and she has a shiny new cover! We'll let you know when it will be available. Behold the awesomeness:

Ooh! I have a new author pic which I'm pretty excited about. My last one is quite old so it's nice to have an updated one. The cool thing is I should have new ones more frequently now.

In the next blog I will explain this.

Steamposium and more

Steamposium
Lizzie and I are very excited to be panelists and vendors at this year's Steamposium (Steampunk Conference) in Seattle! With the amazing Steamcon now sadly gone, we are so happy that there is a dedicated steampunk conference in our area. We don't yet know what panels we'll be on yet but I'll give a more detailed blog when we find out. Steamposium is going to hold a lot of cool things for us, Lizzie has a new anthology of her work coming out and we have two super secret surprises which I'm dying to talk about but can't just yet. If you're in the area we'd love to see you. The conference runs from Sept 26-28 and features guests Sean Maher (Simon from Firefly), Jewel Staite (Kaylee From Firefly) and Kato (Steamgirl) so you won't want to miss this is you can help it. Check out their site here.

Post Cards
My friend and author Mandi Lynch is trying to get 1000 postcards this year. So if you have a postcard lying around from your area or one from your travels, send her one. (Everyone likes real mail!) Here's her info-graphic.

The New House

I've been pretty silent on the internet lately because Lizzie and I have been searching for a new house. Due to our last landlord selling our old place early we scrambled to find a suitable new one with the quickness. We found a really cool gem an exit up from our old place and I'm happy to report we couldn't be happier. It fits our needs perfectly and it has a forest and a horse pasture. Pretty stoked since the woods around the house have trails and secret Narnia-esque clearings all through it. It's like our own playground/fortress of solitude all in one. So while I get back to blogging regularly, here are some pics of the new digs henceforth named "La Petite Ferme De Lapin"

Front views

Jay Lake

While this is quite late in the scheme of things, I wanted to make a post about the award winning science fiction/steampunk/clockpunk author and all around awesome guy, Jay Lake. I didn't know Jay that well, although Elizabeth and I were on a really fun "What is steampunk, clockpunk, cyberpunk etc" panel with him at Steamcon 2 in Seattle. In that panel, we came up with the quite hilarious "Coffeepunk" genre together. (I have pictures from that panel, but I can't currently find them.) Grrrr

About six months before Thomas Riley and The Maelstrom came out, I sent Jay an email asking if he might give a blurb but due to his health, he said he wouldn't be able to do it. It was the kindest and most thoughtful rejection I ever got. After that, I followed Jay from his blog and Facebook where I learned about his battle with cancer. He spoke frankly about his illness which I found brave and even as horrible as it was that anyone should have to go through what he did, his blog posts to be passionate and unapologetically honest. He gave an ultra detailed account of his experience with cancer, physically, mentally and socially. It's an eye opener for sure.

Sadly, Jay passed away on June 1, 2014 and I write this as a tribute, a thank you and a call for you to celebrate Jay's life and talent. Jay has a ton of good books and stories and I implore you to check his work out, whether it be his books or his blog. Rest in Peace Jay, thank you for sharing your talents with us.

Jay Lake's Website/Blog

Jay Lake Books

2nd Anniversary

The last two years have seriously been the best years ever. I've shared those years with my ultra talented, shockingly beautiful and generally all around amazingly perfect wife, Liz. This year our anniversary fell on the same day that Lana Del Rey was going to be in town. So when we found out she was coming, (one day after tickets went on sale) we found out it was sold out. So we went on the massive search for tickets... Facebook, Friends, Family, Twitter, Craigslist... anything. Nothin... As the day arrived we had one lead but we had to take our daughter to a reading party at school and they wanted to meet at 6PM (right when the party was) so that ended up being a no go. Then out of the blue we got a call from Yuki. Wonderful Yuki had been at the Sasquach festival all weekend and was pooped and "banded out" so she hooked us up with her tickets. SO nice! We were able to meet up and get into the theater so see the concert, which was rad by the way. I know Lana Del Rey is kind of chick music I guess, but I have no shame. I think she sounds like sultry Portished. And to top it off, we ran to the bar area (they have certain sectioned off areas where they sell booze and you can see the show) and they ended up closing it off so we kind of got this cool little VIP area to see her play.

After the show, we headed over to The Octopus Bar for late night drinks/food. The place was super cool decked out in full on old school sea ship stuff everywhere and playing 80s metal the entire time. I knew it was on when Slayer's Angel of Death came on. (I actually heard Annialator We had fun flat breads and rocked out with our brewskies. It turned out to be an awesome anniversary and I'm so happy we were treated to such a fun evening.

Sold Out Lana Del Rey

Us after the show

Lana

The Octopus Bar!

Dallas Comic Con

Last weekend Lizzie and I went to Dallas Comic Con! It featured almost the entire cast of Firefly with photo ops, autograph signings and a reported 60K projected attendance. It took place in the Dallas Convention center and upon arrival on Friday night we headed straight for the dealers room. My first impression was confusion. The pace was huge and under construction and well, there wasn't but a maybe few thousand people there total. The dealer room was quite large, think Gencon sized for those con going readers and I noticed there was a ton of kind of Fan artist style vendors. Of course they had all the regulars which was great but it was interesting to see that there were a ton of booths with custom t-shirts, art, and stuff that was basically unlicensed material that I guess falls under the "parody" section of copyright law.

Don't get me wrong, it was really cool and most of the stuff was well done. It was just different from what I'm used to. The likes of William Shatner, Stan Lee, and Nathan Fillion were guests of honor here. So it was no joke.

We attended the Nathan Fillion Q&A and the Firefly Q&A and both were so fun! It was so cool getting to hear almost the entire Firefly cast speak. Really, most of them seemed shocked that so many people still care about the show. That panel alone had 4500+ people that packed the room. Lizzie got her picture with Nathan Fillion which was a huge bucket list thing for her and it was so awesome seeing her get to meet him. We also met Tate from the movie make-up show, Faceoff. He was insanely nice which made us even bigger fans. We had a blast all weekend, ate good Tex Mex and enjoyed everything about Dallas and the con. (We even got Han Solo frozen in Carbonite ice trays!!) This was one for the ages. I love traveling with Lizzie, we always have a great time wherever we go, but this was just wonderful nerdy indulgence around every corner.

Lizzie and I at the Red Carpet

Lizzie with No Face

Lizzie with Tate from Face Off

Nathan Fillion at his panel

Fireefly cast at their panel

Ghost Busters!!!

Lizzie with Fluttershy

Cool Dragon Lady

The Fabulous Norwescon

We've never been to Norwescon in Seattle before but I'll start off with saying it was a really awesome time! We had no expectations and really had no idea what it would be like. First off, it was bigger than I thought. There were a ton of people and from the moment we walked in on Thursday night no less, the place was packed.

Liz and I set up in Authors Alley which is right in front of vendor room. (This always seems to work well when you are not actually in the dealer's room) We had super cool neighbors, Richard Beckham II, author of The Tale of Mu and S.C. Barrus, author of the steampunk novel, Discovering Aberration at the Fuzzy Hedgehog Press table. My only regret is that we did not get pictures with them.

The traffic was good and we ended up selling out of all our copies of Thomas Riley, Her majesty's Mysterious Conveyance and Dreams of Steam II. So it was a great con and we'd love to go back next year.

Tons of costumes, tons of enthusiastic people, insanely nice and patient staff, just a great con all around. The only thing I'm bummed we didn't explore more of was the night life. Apparently, there was a ton of awesome things/parties happening at night but we were so busy and beat that we had a drink every night and ended up heading home. We'll have to fix that next year.

Also, it's so great seeing old friends at cons, it's really the best part. This one we got to see Andy Rosenberg, Rick (Stark Raving Nomad), and Vilda Leusch.

So cheers for a great long weekend, great friends, and a great con. Very excited about next year! Thank you Norwescon!

Us with Andy

Battle of the forces

We got bubbles and entertained ourselves

Liz with Rarity

Rick and Andy had a drink with us on Saturday

Nuff said

End of the Con victory drink