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From the Winning Writers Website, http://www.prweb.com/releases/humor/poetry/prweb13602156.htm

S. Michael Wilson of Phillipsburg, New Jersey is the winner of the fifteenth annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. 4,834 contestants competed from around the world.

NORTHAMPTON, MA (PRWEB) AUGUST 15, 2016

Winning Writers is pleased to announce the results from its fifteenth annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. S. Michael Wilson of Phillipsburg, New Jersey won first prize and $1,000 for his comedic poem, “Dick Candles”. 4,834 contestants competed from around the world.

Jendi Reiter, final judge of the Wergle Flomp contest, said the winning entry stood out because it, “didn’t stop with the initial joke premise, but creatively expanded on it, at just the right length. The humor builds as the speaker’s language becomes more florid and sensuous, moving from embarrassment to excitement as he imagines different scenarios for making use of these phallus-shaped illumination devices.”

Second prize of $250 went to Christina Myers of Surrey, British Columbia, for, “Tampon Bullet, Direct Hit”. Reiter compared this poem to, “a modern-day ‘I Love Lucy’ clips reel, with one after another cringe-making and relatable moment of social gaffes. From the feminine product projectile that hits her junior-high crush in the chest, to losing her shirt in the car-wash vacuum when a cute guy walks by, our heroine is still a winner as long as she can laugh at herself.”

Ten honorable mentions of $100 went to Danny Caine, Sarah Crowe, Laura Docter, Michael Forester, Ralph Gagliardo, Debra McQueen, George Northrup, Michelle Reiter (no relation to the judge), Garry Somers, and Vicki Wilke. The prizewinners are published online. The judging was assisted by poet Lauren Singer. $2,250 was awarded in total, making this one of the largest competitions in the world for humor poems.

The Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest is sponsored by Winning Writers. Submissions for the 2017 contest are accepted online now through April 1, 2017. There is no fee to enter. For more information, please see winningwriters.com/wergle.

About Winning Writers, Inc.

Winning Writers was founded in 2001 to provide expert literary contest information and resources to the public. In addition to the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, it sponsors the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest, the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest, and the North Street Book Prize for self-published books. Winning Writers is one of the “101 Best Websites for Writers” (Writer’s Digest) and one of the “100 Best Websites for Writers” (The Write Life). Learn more at WinningWriters.com and join our 72,000+ Twitter followers at @winningwriters.

Just posted a review of Avatar over on the MovieSucktastic blog.

In some ways it is less a review of the film than it is a review of other reviews of the film. But then again, sometimes the reception a movie receives is more telling and/or interesting than the film itself.

Check it out to see what I mean, and feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts.

And yes, I kept the 3D glasses.

Avatar Review: Is “Not Bad” Good Enough?

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I’ve been pretty skeptical about Amazon’s Kindle Device, and the possibility of ebooks taking a strong foothold in the publishing world. Then I came across this article in Slate online. It looks like things might be moving in a certain direction, whether the market likes it or not. Take a look… The Kindle Revolution The Big Money

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Just got a copy of the cover to my upcoming book, Performed by Lugosi. Take a look and let me know what you think.

In the past, I have often found that many books and anthologies on unexplained phenomena and bizarre events are either sensationalized accounts with vague descriptions and no concrete details, or dry and uninspirational regurgitation of other source materials with more footnotes than original material. So it was with great pleasure that I discovered Robert Damon Schneck‘s book The President’s Vampire.

Schneck’s approach is far from exploitational. His attention to detail and devotion to searching out the truth behind the sensational and unverified leaves no doubt to the author’s curiosity or credibility. Exhaustive and well-documented historical research is devoted to every subject, even when possibly debunking an even more remarkable aspect to a story. But neither is his writing boring or overly-clinical. Schneck’s academic yet personal approach to his subject matter does not hide an almost uncontainable passion for the unusual and unexplained phenomena he writes about, and more importantly, it does not detract from how fun and compelling his writing is.

Most chilling and disturbing is the final chapter, Bridge to Body Island, an examination of a friend’s recollected close call with a supernatural bogeyman. Many authors would present the tale on its own with perhaps a few embellishments for dramatic effect. Schneck, however, tells the story (which is genuinely creepy and unsettling) and then proceeds to examine the possible explanations for the events that took place, including research into possible real-world connections. His historical and scholarly comparisons and explanations are as captivating as the story itself, and do nothing to prevent readers who have used a Ouija board in the past from losing sleep.

That is where Schneck’s approach to such Fortean tales as God Machines and Presidential Pardons for Vampires is a step above other authors in the field. He might not hold a flashlight under his face while leaning over the campfire to tell a spooky story, but that is because more often than not, the facts are far more disturbing. Robert Schneck delivers them, and thankfully so.

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Judge Shelves Catcher In the Rye Knock-Off – Arts & Living News Briefs Newser

It looks like I will be appearing at the Paramus Public Library on June 14 as part of BooksNJ 2009.

An event designed to promote local authors and the joys of reading, BooksNJ 2009 will feature a stable of over sixty authors, as well as readings, panels, and children-specific activities.

Arlene, the organizer of the event, has assured me that she will be placing me alongside another author that specializes in ‘weird and unusual’ materials, so I’m assuming I won’t be sharing a table with Steve Doocey.

I’ll be posting more info as it occurs, but you can also check out the event’s official website.

 James Herbert has been a solid name in the horror genre ever since the widespread success of his first novel,  The Rats, back in 1974. Seven books and eight years later, The Rats was turned into both the film Deadly Eyes (directed by Robert Clouse, the man who gave us Gymkata) featuring dogs dressed up like rats almost as convincingly as the titular carpet-covered canines in The Killer Shrews, and a Commodore 64 video game.

It is a pleasant surprise that the puppet masters behind the World Horror Convention, being held this year in Brighton, have selected James Herbert as the Guest of Honor. Never one to be influenced by his own success, many of Herbert’s books strayed from the boundaries expected by horror publishers and readers alike. His fourth book, Fluke (1977), for example, was a decidedly non-horrific tale of a dead man who attempts to reunite with his family after being reincarnated as a dog. Fluke’s concept was unceremoniously ripped off by Rod Browning in his screenplay debut, Oh Heavenly Dog! (starring Benji and Chevy Chase), and then faithfully adapted to the big screen fifteen years later.

Two other James Herbert novels were lucky enough (if lucky is the word) to make it to the big screen. The Survivor, his third book and first foray into the supernatural, became the first Australian film with a budget exceeding $1 million, and the last film to star Joseph Cotton. Then, in the mid-eighties, Herbert turned an unused BBC screenplay into the novel Haunted, which was then adapted into a screenplay for the mid-nineties film by the same name.

Since the fluke that was Fluke, James Herbert has never been afraid to mix it up a bit. Dancing back and forth between apocalyptic horror stories and almost storybook tales of the supernatural, James Herbert has always dared to go wherever the muse takes him, no matter what the accepted definitions of his chosen genre might be.

Some hardcore horror fans will complain that Herbert had forsaken horror for fantasy early in his career by not delivering the minimum amounts of sex and violence demanded by the blood thirsty horror genre devotees. But what the WHC has recognized is that deviating from the norm is what keeps things fresh and inventive.

There are so many horror authors out there who are happy enough to simply crank out novel after novel of the same format, until one is barely distinguishable from the others. I’m not going to name names. Okay, maybe I’ll mention Bentley Little. The point is real artists define the genre they work in, not the other way around, and James Herbert has more than made his own way. Hell, any horror author willing to turn a human-possessed squirrel into a reoccurring character in later novels is a force to be reckoned with.

It looks like work is finally coming to a close on the Bela Lugosi book. While the title is still tentative, the layout and texts are now entering the final editing stages.

This book takes a close look at a specific group of Lugosi films, those that were adapted from classic works of literature. In the book, eight selected Lugosi films are examined, dissected, and compared to the short story they were adapted from (reprinted in their entirety). A closer look is also taken at the evolving career of Bela Lugosi, as well as how it both effected and was effected by the roles he chose.

I am really excited about this project. I think that the mix of materials presented will be enough to capture the interest of classic literature, film history, and Bela Lugosi himself.

Right now, we are aiming for a July release date. Considering the numerous printing issues that unexpectedly delayed Monster Rally, moving its Halloween release to a Christmas release, it is a very tentative release date. I will be giving sneak peeks of the cover art as it is developed and approved.

Keep checking in. I have a feeling that this is going to be a monstrous year.

“Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer’s role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.” – J.G. Ballard.

This past weekend witnessed the passing of another literary legend, the cult legend J.G. Ballard, who finally succumbed to what was described by his agent, Margaret Hanbury, as a prolonged illness of several years.

J.G. Ballard is mostly recognized for the David Cronenberg film adaptation of his novel Crash, and Steven Spielberg‘s film adaptation of his novel Empire of The Sun. At least, that is what most news organizations will be listing in the titles of their articles about his demise. The actively r

“Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it.” – J.G. Ballard

Ballard knew the importance of publicity and how to sell material to a large audience. He was also fascinated by the way that the perceptions of modern people and societies have slowly evolved into something twisted and distant. In this respect, he probably would have appreciated the irony of announcing the death of an author of fifteen novels by listing movie titles.

While I have not read all of Ballard’s works, my favorite at the moment is Concrete Island, in which a wealthy architect that finds himself stranded on a highway median like a bizarre modern day Robinson Crusoe. A fantastic yet convincing allegory of humanity’s isolation in the increasingly chaotic cityscape of the industrial age, Concrete Island is a great example of why Ballard’s work is so highly regarded. With roots firmly planted in the sci-fi genre, his later novels have a way of presenting futuristic settings not as possibilities to come, but realities already recognized and achieved by a world quickly out-pacing its own existence.

“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.” – J.G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard was a rare brand of visionary, the kind that exposed us to the future that had already arrived and made itself at home within the confines of our own reality. He will be dearly missed, but his literary achievements, and even the films based on them, will never be forgotten.