Requiem for Spooky Season: A Mega Round-Up of Fiction, Theater, YouTube, Game Writing, and Things I've Been Doing

October is in the rearview mirror, now, but for me, spooky season is forever.

On November 24th, Wicked Women: An Anthology of New England Horror Writers dropped. It was edited by Trisha J. Wooldridge and Scott T. Goudsward with a cover by Lynne Hansen. The writers in it, among many, include Jane Yolen, Hillary Monahan, and myself. I'm ecstatic to be in such company.

I wrote the short story that was accepted to the collection, "Eyes Like Silver Dollars," some years ago. It was wonderful to edit it under the guidance of Trisha Wooldridge. I spoke about it at length with her as well as fellow writers Lola J. Clemente and Christine Lajewski, and the cover artist, Lynne Hansen, for the Wicked Women panel we recorded for Salem Horror Fest 2020.

You can find the specific "Wicked Women" panel here and other programming here! 

Please take a look. It was an absolute pleasure to be a part of this online convention, especially during the isolation of the pandemic.

If that's not enough for you, I did a reading for the fest, as well! 

It's actually from the beginning of "Bobbie and Her Father," my other short story published this year.

This story has garnered some delightful praise, which you bet I'm linking here for my own edification:

The father in the thought-provoking “Bobbie and Her Father” by Gillian Daniels is a modern Victor Frankenstein, and Bobbie is his creation. [...] [O]ne is left pondering many of the themes of Mary Wollstonecraft’s original: the consequences of one’s actions, the ramifications of playing god and/or trying to conquer mortality, and the fact that monsters are not born monsters.

- Paula Guran, Locus Magazine

The story is by turns heartbreaking and frightening, and while it is not without its death and gore, at its heart, it is a story of monstrous loneliness rather than monstrous rage.

- A.C. Wise, Shiny Shorts: Monster Summer 

The horror here builds nicely.

- Sam Tomaino, SFRevu

Oh my gosh. THIS STORY. It is a wrenching, horror-ifically funny, and devastating take on Frankenstein, all set in modern-day suburbia, and featuring the regular kinds of people that probably maybe live on any given street. Daniels's story twists and turns through unsettling scifi, to horror and dark comedy, into something that is almost (but only almost) heartwarming.

- Maria Haskins, My Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Short Fiction Roundup - August 2020 

 

Thank you. I'm so moved. I was so nervous when The Dark Magazine agreed to publish this story, but I should have realized the audience for it was there and waiting.

Speaking of readings, the YouTube channel TheDevilsInterval did a reading of my short story, "Older Sister." It was originally published in The Dawnline RPG with Voidspiral Entertainment in 2018. 

The narration is amazing. You should totally check out his channel and the other stories he's read and produced.

Last but far from least, I wrote a piece of theater/teleplay which premiered in October. It's called, "Let Slip the Dogs of RAWR XD" for our Catalyze Open House. It was a crash course in learning how to edit video, too, which was enormous fun.

Sienna is Kitty Drexel, an actress and my editor over at The New England Theatre Geek. Shawn is played by the excellent Joshua Berkowitz-Geller and Baby, the dog, is the esteemed Jenny Gutbezahl.

I wrote this with Catalyze Playwriting Group, which we premiered in the Catalyze Open House which I helped design, another learning experience that was fascinating and rewarding. 

I absolutely recommend clicking through to find the many Easter eggs my fellow playwrights and I hid throughout. One is a Twine game I made in the basement!

This is all to say, I've been busy and doing my best to take care. 

I hope you're taking care, too.

Speculative Boston Rides Again

Courtesy of  Speculative Boston and WGBH, here's a video of me discussing fiction with eminent authors, Nina MacLaughlin, Sonya Taaffe, and C.S.E. Cooney at Trident Booksellers.

It was a lovely evening. I know Sonya and Claire separately from genre conventions and Boston gatherings. They are luminous, wonderful people to know. I met Nina for the first time that day and she was a wonderful addition to the readings and the discussion. I was also happy to be a part of a full house with a deeply engaged, thoughtful audience.

Maybe the shelter-in-place/quarantine is getting to me, but this night was SO GOOD. I'm so pleased Andrea Martinez Corbin continues to give me the opportunity to host some fine, talented people.

Exploring Satellite Futures

I did a short play about Plutonian colonization, cults, marijuana, and co-worker outings called, "Real-Ass Space Explorers"! Special thanks to David Olsen and Arianna Smith for reading it and the Catalyze Playwrighting Group for workshopping this nonsense with me for our show with Flat Earth Theatre, Satellite Futures.

Hosting the Speculative Boston: Dark Fantastic Reading 10/28

Errick Nunnally, Bracken Macleod, and Isabel Yap read some chunks of their work on Thursday, October 24th and then I asked them questions! It was a lot of fun.

Many thanks to Andrea Corbin for her continued work running Speculative Boston and the WGBH forum for filming and editing the video below!

Fantastic Fiction Reading

Many thanks to fellow sci-fi/fantasy writer Amy Sarah for throwing her support behind me on Patreon!

***

On January 31st at Trident Bookstore and Cafe, I hosted fantasy authors Lyra Selene, N.S. Dolkart, and E.C. Ambrose reading for the quarterly Boston genre-reading series, Speculative Boston!

WGBH Forum was kind enough to attend and film, so you can enjoy sections of their books and me passing a microphone around while picking my way through questions!

It was enormously fun and I hope I get to do similar again.

Warning: Talk Show Violence and ANOTHER Post about Harry Potter

When we look back at the Harry Potter films in the next couple decades, I'm not sure we'll think of them as good adaptations of the books. They're very rushed where a mini-series (or several mini-series, ahem) probably wouldn't be and they often stumble with their CGI where an animated adaptation wouldn't.

I know I'll certainly remember the Gothic sensibility brought to the series. Hogwarts Castle always looked like a dark, winding place with shaded courtyards and chilly hallways (possibly just "courtyard" and "hallway" as viewers were probably treated to the same locations from different angles many times).

The books and movies were also pretty twisted and scary, now that I think about it. Schoolchildren move from a boring outside world to an enclosed, safe fantasy palace that gets progressively less enclosed and safe as the story goes on. The main character deals with newly heightened danger in each volume.

Is it so strange that an actor from the movies ended up developing a slightly macabre sense of humor?

Or, judging by Radcliffe's enthusiasm for his role in Equus (yes, I saw it when I was in New York; he was good), perhaps he's always found guts and gore wonderfully funny and we've all been too blinded by his squeaky clean version of Harry Potter to notice.


(NSFW video. Dead Daniel Radcliffe.)

Regardless, I think the actor's got a unique career ahead of him even if that head might be missing.

(You totally didn't see that pun coming. I just know it.)