"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This anthology is a few years old now but though it was time I brought the museum over to AuthorsDen where I have been home here since 2002 -- so I've been here for quite some time; this goes hand in hand with An Eye In Shadows.  This one has the punches of Tabloid Purposes IV (the fiirst one interacts with both.) It has more classics within the pages – I picked a bunch of stories originally in 2007 and this one was scammed by David “Doc” Boyer with a story by Ferrel Rick Moore which was written in 2003.  The story I wrote for Insomnia Magazine makes its United States appearance.   It was a lot of fun to edit this anthology and the writers took it in that spirit because it came from the outtakes from the Tabloid Purposes IV contest which I had going on WritersCafe.org.  Three writers made their first appearance as published writers within the pages of this book.  James Watts came from WritersCafe.org, while Tiffany Proctor and the alternate closing author came via FictionPress.com.  Everette Bell came via The Ethereal Gazette: Issue 12 and Matt Burgess came via the tenth issue.
       This anthology has the traits to make it something like Tabloid Purposes IV because it spun off the anthology and produced a sequel anthology.  I go this book at The Poe Museum’s library and it is an anthology that spans three centuries of dark fiction.  I included more authors and expanded the book to 302 pages - Tabloid Purposes in it's re-emgence is also 300 pages..  The original introduction is included from Jeff Skinner, and my story was included back in 2007 when The Literary Bone folded – that was supposed to be the US debut of the short story but I decided to make it part of my anthology instead.  Ghosts In The Tornado I picked up more dialog and became more natural with it.  I owe the story to A Stir of Echoes by horror great Richard Matheson.  It has a lot of obscure and lesser known stories from well known authors in the public domain.  The story that I picked that was obscure was The Temple by H.P. Lovecraft – that story was first published in 1919 so that made the story public domain.
      Nick Popio then of Lulu.com gave me a lot of the leads for Mary Shelley.  I included The Mortal Immortal with the reboot – it has more a woman’s touch like Tabloid Purposes IV.  There are a few female authors in the batch this time around. I want to include an online introduction to this anthology because it didn’t get a proper review on Amazon or goodreads.com.  The back cover from Lulu.com (as this appeared now as the CreateSpace.com version) has a handwritten synopsis.     I took the drawing from my main website for the anthology’s reboot – the rebooted version I wept when it was done because there was a lot of work in rebooting a project from a pdf file – I did that with Tabloid Purposes IV.  The cover is done by Alex Rivera of Tabloid Purposes 3 and The Ethereal Gazette: Issue 3 returend for Five and Six fame and appeared with me on Darkened Horizons: Issue 3. Tabloid Purposes 3 is getting a treatment to be moved in too -- it's going to take a bit as Rome or Chicago weren't built in day.
      I nearly picked Christmas 2007 as the release date for the anthology.  I wanted to have a strong cast of unknown writers for the anthology like I did with Tabloid Purposes One years earlier.  The inclusion of H.G. Wells was a no brainer.  Bram Stoker is a talented short story writer as he was a novelist – so I included The Seer and Algernon Blackwood which the story appears just after mine in the anthology.  I included some of my photography for the Table of Contents – it was covered by Joliet Herald News in 2011.(Those of you calling this a fluff -- fluff is when someone closes their bio up with having their cat metioned in the bio.) The reporter knew when these stories were picked had originally been published giving me information I originally didn't have. A newspaper affiliated with the Chicago Sun-Times -- you call a paper like that "fluff?" Now you make me laugh, something none of you do with me is your true research.  When I weighed in on Mary and Kealan, I did this at great length and indepth because it is my curiosity where the hell they originally emerged from -- I knew where Cherie emerged from, but she forgot where she came from in that sense of the word.  I don't understand why she snubbed off someone who she knew from the community as the moderator first, as my invitation was more to have everyone in our generation together in one book.  It's something that might not be able to happen again and also inviting those from the old neighborhood too. (When you snub someone who seen you grow in the channels, that means you took it for granted.)
       I want to dedicate the anthology to Nick Popio when he was then with Lulu.com as he was the horror moderator for his insight when it came to editing The Ethereal Gazette: Issue 12.  I was debating where to stick Jason Hughes.  He was an outtake from the 12^th Issue and I didn’t want to overpower Ray Faraday Nelson’s story in the magazine. I picked Thanxgiving to publish the issue because of the time sensitive material within the pages of the magazine.  The other story I included was one that Richard Matheson’s son adapted for Masters of Horror called The Damned Thing. Richard Christian Matheson is an inspiration on the horror genre that everyone in the genre respects as much as his dad when he was alive. (Go check out 3 O'Clock High from him if you want to see something he does of his own work.  All the Matheson kids have RBMs control, wit, and cleverness in their own traits. I find it very cool that R.C. is connecting up with Larry Farkas, someone who had been overshadowed by the heavy metal monster known as And Justice For All as I owned Once Dead from his first band Vengeance Rising. I sent Larry some of Matheson's books, Lovecraft's work and Tabloid Purposes IV.)
       This was originally a 4theluv publication I did entirely like I did with Tabloid Purposes One – the getting of the submissions was word of mouth and entirely from manuscript trading with other writers.  The most controversial story belongs to Jason Hughes because of the implied necrophilia. This anthology I announced the replacements on Shocklines when Boyer plagiarized Ferrel Rick Moore of White Cat Publications. I wanted to get the permissions to keep Electrocuting the Clowns but with Ferrel on board as part of the TOC.  I didn’t know it was a stolen story at first – I thought David Boyer wrote the story but BThoughtful pointed out that I was scammed by Boyer twice then was plagiarized by Boyer.  Each of the writers in the anthology’s reboot wanted to replace Boyer – I wanted to keep the book 200 pages originally but cutting two stories from the reboot was something I ended up doing. The original closer wanted out because of me blasting Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray when I announced the release of GAME OVER. My section known as articles and blogs you can learn about there are other plagiarists too as there are many Antichrists.
      This anthology along with other publications I did caught hell from a rival publisher saying that Jason Hughes was ashamed of being in the namesake after the fact he sent me a photograph showing the metal horns with the book.  I sent Jason the article about the Poe Museum.  I did the Poe Museum thing to boost the morale of the writers – I wanted something where they will have bragging rights.  That was the reason I did the sequel – the writers having bragging rights to be in the Poe Museum.  I not only got this anthology in there but I got the sequel (preparing this for CreateSpace.com) my memoir and first collection in the Poe Museum Library.
      I did an anthology that I wanted to read as a fan of the genre – something I could read on the commute to Chicago.  I am proud of each writer who took part in this anthology.  I was quite happy with The Ethereal Gazette:  Issue 12 because it was a group of friends in the business getting together and doing a publication.  That was something that came out and months in the making.
     This anthology had its growing pains, the idea to expand the anthology was something I never thought I would do – including a few more public domain stories and a few more modern writers.  The closing author is a newcomer in the genre that I am looking to collaborate with in the near future.  She wrote a story that is a holiday piece like William did with Tabloid Purposes 3 – except that this one covered Halloween.  It was a nod to Bob Gunner and his anthology series Cyber-Pulp Halloween Anthology 3.0 which featured a story by Mike Philbin within the pages of the book.  The comparative authors in the namesake anthology one are Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe (with Tiffany Proctor) and a few others in there.
      The finished anthology was designed to compete with Queer Fear and Queer Fear II – being it had no male male romance stories in there.  I didn’t want the anthology to be like everyone else out there.   It is just like Tabloid Purposes One in the editing process but it took more tools like Open Office to edit everything.  I didn’t have word like I did when I edited the second book.  I worked with one of the Naked Snake Press artists on the second namesake – I was surprised that Mick Mercer was willing to come on board to do the introduction.  He was my first choice when it came to the introduction, my mentor Bob Gunner was the second choice.)
     Jason Hughes getting him was a tug a war with the disgraced publisher of Panic Press who didn’t pay their writers and had a huge revolt.  The closing of Panic Press saw my comeback to doing anthologies – I worked with friends in the business and friends on AuthorsDen who followed me from my beginnings on this site.  I wanted to do the namesake for a long time – that is what I call the anthologies that carry my name in the title. The second namesake has a darker and more gothic story akin to Library of Bones called Wandering In Darkness which is a send up of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. This horror story I did the subject matter I read about while in college real justice -- and fictionalized the drunk bitch who screwed me out of taking my ACT/SATS. I always picured myself handing the sixteen years old version of me Tabloid Purposes IV saying, "This is who you will become." I worked with Terry “HORNS” Erwin on the second namesake.  Everette Bell was the alumni from an e-zine I got my start with back in 2004 that published my friends Mike Philbin as Hertzan Chimera, Kaileaugh Anderson, and Nicholas Tillemans.
      We all got our start from this e-zine in some form.  The second namesake carries the traits of The House of Pain E-Zine.  You are not going to see a Poppy Z. Brite type story within the pages of this anthology or the anthologies on Lake Fossil Press – though one author went on and got published writing erotica, and another writer writes as J. Corvis on a blog on wordpress where she publishes fan fiction of Golden Girls featuring Zombies. I owe my career to writers Nicholas Grabowsky, Richard Matheson, James Barlog, and Terry Vinson (I wish he was part of this anthology but time constraints kept him from writing a story for this – he reunited with me on Issue 12 of the Ethereal Gazette.  Wandering In Darkness gives strong nods to Terry and Jim here as Half Past The Witching Hour -- the opening story you can time line this with my signing at Gothicfest 2005. I related to this story because I almost worked in radio and have a cousin who at the time worked at Illinois Center of Broadcasting) This anthology, Tabloid Purposes IV, and ensemble that is the rest of Welcome From Hollyweird each has writers I discovered at one point.  Joline discovered me on a blog promoting Shadows on the Wall when she was with publishamerica.com. I really don't care if the suits in the business give me a lot of shit for going to the authors who work with those places as I am advocate for these writers -- a genre publisher for the people. And I don't like when one is the voice of the majority when they are the damned minority -- especially when they are Glen Ellyn Kid wannabes here.
       This project was a direct result of An Eye In Shadows and Damnation Observes was a direct result too here. So authors Mary Sangiovanni, Kealan Patrick Burke, and Cherie Priest -- sit down in my old Denny's in Carol Stream, Illinois, as you take the time and read this one because I am showing people where I came from here as an author. You three can use a little bit of humility as I invite the three of you to hang out with my friends from Bloomingdale, Roselle (as I still have cousins here and friends here too.) Glendale Heights and Carol Stream -- I did this project for them. Some stories I picked attributed to my life before my career online leading to my career in print and when I spent a year with the guys of Toruniquet on their board as Ted has a CD out that compliments this. ;My novella I am shopping around Stygian Dealer references stories from the second namesake and Coach's Midnight Diner giving strong nods to my rosters and to his roster.  Having this book in the Library of The Edgar Allan Poe Museum along its sequel and my first collection and the five year memoir joining it -- I don't think my contemporaries or rivals had ever did this, but the guys who are the rosters of my namesakes as I introduce James M. Watts who is a 1976 born author and a part time author who has more heart than all three of these writers put together.  He proud to say he has someone like Ted Kirkpatrick and my personal friend Nikk Dibs now of Dope as his readers -- I also did this for Tabloid Purposes IV getting IV in the hands of Larry Farkas.   I think it is fucking cool that my roster have have the high profile readers, they deserve it -- and it's not fair that these authors of my generation are excluding the rosters as they are their peers too here.
      And I want to do an ensemble roster for a friend's imprint I am developing that ties into An Eye In Shadows,  Issue 10, Issue 5, the second namesake, and Tabloid 3, as well as Tabloid IV.  The seeds of this kind of project were explored in 2006 where I was talking to my mentor, Robert Raven of Litrix how I could do an anthology that is a mixed era project where writers in the modern era are gently rubbing shoulders with long dead greats.
      This project -- here, my namesake -- became my most personal on the anthology input.  If you in the era who emerged around the time and fell in the life of An Eye In Shadows -- forget the lessons I taught with a book like this.  And this anthology and that book belong together.  If you guys in the industry sit down and read a book like this, you might learn something about me as my roster came to know me as my real life friends do -- as my roster intermingles with my family as Joslyn Corvis does with my mother and sister, the namesake guys intermingle with my magazine's roster and with my correspondents from when I was 19 years old.  They also intermingle with the Derleth family as April passed away in 2011 where the one of the authors in the peanut gallery mentioned said, "I am sure she's just being nice."  That is an insult on my friendships and integrity -- you don't honor the industry in this sense of the word as I studied from an institution and doing this kind of project.  It wasn't about the money as the money is good -- I could care less because money corrupts a man.
      Seeing my entire roster intermingling with Ted and his friend Les (he had to learn how to sing heavy metal vocals because this was not his original roots. Like my mother and step-father, he listens to The Beatles. But my mother being a young mother in the early 1980s.  She knew who Iron Maiden was, and a cousin whose best friend is a very close friend of Ron Holzner of Earthen Grave and The Skull.  I didn't feel it was right to have Ted buy the namesakes and Issue 5. Sarah Jezebel Deva said something very powerful of Ted -- she judges on creativity, not religion. I had to ask at some point where she lost sight of this. If you can offer your creativity to the world -- and you also have the literature base too, people will listen because you are approaching them as they are. I told him he had a hand in getting me discovered and learning of his Chicago ties, he's one of us here) -- I do find that cool as hell because what I did of an observation for his fans of our scene as Ted brought this with him.  The Edgar Allan Poe traits are known in Chicago as the death doom metal and black metal bands also have this
      Descriptive horror is our heritage in lyrical delivery -- I am doing an expanded version of these notes along with my tags with Edgar Allan Poe on tumblr.com so you can do further reading on him and for H.P. Lovecraft as you want to read more about him too.  I gave some insights about some of the aspects which fell into the era of my five year memoir as former classmates became friends with professional rivals here -- where they will not be treated as classmates. I am known for my friendships too and a lot of them for many years too.  I did the namesake to show these friends where I am coming from too -- some might ask about what are you talking about when you say the namesakes here.  When I speak of my namesakes as I call the Library Of Unknown Horrors anthologies -- it's because my name is in the title of the book (as you will learn more about Washington Irving's story and what goes with it .)  I became known for doing detailed analysis of my contemporaries and rivals just so I can see where I fall into it here and where I grew up. This anthology is sort showing them where I am coming from here.
      Support authors who appreciate being published a lot more because they beat the odds here, speak up up for the underdog and don't support the authors who emerged from my era who went on Leisure who took a BM on people who self-published and did everything independent of major publishers their whole career then turn around and published a book with a prolapsed rectum like those who came to make fun of lulu.com without knowing the history of a place. Those who don't know how to formate their books as this is re-introduced to CreateSpace.com as the second to emerge is the version I prefer selling because I fully designed it. I hardly had a title go out of print or some stories kept in circulation because I kept them going with my imprint.
      Those took a bm on people willing to do it themselves and willing to take the risk to do it. The reward is much greater in the long run -- the corporate sponsorships are well and good, but are you willing to look out for the people who grew up with you?  Are you willing to open doors for authors who might not have the avenues or the agents like I did.  Lulu.com allowed me to create my career as a publisher -- so those my publishing imprint is fake, or a scam.  It is like an Industrial metal act where it is one person willing to do themselves and go independent out of the box here.  So Horrorworld.org,  it's about time you guys gave me my proper due here -- because you don't see the authors you praise bringing their influences into their old high school or doing things like sending a title with a heavy metal band to show someone where they came from.  I never thought an anthology I did more or less as a Christmas present to my friends in Chicago or my cousins would take me a long way and become my most important anthology I ever edited.  It is as important as Tabloid Purposes IV and Quakes And Storms: A Natural Disaster Anthology.
      Ghosts In The Tornado era thrash for my friends on The Den. Crank this fucking thing when you are reading an anthology born in a bastard nation and I will give you a special presentation of a heavy metal band too -- they are from where history in Illinois started in 1858, as you are listening to Overkill on Youtube.com you can either choose that or put Khaos Ordinance on from Reverbnation.com too -- either way you're going to hear some loud heavy metal music......unless you are these guys who pick on Stryper. Heavy Metal music did much more than the King James Only Version Movement -- and I will see them commence the stoning at any time, Scott is credited for that joke. If Sarah Jane Ferriage aka Sarah Jezebel Deva reads this -- what I said wasn't out of bad blood or hatred; I don't hate you Sarah but when I saw your page I should had guessed what you were going through as I saw this with Melany when I was expecting Vinny in 1999. I invited you to Illinois for a month out of an act of goodwill. All of you who wants to read Legend Keeper, grab it here