Review Round-Up

The dudes at Booked podcast take on Experimental Film (http://www.bookedpodcast.com/287-experimental-film/). I must admit, I was a bit worried abut this in its initial phases...the part where they made fun of my name, basically. But then they really got goin', and guess what! It's a great review, check it out.;)

Pro-Tip

The latest sign of my presence on the Web: I did a Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You column over at Black Gate Magazine for Tina Jens, on the subject of "Plot vs. Character". You can find it here (https://www.blackgate.com/2015/12/13/things-your-writing-teacher-never-told-you-pro-tip-from-gemma-files/). Hopefully helpful! Like everyone else, meanwhile, the rest of my life has descended into a burning ring of holiday, so we may not speak again until 2016. Keep well.

Experimental Film: Unleashed Upon the World

So: Experimental Film is finally out, and I really should be cataloguing the response. Therefore, I'll start with the first official review, from Crows 'n' Bones (http://www.crowsnbones.com/2015/11/book-review-experimental-film-by-gemma-files/). I'm very happy with it, to say the least. And Alyx Dellamonica wrote a piece called "Five Fucking Great Things About Experimental Film," here (http://alyxdellamonica.com/2015/11/experimental-film-by-gemmafiles-five-fucking-great-things/). Very nice indeed, as was Helen Marshall putting Experimental Film onto her part of the Weird Fiction Review Best of the Year list (http://weirdfictionreview.com/2015/11/end-of-year-book-list-2015-edition/). She also talked about it on Facebook, as did my Mom. People continue to talk about it generally, which rocks.

Also, and I can't link to this, unfortunately...Laird effin' Barron reviewed the re-released ebook version of my first two collections that just came out from CZP, in Locus magazine. Thanks to a friend I have a scanned version, but it's very difficult to copy/paste anything from, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it is a KICK-ASS double review. It makes me feel ultra-special.;)

Meanwhile, two very neat reprints: "The Emperor's Old Bones" at Nightmare Magazine (http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/the-emperors-old-bones/), along with an Author Spotlight interview I only vaguely recall doing (http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-gemma-files-2/), plus "Signal to Noise" at Apex (http://www.apex-magazine.com/signal-to-noise/). And Dejan Ognjanovic was wonderful enough to run all the stuff he had to cut out of our interview for Rue Morgue's Lovecraft issue online, here (http://www.rue-morgue.com/#!Why-is-LOVECRAFT-still-relevant-Seven-experts-weigh-in/cjds/5654c8140cf2b6a6e93156c2). Thus far, only one person has called me a "parasite" for continuing to write Lovecraftiana even though I feel able to acknowledge both Lovecraft's continuing influence on horror and his frank racism without my head exploding, for which I'm grateful. We'll see how it goes, I guess.

That's all for now. I'm trying to rough out the next novel, which is exciting and terrifying. Got to turn things around fast, these days.