The Kitty Killer Cult hits America this week. Barnes & Noble is running front of store promos for the book and its prequel in their top 110 stores (tabletops, front of stores, that kind of thing) until February 8th.

Even the printer (Scotprint) felt the need to comment on the new novel... a very rare phenomenon, a printer actually reading (and enjoying) a book he's printed. Here's what he had to say:

'Started reading Kitty Killer Cult last night, very good, loved description of Cole's gym equipment.'

Intriguing, eh?

I’m honored to be guest of, er, honor at a cult film festival tonight. The Good, the Bad & the Uglier runs at Charleston’s Calhoun Library Auditorium, showing gems like American Movie and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

The fest offers audiences the chance to see some fun, oddball films on the big screen, the way they should be seen. I’ll be introducing Bubba Ho-Tep, the independent fave that features Elvis battling a giant cockroach.

The flick will run after The Mummy Strikes, a Fleischer Superman short from 1943. By the time this $30,000 cartoon was released, Universal had made 3 mummy movies with more on the way, so bandaged baddies were a hot subject. The toon used many of the same conventions, phrases and sound effects as the radio show that preceded it – it even uses the same main actors, Joan Alexander and Clayton ‘Bud’ Collyer as Lois and Clark.

This Superman is clad in darkness, which helps us o forgive the shortcomings of the ‘40s artwork. No wonder the guy squints all the time. The Mummy Strikes features some unusual mummies, with more flesh and more vivid expressions on ‘em than you’ll usually see on the big screen.

Bubba Ho-Tep is a festival darling directed by Don Coscarelli. His Beastmaster movie ranks just behind Gone With the Wind in the Turner cable ratings, but he’s best known for Phantasm 1-4, a series of horror movies with balls. When the filmmaker heard that writer Joe Lansdale was hot in horror fiction and that his work always had a high body count, he decided to make a faithful adaptation of his short story. It was worth the effort – his screenplay was recently nominated for a Bram Stoker Award by the Horror Writers’ Association.

Cult star Bruce Campbell was recommended by Spiderman director Sam Raimi. Bruce fondly referred to Bubba Ho-Tep as ‘the dick movie’, because his character has a growth on his pecker.

This is the best movie ever made about Elvis and JFK in a retirement home battling giant roaches and a mummy with a penchant for cowboy hats. It’s odd, hilarious, the acting’s great, the gags work – check out the subtitles - and it’s poignant, too. The Festival punters are in for a real treat.

The author back when he was running Fierce Films, his film production company in Scotland. He was a complete luddite then and he still is now.

Bizarre Headline of the Day must be Teaching Robots to Herd Cats.

According to Wired News, boffins at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pennsylvania and Caltech keep losing their scout robots. This would prove unhelpful if the ‘bots were ever used in search and rescue missions, as intended.

Maybe I’m a luddite, but I couldn’t see the relation between robots that can’t be tracked with a GPS and cat herding. Maybe the temptation of writing such a great (though totally irrelevant, apart from the robot part) headline was too much for reporter Michelle Delio.

Is there no geek out there who can put me out of my ignorant misery by explaining the connection to me?

Six copies of my new novel, The Kitty Killer Cult, arrived in the mail yesterday. Henry the postie had stuffed them into the mailbox so tightly that I had to wiggle, wrench, then lift them out.

Author’s copies of a book don't arrive all that often, so their appearance is always worth noting. In my dim, distant pre-published days, my yardstick was the scene from Back to the Future where George McFly’s box of books arrive hot off the printing presses. I used to dream that would happen to me one day. It never quite turned out like that – George’s box hasn’t been sat on and bent out of shape by the mailman – but this is real life, not Hollywood, after all. I need to keep reminding myself of that.

Anyway, the books are here, all the pages are in the right order and the cover looks suitably classy. What more could I ask for?

They (whoever they are) say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just 'cos a dessert looks good, it doesn't mean it won't taste like coyote crap. A lot of publishers seem to put overly simple or poorly illustrated covers on their books because they know it's the inside that counts.

Now you can get a glimpse of my insides by checking out a sample from The Kitty Killer Cult (click on "read inside"). The opening pages form a little story of their own. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Thanks to Get Fuzzy cartoonist Darby Conley for saving me from a life in Dell Hell.

His series of strips involving the woes of having to use, ahem, Dull’s equipment and services convinced me to buy from my local box pushers instead. Way to go, Darby.

Theatre Run entertained Spoletians with their wild, crazy play, Horror Vacui.

Now’s the time of year to look forward. Tough. 2004 marked my first full year in the USA, so I wanted to share some of my experiences with you. Apologies in advance for the self-centered nature of this blog.

JANUARY: The year began with my first US TV interview. Boo Shepherd, host of Orangeburg Inside/Out, invited me to her studio. I did okay, but I couldn’t tell Boo what my favorite movie was. She might as well have asked a vampire about his best-loved blood type.

The Writers’ Studio was set up at Folly Beach, and the resulting scripts were performed by my drama students at Actors’ Theatre of South Carolina workshops. Most of the time the writers liked what the actors did with their work, fleshing out the dialogue and enabling the scribes to hear what they’d written. Mind you, one of the writers felt like slapping a couple of the actresses after a particularly languorous reading.

FEBRUARY: The Actors’ Theatre began filming and rehearsals for A Folly Twelfth Night. I directed many of the digital sequences that would be projected behind the actors, filling in details about the story and hinting at their dreams and imaginings. This is an element that we’d used in 2003 (for Breaker Morant) and would use again later in the year. I also played Duke Orsino and filled in as director for one of the run-throughs, as well as teacher for an advanced acting workshop.

MARCH: The Charleston City Paper held its Best Of Party at the Aquarium. Every year the paper culls votes on the best of everything we can think of – stores, people, events and activities. I hope to film a documentary at the Aquarium eventually. The Tides of March renaissance festival at Folly Beach featured the Twelfth Night show; the matinee confused me, because daylight streamed through the windows and I could see the audience’s faces. I’m used to being blinded by stage lights, so that I can’t see anybody scrutinizing me. Imagining the Mayor in his underwear didn’t help.

APRIL: At the end of a semester, my drama students usually have a showcase. It gives them something extra to work towards, and we invite friends, family, agents and producers to the event. The actors get feedback on their work, and we screen filmed scenes as well as presenting live segments. The first showcase of 2004 included variations on scenes from Thelma and Louise, Valmont, The Tenth Kingdom and Everwood. I was also busy that month signing copies of my first novel Milk Treading at Books-a-Million and I was interviewed on local radio, managing to squeeze in a plug for the Folly Felder Film Festival asking for entries.

MAY: Every year Charleston is beset by Spoletians, a unique race of tourists who attend a major arts festival in the city. Spoleto has its fringe festival, Piccolo, which included the first Film Festival. Preparing the festival took up a lot of my time, but I was also previewing and reviewing shows such as Horror Vacui for the City Paper and I even managed to squeeze in a couple of preproduction meetings on commercials for Summerville Sheriff Ray Nash’s re-election campaign (he won).

JUNE: The Film Festival took place, complete with red carpet and awards (The Perfect Proposal by Brandon McCormick and Randy McDowell won the Golden Palmetto). In Edisto I filmed segments for an Actors’ Theatre play called Mary Shelley: Creature of Fire, set in the Villa Diodati. I also took my first vacation in years, and visited my second United State (Georgia) and my third (Florida).

JULY: This month marked my family’s first Independence Day spent in America, and I began filming for South, a fancy Civil War-era play. I was co-director although my friends preferred to call me the assistant director, presumably because I’m so lazy.

AUGUST: While my wife Ros attended the Toledo Film Conference and rubbed shoulders with Easy Rider cinematographer Lazlo Kovaks, I continued rehearsals for South.

SEPTEMBER: South was performed at the Lucas Theatre in Savannah for a weekend. Yep, those few shows took up the whole month.

OCTOBER: South arrived at Charleston’s Sottile Theatre and the South Carolina Writers Workshop published Catfish Stew (I was one of the judges for entries). The Weird Sisters made an appearance at The Citadel in an adaptation of their scenes from the Scottish Play (I dare not write its name, you know the one I mean).

NOVEMBER: My 4-year-old son Sam collected a First Steps art award for best collage. He wasn’t content with his trophy, because another boy won two. The Lowcountry Senior Centre had its own acting showcase, and I reckon I grew a few years older myself trying to put together with extremely limited time and resources.

DECEMBER: While I lied to kids for a living playing Santa, preproduction began for Captain Felder’s Cannon, an ambitious feature-length project. The Kitty Killer Cult (my second novel) went to the printers and rehearsals began for Trainspotting.

All in all, a pretty quiet year. A happy new one to you all.

'You're so brave,' people said to me when I told them I was emigrating. 'It's such a big move.' I didn't know what they meant. What could be so brave about moving from England to Charleston, where my language is spoken and the people are famed for their courtesy and good humor?

It is a big move, right enough. I've left everything behind. Accompanied by my wife, son, cat and four suitcases, I've had to start from scratch, setting up a new home and making new friends. But I'm used to moving around and I don't get homesick. How hard could it be?

Our sponsors warned us that it would take time to adjust, that we'd go through phases: a honeymoon period followed by periods of isolation and frustration before we settled down. Knowing about these phases I smiled, sure that I could remain aloof. The whole experience would be a big adventure.

We arrived without a hiccup, my wife settling into her work as a nurse at MUSC and my son starting daycare. We were struck by Charleston's beauty and the friendliness of our neighbors. Then the honeymoon period ended. I got a tense feeling in my gut, a certainty that something terrible was going to happen. I stayed in my apartment most of time, drove as little as possible, phoned home a lot. The minute disparities were outweighing the similarities between our two countries - different laws, money, slang, scams, expectations... I wasn't in control any more; anything could happen to my family.

In my overwhelmed state I began to do stupid things I never would have done back in England. I lost my wallet (twice), locked my wife outside the apartment and locked my keys inside the car (my friendly neighbors broke in for me). And then I realized that life had been just as precarious in the UK. I simply hadn't known it because I'd lived there all my life, aware of the rules and cocksure on my own little island, in my own little world.

Now the stakes are bigger and maybe some of the risks are, too. But everybody else gets by, so why shouldn't I? Am I brave as I settle down here? No. Am I delighted? Yes. I've finally found a place that I can love enough to call home, no bravery required.

A less maudlin version of this blog appeared in the Charleston City Paper a while back.

Book Banter

You can read a nice article about my adventures here at the Book Banter website. It's a new, impressive little venture for my publishers.

'Book Banter is an occasional newsletter from Luath Press,' says the ed, 'containing news, reviews and features. 50,000 printed copies of Issue 1 have been distributed. The aim of Book Banter is to raise awareness of books and writers published by Luath, and to enhance sales.' Oh yeah, that too.