Dave will be participating in an online chat tonight. The time is 7:00 pm Pacific time (8:00 MST, 9:00 Central, 10:00 EST) at The Lost and The Damned Message Board.  If you aren’t watching Monday Night Football and you have a few free minutes, stop by and visit.

Dave’s currently in the process of developing a short story course. Before he puts the finishing touches on it, he wants to make sure he hasn’t missed anything. You can give him a hand by answering a simple question: What single, most important element of writing a short story would you like to see in a short story course?

Got something in mind? Send it along to: David Silva

Oh, and for anyone who’s interested in being notified when the short story course becomes available, just drop him a note with your first name and your e-mail address. When the course is ready, he’ll send you an e-mail with all the details. Send to: Short Story Course

Thanks for your help!

I received a copy of Dry Whiskey from Lumanity Productions recently, and though I was incredibly eager to see it, I waited a week to sit down with my sister and husband for a viewing. Robert Budreau has done a great job turning the short story into a 21 minute film. He managed to hold onto all the emotional elements without losing the theme. It was quite beautiful. Wonderfully acted. We watched it twice.

The coordinators of The British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon have invited Robert to submit Dry Whiskey to the convention’s short film showcase. The convention runs Sept. 22 - 24. It’ll be nice to see what kind of reaction it garners. In addition, the short film has upcoming appearances at:

Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival: May 25 - 28 (Golden Sheaf Nomination - Best Drama)

Winnipeg International Film Festival: June 8 - 12

With a twist that would have movie fans walking out of the theater in disbelief, Hellnotes has gone through a third metamorphosis and is now being delivered as free content through a new blog format.

Hellnotes, a weekly newsletter started by Paul F. Olson and David B. Silva in 1997, was taken over in 2002 by Judi Rohrig. The change came after Paul and Dave achieved combustion after five years of trying to maintain the weekly schedule while keeping the quality high. Judi stepped in, offering to take over the newsletter because she believed in its contribution to the horror genre and didn’t want to see it die. She carried Hellnotes from 2002 until now, doing an unbelievable job and winning a Bram Stoker award for her hard work. Now, Judi’s decided the weekly grind has overtaken other areas of her life and she’s handing the newsletter back to Dave.

What does this mean?

On the negative side, it means Hellnotes will no longer be delivered in either an e-mail format nor a hardcopy format. Readers will have to visit the Hellnotes website (Hellnotes) to find out what’s new in the horror genre. Or, far more practical, they can sign up for the free Hellnotes RSS Feed, which will deliver the latest information directly to their desktop or browser.

On the positive side, Hellnotes will be updated daily instead of weekly, and there is no longer a yearly subscription fee. It’s now available to everyone as a free service.

Stop by and see what you think: Hellnotes

Since this is the genre Paul and I usually choose to work within, I thought you might be interested in the upcoming World Horror Convention. Here’s some recent news:

For the first time in its seventeen-year history, The World Horror Convention is being held outside the United States. With a theme exploring “The Diversity of Horror”, World Horror Convention 2007 will take place over March 29-April 1 at the Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre, located in the heart of Toronto, Canada.

Guests of Honour at World Horror Convention 2007 include British writer Michael Marshall Smith, the multiple award-winning author of such novels as Spares, Only Forward, One of Us, and the best-selling The Straw Men trilogy; Montreal-based author Nancy Kilpatrick, whose books include novels Near Death, Child of The Night, Jason X: Planet of The Beast and The Goth Bible: A Compedium For The Darkly Inclined; Chesley Award and World Fantasy Award-winning American illustrator John Picacio; British writer/editor/publisher Peter Crowther and Toronto editor and pulp magazine authority Don Hutchison.

Learn more about the World Horror Convention 2007 here: http://www.whc2007.org

I had two items on the agenda today. The first was to tell you about a new anthology by Delirium Press called In Delirium. It was a clever idea … get together a group of writers that had been published by Delirium, have each of them contribute a short story, put all the stories together and offer the book to Delirium’s Shane Ryan Staley as a gift of appreciation from all the writers. I wish the idea had been mine, but it was the brainchild of Brian Keene, who also edited the anthology.

The story I submitted to Brian was called “Watershed.” It was a reprint from many years ago, but I thought it still held up well. And apparently it held up well enough to make it into the book.

So I was going to tell you how you could pick up a copy if you were interested. Unfortunately, when I went to Delirium’s website (http://www.deliriumbooks.com/) to check out the price, etc. I discovered that the book had sold out in pre-publication. Still, if you get a moment, you might want to pop in over there and check out some of their other titles. Shane tends to publish material that’s a little more gruesome than I generally write, but there’s a good selection to sift through if you enjoy the horror genre.

The second item I wanted to tell you about is called A Little White Book of Lies. It’s published by Borderlands Press, as part of their Little Book Series. The concept is simple … pick a color, create a theme around that color, then add in some stories that fit the theme. White lies quickly became my theme, since it runs through so many of my stories, and these are the stories that I selected to be reprinted: “Fade In/Fade Out,” “Brothers,” “The Hollow,” and “Where The Past Lay Buried.” Sandwiched in between these is a new short story, titled “Never Far From Mind,” which fits right into the theme since it’s all about lying and self-deception.

Now, let me be perfectly honest with you … I’m quite pleased with the theme and the collection of stories that were built around it. However, the Little Book Series is unique in that the books are quite literally little. They measure 4 3/4″ by 6 1/4″. Some readers may find this off-putting. Others may find it intriguing.

A Little White Book of Lies comes numbered and signed, and sells for $20.00. You can learn more by dropping by the Borderlands Press site here: http://www.borderlandspress.com/white.html