Dennis Latham: Life, Fiction, and the Pursuit of Madness

The original from Pagefree Publishing in 2001. My novel from 2001 is listing for over 10,000 dollars for a used copy in the rare book section of Alibris. That version is out of print, and I never expected it to be valuable. When I wrote the original short story in 1973 and sent it to Isaac Asimov, he told me to turn it into a novel, which I finished in 1991. Time has caught up with the predictions I made for 2005 back in 1973, but many have come true. It's a non-stop thrill ride with a serial killer who kills other serial  killers and child killers. Probably the first novel of its kind, it scares women for some reason, and gives the reader a glimpse of a world they would be too afraid to enter. I've been told it stays with you long after you read it. It has stayed with me since I wrote it, but that's to be expected with your own creation. There have been a few rumors about my being investigated by the FBI because of this novel, but they were not true. Cold case

Did I Ever Hate Something I've Written? It seems to be a common belief that you should always hate your past work because you constantly improve and should be disgusted with your early efforts. Well, maybe if you read the first story you've written in front of people. Maybe if you don't take the time to learn the basics. It seems counter productive to hate anything you write.  I used to paper my wall with rejection slips when I started writing. When I got to 140, I tore it down and tossed the mess away. Why must we always be reminded of failure? I was beating myself down because some of those rejections were from publications that wouldn't have published my story if it had been Gone With The Wind. I've never been disgusted with or hated anything I've written in the past. Could I do it better? Not within my fictional world, unless it's from an editorial end where my editing would be different than another editor.  I can say I didn't

I'm in the last section of Origins Of Ghosts, finally. But I've been concentrating more on our singing act and my wife has a lot of catering work. Having been a Marine, I'm only good for grunt work and peeling potatoes so it works out okay. While we watched television last night, one of our unseen friends upstairs rolled something across the floor that sounded like a bowling ball. It's always the sound of something dropping and then a roll. The last few times when I've been alone with the dog, it sounds like one of the chimneys have collapsed onto the roof. Very loud sound of falling objects and rumbling. I know I'm not imagining it because the dog jumps up and starts growling and barking. We go upstairs and nothing is out of place. The last incident with the falling bricks noises was so loud that I went outside and checked the entire house to make sure one of the old chimneys didn't collapse. Dorothy said something peed on the floor in front of

The novel is actually my first novel. I shelved it for years. (click to enlarge) Get the Book Here Is Everybody Nuts? is a satiric novel centered around the 1977 wedding of millionaire Oswald Salt's daughter, Susan, to David Marino, who works in his father's pool hall. Susan will marry David Marino at her father's house, but the Salt mansion becomes a gathering point for every nut in the city on their wedding day. Guests, many uninvited, include a bizarre film director and his crew, a meteor god worshipper, a motorcycle gang, Mafia hoods, a racist caterer, a crazy doctor, corrupt millionaires, winos and grifters, a doped out rock band, the police commissioner, a bomber with yellow feet, horses and covered wagons, the FBI, and a really strange super-hero the Masked Meatball. Oswald Salt tried to stop his daughter from getting married, and when that failed, he tries to make the wedding a success. Oswald Salt will ask the question no one can answer: Is Everybo

Photo taken through a window screen. I had just gone over the first print copy of The Bad Season on July 22, 2006. I walked over to the window and saw this moth on my outside air conditioner unit. It was the most bizarre thing I had seen in a long time. I retrieved my digital camera and snapped a picture through the glass and the window screen before going outside in a failed to attempt to capture the moth. I contacted a moth expert. He told me what kind of moth it was, but added that he had never seen one with a cross on its back like this one. I call it the Jesus Moth, the Crusader Moth, or maybe the Infidel Moth. The syndicates wanted me to give it to them for free. They said they don't take pics from non-employees because "we would actually have to pay you for it."   Hmm, what a novel concept, getting paid for something. I offered to swap for a syndicated story about my book. They refused. So I copyrighted the entire pic (the one below is a fragment from that p

Excerpt from the Sunnyvale Collection Waiting For An Open Bed An Excerpt From A Book You'll Never Read Chapter 7 Father Rockerfeller hurried through the foyer, meeting Laura near a door halfway down the long corridor. "Is it bad?" the priest said. "He's getting worse, Father. He can't be giving advice to Congressional Committees in this condition. Do you think prayers will help or do we take more drastic steps?" "The Church is rather backwards on these matters. Seeing is believing." "Then look for yourself," Laura said. She jerked open the double doors. "I can't stand it." Father Rockerfeller stepped inside and the doors slammed behind him. A shaft of dying sunlight played on the dark wood desk, hiding the possessed one sitting in the gloom behind it. The priest felt a chill. The room was cold. Or was it a lack of faith on his part? No, his faith was strong. Yet, he saw steamy breath drifting i

A typical rock fight could lead to hits to the skull. CONCUSSIONS I was thinking last night as I watched the news that we have turned totally into a country of fear mongering sissy people. I don't know who is promoting this. Maybe the government is doing it to keep us occupied and take our mind off the horrible political arena. The government wants us totally dependent on government. They had a story on the news last night that claimed any football player at the high school level should be off school for a week and stay in bed for days if they take a hard blow to the head. What? How can you play football and not take a blow to the head? Has genetics changed since I was a kid? We played tackle football with no equipment. We didn't have guns back then, but we had fists, sticks, and rocks. Rock fights were the most vicious. No size rock was taboo if you could throw it thirty or so feet. People would pass out today if they saw the fights we used to have in Cincinnati&#