All of this is coming your way starting Saturday November 23 when the good folks at Imagination Theater bring my newest Holmes adventure “The Adventure of the Cheapside Secret” to life over your radio! But there is nothing cheap about this production! Not when John Patrick Lowrie (the voice of Sniper to you fans of Team Fortress 2) and Lawrence Albert return as the preeminent radio Holmes and Watson of their generation! Other cast members include Dennis Bateman, Richard Ziman and Basil Harris.
In this adventure the Great Detective must be coaxed out of retirement to prevent a most peculiar and clever pair of American adventurers from making off with a historically-priceless treasure hoard lost somewhere in London. A hoard that includes a large collection of rare Elizabethan and Jacobean jewelry.
Who will find it first? And are Watson’s fears that the Great Detective’s powers may have waned during his years of inaction justified?
You will just have to listen to find out! But to whet your appetite, how about some information about that marvelous treasure?
Cheapside Street, London, 1909. St. Mary Le Bow is in view in background.
The truth is a real treasure was actually discovered along Goldsmith’s Row in the heart of 1912 London. The story goes that workmen were in the process of demolishing a row of three-hundred-year-old houses at the corner of Cheapside and Friday Streets when they excavated a wooden box containing the hoard. Along with nearly 100 jewels and jewelry from around the world, there were over 400 pieces of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewelry, very few examples of which had survived the centuries up to this time.
What role does this emerald pocket watch play in “The Adventures of the Cheapside Secret”?
“The Adventure of the Cheapside Secret” debuts November 23 on Imagination Theater’s flagship station, KIXI 880 in Seattle at 10:30 Pacific Time. If you don’t happen to live in Seattle there are plenty of other radio stations that you can catch it on. Just click here for a list of all the radio stations that Imagination Theater is syndicated on.
But if terrestrial radio isn’t your bag there is more good news! You can listen to “The Adventure of the Cheapside Secret” for a limited time on the Imagination Theater YouTube Channel starting around Saturday November 30. You can also download it or purchase it on a USB flash drive, both of which will be for sale at the Imagination Theater website starting November 22.
It is Veterans Day 2024. Keep it in your hearts and minds tomorrow. To help you do so, here are 7 facts and a heartfelt plea from the UAP (United American Patriots) website:
1. Veterans Day is Not Memorial Day
Photo by Scott T. Sturkol, Public Affairs Office, Fort McCoy, Wis.
Veterans Day is a federal holiday recognized each November to celebrate and honor all U.S. veterans — deceased or living. Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day, a day to remember those service members who gave the ultimate sacrifice of their lives. Memorial Day is in May of each year.
2. November 11 is Always Veterans Day
Photo by Maddi Bazzocco via Unsplash
No matter the day of the week, Veterans Day always falls on November 11 each year. It’s also a federal holiday recognized nationwide. With 18.2 million vets living in the United States, it’s a holiday most communities celebrate with festivals, parades, and recognition of local vets.
3. President Eisenhower Changed the Holiday Name
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs HR7786, June 1, 1954. This ceremony changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day.
Originally called Armistice Day, that name changed in 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower officially switched it to Veterans Day.
4. Other Countries Celebrate It Too
Because World War I was a multi-country effort with thousands of lives lost, other countries involved in the war honor their veterans around this time of year, too. On or near November 11, France, Australia, Canada, and Great Britain pay respects to their vets. The UK and Canada call the day of honor Remembrance Day.
5. Arlington National Cemetery Hosts an Annual Event
Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Timothy Tamargo
Each year on November 11 at exactly 11 am, Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia holds a Veterans Day event. It starts with a wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The public is always invited to attend.
6. There’s No Apostrophe in Veterans Day
You’ve probably seen it spelled different ways — including veteran’s or veterans’— but the Department of Defense firmly states it’s simply “Veterans Day”.
7. All Veterans are Honored
Photo by Sgt. Kirstin Spanu
The holiday was formerly called Armistice Day to commemorate the end of World War I. While it may have been founded in honor of the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”, Veterans Day is to honor all veterans from all wars.
Take Care of a Veteran This Veterans Day
If you have the chance, go into a military community during Veterans Day to experience the true spirit of this observed holiday. Even if you don’t live near a military base, your community likely has special events or festivals to honor your local military members.
CLICK HERE FOR STATIONS THAT BROADCAST IMAGINATION THEATRE!
Okay, okay, it’s been quiet long enough on the website.
Let’s shake stuff up!
So, just between us, “Can the living haunt the dead?”
I’ve asked this twice before, both times when my c-r-e-e-e-e-p-y short story “Expiration Date” was going to debut in a new print anthology. Well, this time I’m asking because “Expiration Date” is coming at you over the radio starting Saturday October 26 from the uber-talents at Imagination Theatre!
For years Aldin Norton placed the building of his business over his wife, Connie, never imagining she might die. And he certainly never thought she would insist on being buried in her family plot rather than the mausoleum Aldin had erected for them. Now, three months later, Aldin is requesting a codicil be added to his will stipulating that when his time comes he is to be buried with a bottle in his arms. An ancient bottle that Aldin purchased from a peculiar shop across the street from Oak Hill Cemetery, the graveyard where Connie lies and the Nortons’ crypt stands empty. Aldin doesn’t tell his estate lawyer Brad Chambers anything about the bottle, but when Brad has it appraised he discovers some disturbing things about the bottle. Things that suggest Aldin is not as willing to accept Connie’s decision to spend eternity apart from him as he has been acting.
Connie Norton lies here…
…but Aldin Norton wants her buried here.
I was inspired to write “Expiration Date” in the nineties when I read a submission call for an anthology that wanted to pay homage to those fabulous but flawed Amicusportmanteau films like Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, Torture Garden and Asylum. After “Expiration Date” was rejected for being too much like the stories in those Amicus films — such is the life of a creative writer — I submitted it to other anthologies, and in 2019 it finally made its print debut in The Monsters We Forgot, Vol. 1 from Soteira Press. Three years later “Expiration Date” appeared in print again in the seventh volume of Castle Bridge Media’sCastle of Horror anthology series, Love Gone Wrong.
And, boy, does love go wrong in “Expiration Date”!
But “Expiration Date” is more than an homage to Amicus films. It is also a tribute to Lights Out, the best damn suspense and horror radio program and one of the greatest suspense and horror anthology programs in any medium. Created by Wyllis Cooper and carried forward after his departure by Arch Obler, Lights Out presented intensely imaginative, unrelentingly creepy, and more than occasionally gory stories. If you ever heard Bill Cosby’s famous routine about listening to a radio program as a young boy about a chicken heart that grows and swallows the world, that was a real Lights Out episode. I wanted to capture that Lights Out feeling in “Expiration Date,” so after I sold my first audio script to Imagination Theatre in 2007 — the Sherlock Holmes adventure “The Case of the Petty Curses” — it was only natural that I adapt “Expiration Date” and submit it to IT for their Movies for Your Mind anthology segment. And resubmit it. And resubmit it. And resubmit it. And now, seventeen years later… here we are!
If there is a lesson I’ve learned from “Expiration Date” it is that patience and persistence can pay off.
This is my fourth script produced by IT but my first non-Holmes adventure, and you can hear it Saturday October 26 on the IT flagship station KIXI 880AM in Seattle. You can also click here for a list of all the many radio stations and streaming services that carry Imagination Theatre. You can also listen to “Expiration Date” for a limited time on the Imagination Theater YouTube Channel starting Saturday November 2. And downloads and USB flash drives of “Expiration Date” will also be for sale at the Imagination Theater website starting in November.
Now, more than ever, remember those who sacrificed everything for our freedoms and not to take those freedoms for granted.
General Orders No. 11: “The 30th day of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form or ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
“We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose, among other things, “of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion.” What can aid more to assure this result than by cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided republic.
“If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remains in us.
“Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the nation’s gratitude—the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.”
The second project was a short story “featuring an overlooked pulp hero created by one of the medium’s most popular authors” and it has been accepted by Pro Se Publications. There is no release date yet, but “Clan of the Red Ditch” will appear in Pro Se’s upcoming Black Bat anthology. Created by Lester Dent, the man most responsible for Doc Savage, the Black Bat is a mysterious masked World War I aviator and espionage agent “whose face no man has ever seen,” and he appeared in only one story, “The Blue Ghost Patrol,” published in the October 1929 issue of Flying Aces. Aviation adventure magazines featuring war birds, sky hawks, and red-hot aces enjoyed a brief but intense popularity during the height of the pulp era—you might recall seeing the book Pat Nelson: Ace of Test Pilots in Mrs. Shields’ confiscation desk drawer in A Christmas Story—and as a genre it has always perplexed me. It just has. So when this opportunity popped up I thought I’d try writing one, especially since it also afforded me the chance to work with a character created by one of the most popular writers of the early 20th century.
Third but not least, my and Trey Baldwin’s long-anticipated-but-worth-the-wait comics adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s seminal weird tale “The Call of Cthulhu” was published by Caliber Comics near the end of the year. The publication of this comic is bittersweet because it represents the last project that I worked on in any capacity with Caliber’s publisher Gary Reed, who unexpectedly passed away in 2016. It sort of feels like the end of an era. Call of Cthulhu is the tenth adaptation in my Lovecraft’s Worlds anthology series and my second collaboration with Trey. And for your viewing pleasure, the Call of Cthulhu promo video appears below. Produced by the incredible Paul Huenemann and his award-winning Right Purdy Animation studio, it also features “The Chosen” by Midnight Syndicate as the soundtrack.
I also mentioned in last year’s review that I planned to concentrate on two novel manuscripts. Well, feel free to wag your finger and tch-tch-tch your tongue because neither manuscript got finished. To be fair an unexpected opportunity to pitch the idea for one manuscript to its intended publisher came up but the publisher rejected it. Which… you know… was disappointing, but it did save me from wasting oodles of time better spent writing something else. As for that second manuscript, I am still working on it and my intention really is to finish it and submit it before the end of 2024, but that’s all I can say right now.
Something else I hinted at in last year’s review is that I may or may not write some more short stories. Well, I did, which is why that second manuscript remains a work in progress.
I have submitted another radio script to Imagination Theater, this one an adaptation of my horror story “Expiration Date.” If accepted, I am hoping it will be broadcast in 2024. I also submitted another short story to Pro Se featuring yet another little-known pulp character, J. Paul Suter’sHoratio Humberton, the Necrologist Sleuth. No word yet on rather it has been accepted. Meanwhile Angel Neighbours will hopefully appear in a second story, and a couple of unique Holmes pastiches I am currently writing will be accepted. And because it seems to be the norm now, I imagine one or two other stories will spring up due to unexpected opportunities. And since no writing review is complete without a tease, there may be a really cool and very big possibility that has me keeping my fingers crossed that I hope I will be able to talk about in the coming months.
And there we are.
Normally this is where I would wrap things up, but this year I want to mention a couple of personal things before I go.
To quote Rocky Balboa, “The older I get, the more things I got to leave behind. That’s life.” It is a tragic milestone in your life when someone you never met but whose talents greatly influenced your creativity dies. In 2023 that was Jimmy Buffett, an unbelievably gifted musician and singer and one of the finest American writers of the past few decades. It is heartbreaking, though, when people who have been dear friends for most of your life pass away, and the older you get the more such friends you have to leave behind. Since December 22, 2022 I have lost three: Dennis Stick, Lori Edler-Hawbaker and Professor J. Kenneth Kuntz. At this point I should probably share a memory about each of these wonderful people but that would be giving away more of what I have already lost, so I am just going to let their obituaries speak for them. If you have lost anyone dear to you recently, please know that you have my sympathy.
But to quote another movie character, Professor Echo (Lon Chaney) in The Unholy Three (1925 & 1930), “That’s all there is to life. A little laugh. A little tear.” One of the excellent counterbalances to growing older is that–if you’re lucky–you also become a grandparent, and that is going to happen in 2024! It is a long-awaited blessing and we cannot wait to meet the newest member of our family and experience this incredible gift from God.
HOLMES: “’Dear Mr Sherlock Holmes, Can you… ‘eh? Come now, this is too much! Apparently I am now a common tradesman!”
“After you fix the leaky pipes, find out why my dog didn’t bark in the night, you tradesman you!”
What has the Great Detective so piqued?
HOLMES: “’Dear Mr Sherlock Holmes, Can you please be available at Pennington Millinery on Oxford Street at twelve o’clock this morning regarding a matter of concern? Yours, Marshal Pennington.’”
WATSON: “It seems a reasonable request.”
But Holmes does not think it is at all reasonable.
HOLMES: “I am a consulting detective. Clients come here and here I provide them with advice. That is the essence of my profession. I go out when I decide the complexity of a case requires it. Not when I am summoned under some expectation.”
But then Holmes remembers that his consulting detective business is still new and he has his half of the rent to pay and his stock of cheese and bread is running somewhat low, so…
HOLMES: “Perhaps it might be prudent to be the bigger man in this case.”
“It’s finally time for a little sponge cake and a little wine and to listen to ‘The Tortoise Shell.'”
Eleven years since my last Holmes radio pastiche!
Well, to paraphrase Inspector Kemp from Young Frankenstein, “I zink id’s abowt time ve had an-uther un!” And that time is Saturday November 18 at 8PM PST when “The Adventure of the Tortoise Shell” makes its Imagination Theater debut on Seattle’s KIXI 880AM.
“But what’s it about?” you ask.
Well, here’s the pitch!
Just what secrets are buried under this Oxford Street building across from Pennington Millinery in London? There is only one way to find out!
Now you may ask, “How can a treasure be morally corrupt?”
I’m afraid if you want to find out then you’re just going to have to listen to this new audio drama, which, by the way, is based (in part) on my Holmes pastiche “The Adventure of the Missing Crossing Sweeper” published earlier this year. It also features the incredible team of John Patrick Lowrie (the voice of Sniper to you fans of Team Fortress 2) as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Dr. Watson.
And if you don’t happen to live in Seattle there are plenty of other radio stations you can catch it on. Just click here for a list of all the radio stations that Imagination Theater is syndicated on.
But if terrestrial radio isn’t your bag there is more good news! You can listen to The Adventure of the Tortoise Shell for a limited time on the Imagination Theater YouTube Channel starting around Saturday November 26. You can also download it or purchase it on a USB flash drive, both of which will be for sale at the Imagination Theater website starting around November 18.
SHERLOCK HOLMES: the Great Detective. A man obsessed with cold logic and focused rationality.
H. P. LOVECRAFT: the 20th century’s undisputed master of macabre madness and cosmic horror.
What if the darkness of Lovecraft’s decadent New England overlapped into the Victorian era of Sherlock Holmes? What if a trail of clues led to impossible visions, malevolent gods and unspeakably eldritch vistas of terror? Could Holmes survive? Could his sanity survive?
October 1882. Sherlock Holmes has been a troubled man since returning from St. Petersburg and a mission for Czar Alexander III. Dr. Watson is convinced that work is the cure for whatever is distressing his friend and his prayers seem to be answered when the Comté Antoine de Chabrillane arrives with a most unusual case. For thirty-one generations the heir of the House of Chabrillane in Brittany has died at the age of 32, all apparent victims of a vengeful alchemist’s curse. Antoine, the last of the Chabrillane line, is about to turn 32 and is determined that the curse shall end with him, either by Holmes solving the mystery of his ancestors’ deaths or with his own.
Octavio Cariello’s cover for the “Lovecraft’s Worlds” adaptation of “The Alchemist.”
“The Adventure of the Immutable Scourge” reworks H. P. Lovecraft’s early weird tale “The Alchemist,” which I adapted into comics with Octavio Cariello for my graphic novel series Lovecraft’s Worlds. (If you’re not familiar with the story and do not have the time to read it right now, Blue Öyster Cult adapted it into a pretty cool song and I have posted the link below.) Both volumes of Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H.P. Lovecraft are currently available for order at Amazon and they will soon be available at the Belanger Books website.
Something strange is going on in the deepest shadows of the world.
It started when the earth was born.
One day it will raze mankind.
Until then it must remain a secret.
A most terribly protected secret.
Professor George Angell spent decades researching the time-scattered clues of a mysterious cult. Then… suddenly… Angell died.
Or was he killed?
Francis Thurston insists on finding out what really happened to his uncle and believes Angell’s research is the key to the truth: a loathsome, abominable secret that has driven the few men who have learned it to madness or suicide. But insanity and death pale to the ravening eons-old horror waiting patiently to be released upon humanity.
My “Call of Cthulhu” article: “An Appreciation of a ‘Rather Middling’ Weird Tale”
My article about adapting Lovecraft’s stories for Lovecraft’s Worlds
A Lovecraft biography
“It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway! A mountain walked or stumbled!”
– H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
And if you love “Call of Cthulhu” be sure to check out my and Trey’s authorized graphic novel adaptation of Shadow Over Innsmouth.
It is time to share the news about two of my stories that are now available for order! The first features my mystery man Feril Nightlinger and the second features my new kinda-sorta occult detective Angel Neighbours.
In “Sins of the Werewolf” Feril Nightlinger and his trusty assistant Mike Segretto acquire a very unusual client even by their standards. A sin eater has been tricked into becoming a werewolf and needs Feril and Mike to help him before the next full moon. The question is… how? “Sins of the Werewolf” is available now in the tenth and latest issue of OCCULT DETECTIVE MAGAZINE!
By the way, if you haven’t checked out OCCULT DETECTIVE MAGAZINE and you’re a fan of characters like Carl Kolchak and Carnacki the Ghost-Finder then you really ought to treat yourself and order a copy before the sun goes down today! Each issue features fantastic new and classic stories, articles, news and reviews about fictional supernatural sleuths. And if that weren’t enough this awesome magazine is edited by the talented duo of John Linwood Grant and Dave Brzeski. How is that for a pedigree?
Sketch of Angel Neighbours by S. Clarke Hawbaker.
Now let’s talk about the new kid on the block: Angel Neighbours.
Angel makes her debut in the short story “By Night She Walks” in DRACULA BEYOND STOKER #3. In this pastiche of Bram Stoker’s seminal novel, Angel has been hired to track down a mysterious woman who London’s newspapers have dubbed The Bloofer Lady (“beautiful lady”). The Bloofer Lady is abducting children from the city’s Hampstead Heath area and leaves them in a lethargic state with two slight but inexplicable wounds on their throats.
You can pre-order the print edition and the Kindle edition of DBS #3 featuring Angel Neighbours in “At Night She Walks” now and both will be available this November.
