All posts by Axel Howerton

Axel Howerton is a former entertainment journalist, and the author of the Arthur Ellis Award nominated detective caper "Hot Sinatra", the modern gothic fairytale "Furr", and the forthcoming "Wolf & Devil" urban fantasy series. His work, including short stories, columns, poetry and essays, have appeared the world over, in no fewer than five languages. Axel is the Prairies director of the Crime Writers of Canada, and a member of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, the Calgary Crime Writers, and the Kintsugi Poets. He is also the editor of the books "Death by Drive-In", "AB Negative", and "Tall Tales of the Weird West", and is the organizer behind one of Canada's first recurring "Noir At The Bar" events, #NoirBarYYC. Visit Axel online at www.axelhow.com to sign up for the GotHow? email list and receive free exclusive ebook collections, sneak peeks, and more.#AxelHow #GotHow
Coffin Hop, Film, TwittaFlicks

#CoffinHop LiveTweet – BLACKENSTEIN!

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Round about an hour and forty-five until the #CoffinHop movie night livetweet of the 1973 Blaxploitation classic BLACKENSTEIN!

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One of the venerated traaditions of #CoffinHop here on AxelHow.com is the Movie Night LiveTweet, which goes back to the EyecraveDVD days, when we used to have our 24 hour bad moviemarathon. Some of the flicks have included The absolutely amazeballs  Crow: Wicked Prayer (also picked by Scotty Phillips), Paul Naschy’s excellent Night of the Werewolf, classic horror-satire The Stuff, Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla, Jessica Alba dance epic Honey, and the soul-shattering existential terror that is The Notebook. Last year we checked out the bazonkerfest Beyond The Black Rainbow and got completely lit on Ron Burgundy scotch whiskey. Scott Phillips (@ScottPhillipsNM) picked this year’s selection out of his leopard-skin pillbox pimpin’ hat, and he’ll be joining me, along with the madman of the andes, or whatever the hell parts unknown he may be from, our old pal Ramone! (@VivaRamone) and anyone else who cares to join in. Basically, we’re going to get stupid, watch this here bad movie, and talk all kinds of hilarious shit about it via twitter.

So settle in, get some popcorn on the pop, grab a forty and your sense of humor and appreciation for camp blaxploitation and let’s turn this mutha out. Catch me on the twitterz at @AxelHow , look for the hashtags #Coffinhop and #Blackenstein and, for ease of access, here’s the damn movie in all its glorious bad mammajam so you can play along:

And remember, to stop this mutha takes one bad brotha!

Coffin Hop, Writing

COFFIN HOP 2014 IS GO!

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IT’S COFFIN HOP!!!!!!

The most wonderful time of the year! CLICK THE PIC for the COFFIN HOP LIST!

What, pray tell, is a Coffin Hop? You may well ask…

COFFIN HOP is a week long celebration of all things Horror. All things Literary. All things Hippity-Hoppity.

In short, it is a grand exultation of the Indie Horror Writing Community.

In more expansive terms, it is the week of October 24th – 31st, wherein a collective of sometimes hundreds of Independent Horror Writers, Artists and other Connoisseurs get together to make magic, share their wares, brighten the Autumnal Darkness and make you, the readers and visitors, a whole lot happier. This year there are more than 75 entrants (down a little from last year, but what we lack in quantity, we sure as hell make up for in quality) each of whom is offering up prizes, contests, freak shows, pumpkin carving contests, and all manner of craziness… all in the name of that most hallowed of eves. Click to go to the COFFINHOP.COM main page, where you will find an easily clickable list of everyone involved, kind of a HUB OF EXTREME MAGNIFICENCE, if you will… and visit back here as often as you can, as I am planning on having many tricks and treats over the next week.

For instance:

Saturday is MOVIE NIGHT! Drunken livetweeting with Scott S. Phillips (B-movie guru, author and filmmaker of Gimme Skelter and Stink of Flesh),  Viva Ramone! and anyone else who wants to get involved. We’ll be watching the classic 70’s horror-blaxploitation classic BLACKENSTEIN: THE BLACK FRANKENSTEIN, and watching it via YouTube so as to maximize the potential of many people watching the same bad movie at the same bad time.

Sunday is PumpkinPalooza!  Come back for a look at some badass Jack-O-Lantern craziness, including the yearly posting of the GREATEST HALLOWEEN VIDEO EVER MADE.

Tuesday is DEAD POETRY JAM! come back and comment with your work and one lucky Hopper will win not one, not two, but three incredible eBook collections of horror-themed poetry – Michelle Scalise’s The Manufacturer of Sorrow, Tom Picirilli’s Forgiving Judas, and Night Shade Vol. 1, put out by fellow Hoppers Katie M. John and Little Bird Publishing House (it also happens to feature a couple of my own dark poems.) I’ll also be talking about our own Kintsugi Poets Society, who may drop by with a few choice nuggets of poetic excellence.

Monday and Wednesday look for features and reviews on a couple of books by fellow hoppers.

And Friday, on the Very Big Day, I’ll be announcing a Grand Prize Winner for comments on AxelHow.Com throughout the week (the mystery swag bag… including an autographed copy of my Ellis Award-nominated and in no way horror-ific novel HOT SINATRA) and the Winner of the 2013 COFFIN HOP REAPER AWARD for Best Hopper (Author-Participant)

So stay tuned!

And, here’s an extra prize of ONE eBook copy of COFFIN HOP: DEATH BY DRIVE-IN for doing some silly shiznit and following internetz instructions:

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

AND DON’T FORGET: The COFFIN HOP: DEATH BY DRIVE-IN anthology, which I spent two years putting together, is full of some of the greatest writers around, spinning Drive-In movie-inspired tales of terror and tittilation, and all proceeds go to the global literacy charity www.litworld.org

Writing

COFFIN HOP tomorrow! LiveTweet of BLACKENSTEIN Saturday night!

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The annual horrorfest known as COFFIN HOP begins tomorrow at sun-up and continues until the midnight hour of All Hallow’s Eve.

Come back in the AM for a full list of excitement happening here at http://www.axelhow.com and a link to the full list of Hoppers

But one thing I’ll give youa  little preview on, is this year’s MOVIE NIGHT livetweet with Scott S. Phillips (author, B-movie guru and maker of zombie classic STINK OF FLESH), El stinkador Viva Ramone!, and myself (along with anybody else that wants to play.

This year we’ll be watching the incredible blaxploitation horror flick

BLACKENSTEIN: THE BLACK FRANKENSTEIN

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Which we will be viewing on the YouTube, round about 9PM MST on Saturday, October 25.

Join us with the hashtag #CoffinHop and follow us at

@ScottPhillipsNM

@AxelHow

@VivaRamone

Anyone else who’d like to play along, let me know and we’ll add your name to the list before Saturday. Of course, any and all of you are more than welcome to watch along and enjoy the 140-character conversations. The flick can be found at http://youtu.be/R8kMZ_cjUyM

Writing

Axel Howerton interviewed at Ognian Georgiev’s Place

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There’s a great new interview with me over at Ognian Georgiev’s space, wherein I talk about Hot Sinatra, and ruminate on my own work habits, publishing, Coffin Hop and my writing career in general.

Many thanks to Ognian, who is a journalist, sports writer and author in his own right. Check out his book The White Prisoner, all about Bulgarian Olympic weightlifting champion Galabin Boevski, who was caught with 9 kg of cocaine at the Sao Paulo airport, and sentenced to a decade in Brazillian prison. It is available on Amazon in print and eBook now.