All on my own :(

My co-editor Caroline Callaghan is no longer able to help me with the magazine. I would like to thank her for her support and work, and wish her all the best for the future.

Anyone want to be a co-editor???????

Black Book of Horror Volume 4.....

Is here at last, hurrah!
The latest anthology of hair-raising, haunting, hellish horror from editor Charles Black is now available from his site, here:
http://www.freewebs.com/mortburypress/
If you haven't tried the Black Books yet you really are missing out. With a plethora of top writers creating some of the best horror fiction around at the moment, both classic style and modern, and the delightfully reminiscent Pan Book of Horror stylings, they are definitely a treat for lovers of the macabre.
I like them too!

The Fourth Black Book of Horror
Category: Writing and Poetry

The Fourth Black Book of Horror is now available.

CONTENTS

Soup - Craig Herbertson
Words - Paul Finch
A Cry For Help - Joel Lane
With Deepest Sympathy - Johnny Mains
Many Happy Returns - Carl T. Ford
All Hallow's Even - Franklin Marsh
Dead Water - David A. Sutton
And Still Those Screams Resound...' - Daniel McGachey
Love is in the Air - Gary McMahon
The Head - Reggie Oliver
The Devil Looks After His Own? - Ian C. Strachan
Bad Hair Day - Gary Fry
Flies - Hazel Quinn
Nails - Rog Pile
The Lord of the Law - David Conyers

15 TALES OF TERROR SELECTED BY CHARLES BLACK

Very, extremely, awfully,terribly ill...

Argggghhhhh, help, dying etc.
There's been a big gap betwen the latest post and it's predecessor because I've been a bit poorly. Actually I'm still a bit poorly, but I'm bravely sweating over a hot computer whilst awaiting an operation to put me right. Hopefully it won't be much longer, then I will regale you with all the gory details, hee heee.

TTMC ISSUE 3 LINE UP

Monday, April 27, 2009

TTMC HAS BALLS Current mood: froggy Metaphorically speaking of course! Due to the fact that female submissions are at a premium, I've had no choice but to open submissions fully to male authors as well, otherwise it would be a positively anorexic publication. Changes are going to have to be made. While I will still be rooting about trying to find new female talent, I will be considering submissions from both sexes for the main body of the magazine, rather than just having a men's section. It will have to be the thinking PERSON's crumpet from now on, hee. I refuse to feel a failure, if ladies won't submit I can't promote them, it's as simple as that. I will get round to updating the various blurbs eventually. In the meantime here is the line up for issue three. Stories: CONTROL by Anna Stephens GHOST by Sue Rule THE STRANGE CRUCIFIXION by Lobolover RUBBISH by Suzanne Jackson SOLTICE by Franklin Marsh SHE WALKED INTO NIGHT by Sue Rule BEYOND THE DOOR by Benedict Jones Also verse by Roswell Ivory and Mia Quayle, and art by Karn McCloud and Roger Pile. More items are expected in from Glen Hamilton, James Stanger, Craig Herberson and Sean Parker, and with that, submissions for issue three are now closed. Should anyone care to submit for consideration in future issues, please feel free to do so, reading is not done at set times. Coral x Currently listening: Rollodex Propaganda By At the Drive in Release date: 2000-12-04

"ODDEE"

I was thinking of doing a humourous post on the weirdest place names in the world, as I've seen them on "Oddee", a site devoted to strange facts and amusing lists of stuff you'd never even think of, but I think it's probably better if you see for yourself. If you haven't visited the Oddee site yet, and you love hilarious trivia, then go and have a look, it really is quite...odd!

http://www.oddee.com/default_0_87_datetime.aspx

Serial Killers-5-Peter Kurten

Peter Kurten - The Dusseldorf Vampire.

Peter stands out among the German serial killers and has a particular fascination for me. Unlike Fritz Harmann, there was no element of gain concurrent with the pleasure of his murderings. Nor was he extremely psycopathic like Grossman. In fact Peter killed purely for the thrill of it, in "cold blood", as it were, and in pretty much complete control of his faculties. He chose to kill. I think he justified his actions to himself as revenge on a society that had let him down, not showed him the proper respect. And indeed had punished him with prison sentences for his "lesser" crimes.
Germany between the wars was a fairly disorganised place, and was in a state of political and social flux, so it is partially possible to see why he got away with so many killings without being caught. Also he appeared on the surface to be quite normal. He married a lady with a resentful attitude similar to his own, possibly the one person in his life that he ever treated a a human being rather than an object to be subjugated to his will. He attended church regularly.
As the soubriquet suggests, there was a cannibalistic element to his murders. That usually suggests a killer who has tried everything and has reached the ultimate degredation. When the sexual appetite has become jaded enough to break this final and deep rooted taboo, it's generally a culmination of a lifetime's experimentation with all things "perverse", and after that, apart from becoming more abandoned in his actions, there was really nowhere left for Peter to go.
That, subconsciously, is when he became careless; the desire to be released from being driven by insatiable appetites making him vulnerable to errors of judgement that simply wouldn't have happened earlier on in his serial killings. Killers of this type have often to be "opportunist"" and grab their victims where they can, but to take one into his home, then allow her to leave unharmed, was definitely a sign that his reign of terror was becoming wearying to him. After all, being born in to a dysfunctional and abusive family, he had been practising sexual perversions since early childhood, starting with attempted rape and bestiality, and culminating in the first of his serial killings, the sexually motivated mutilation and murder of an eight year old girl.
His final intended victim kept her word not to say anything verbally, but a letter she wrote to a friend describing her experience was misdirected to a lady who was so shocked by the contents that she immediately reported it to the police. Thus the victim was contacted and asked by the police to show them where this person lived. She was able to remember his apartment in the Mettermanstrasse and took them straight there. That was the end of Peter Kurten's serial killings, based loosely in fantasy on the "Jack The Ripper" murders, for whom he had a great admiration.
Kurten was guillotined for his crimes in July 1931. His final wish was that he would hear his blood gushing out of his neck when his head was severed. Well, they do say that the sense of hearing is the last thing to go. That was his idea of the ultimate thrill.

Serial Killers-4-Harvey Glatman

The chap you're thinking of goes by the name of Harvey Glatman. he used to pretend to be taking girls off to the desert for the privacy to take glamour shots of them, but when they arrived he would tie them up first then abuse them, taking pictures at each stage of abuse. Then when he was done he'd leave them to die or kill them himself. He didn't kill very many girls, indeed he often took them out and didn't do anything at all, and as you pointed out one of them got away, so he wasn't an awfully effective serial killer.
Glatman was committing crimes in the fifties when a car and a camera and a spot of cash in the pocket would have been an indication of a good character and he was an intelligent chap, so probably had no problem seeming sincere. By all accounts he was very unattractive physically and didn't have a good time at school, which left him with a great deal of resentment. He found his victims by advertising in a lonely hearts column.
He was finally stopped in his tracks by one of his victims who managed to gain control of his gun, despite already being wounded!
He ended up in San Quentin's gas chamber in August 1959.

Posted initially as a response to an enquity elsewhere.