Join SF in SF and the American Bookbinders Museum
Sunday June 9, 2019
LOREN RHOADS – NANCY ETCHEMENDY – E. M. MARKOFF
Tales for the Camp Fire
In November 2018, fire broke out on Camp Creek Road and soon raced through Butte County, California. By the time the fire was finally extinguished, the town of Paradise had been scoured from the map. Nearly 100 people were dead. Damage ran to an estimated $16 billion. The disaster has been named the Camp Fire, in memory of its place of origin.
The horror writers of Northern California rallied to raise money for the survivors. Tales for the Camp Fire ranges from fairy tale to science fiction, from psychological terror to magical realism, from splatterpunk to black humor, all rounded out by a messed-up post-apocalyptic cookbook. Through these pages roam werewolves, serial killers, a handful of ghosts, plenty of zombies, Cthulhu cultists, mad scientists, and a pair of conjoined twins.
Tomes & Coffee will be donating all the profits from sales of the book to the North Valley Community Foundation, which writes grants to organizations that support victims of the Camp Fire.
All profits from the sale of this anthology will be donated to Camp Fire relief and recovery efforts.
With moderator Terry Bisson
Doors and bar open at 6:00PM – Event begins at 6:30PM
$10 at the door / $8 for students with valid high school or college ID card
Each author will read a selection from their work, followed by conversation and Q&A with the audience, moderated by author Terry Bisson. Books will be for sale at the event, courtesy of Borderlands Books.
The event will be podcasted by SomaFM, Listener-supported, commercial-free, radio broadcasting from San Francisco to the world. All proceeds go to the American Bookbinders Museum.
LOREN RHOADS – editor and publisher of the monthly magazine, Morbid Curiosity, published in San Francisco from 1997 to 2006. The magazine was devoted to first-person nonfiction essays, exploring “the unsavory, unwise, unorthodox, and unusual: all the dark elements that make life truly worth living.” In September 2009, the book, Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues, was published by Scribners, a collection of Rhoads’ favorite stories from all issues. 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die, a guidebook to cemeteries around the world, came out in a BEAUTIFUL illustrated full-color hardcover from Black Dog & Leventhal Books in October 2017. Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel, part cemetery history, part travel memoir, is a collection of Rhoads’ essays from Gothic.Net, Morbid Outlook, Eleven Eleven, and Morbid Curiosity magazine, alongside pieces written specifically for the book. She also published a grimdark space opera trilogy, In the Wake of the Templars (The Dangerous Type, Kill By Numbers, and No More Heroes), in 2015, along with various short fiction in anthologies Best New Horror #27, Strange California, The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One, Sins of the Sirens: 14 Tales of Dark Desire, and nEvermore!: Tales of Murder, Mystery, and the Macabre.
She is the editor of the anthology, Tales for the Camp Fire, to raise money for the survivors of the most devastating wildfire in California’s history. Contributors include Nancy Etchemendy, Dana Fredsti, L. S. Johnson, E. M. Markoff, Ben Monroe, Gene O’Neill, and more.
NANCY ETCHEMENDY – Etchemendy’s novels, short fiction, and poetry have appeared regularly since 1980, both in the United States and abroad. Awards won include three Bram Stoker Awards (two for children’s horror), a Golden Duck Award for excellence in children’s science fiction, and an International Horror Guild Award. Her fourth novel, The Power of Un, was published in March 2000. Cat in Glass and Other Tales of the Unnatural, her collection of short dark fantasy for young adults, was published in 2002, and appears on the ALA Best Books for Young Adults list for 2002. She holds a B.A. in Fine Arts and English Literature from University of Nevada, Reno. She is a former officer of the Horror Writers Association, and currently serves on the board of the Clarion Foundation. She attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop in 1982 at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. She is a contributor to Tales for the Camp Fire.
E. M. MARKOFF — Latinx author and publisher E.M. Markoff writes about damaged heroes and imperfect villains. Growing up, she spent many days exploring her hometown cemetery, where her love of all things dark began. Upon coming of age, she decided to pursue a career as a microbiologist and spent a few years channeling her inner mad scientist. Her works include The Deadbringer, To Nurture & Kill, and her recent short story “Leaving the #9.” She recently published the charity anthology Tales for the Camp Fire under her imprint, Tomes & Coffee Press, to raise money for California wildfire recovery and relief efforts. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association and is mostly made up of coffee, cat hair, and whiskey. Markoff is a contributor to Tales for the Camp Fire.
The American Bookbinders Museum’s entrance is located at 366 Clementina Alley, off 5th Street, between Howard and Folsom. Street parking is free; garages are located at 5th & Mission, and 3rd & Folsom. The closest BART station is Powell Street – just turn down 5th Street, cross Mission and Howard, and turn left onto Clementina. The entrance onto Clementina from 4th Street is now open — just make a right after the hotel.