Matt's Journal

Who willingly walks into a haunted house?

Ghost hunters explore dark places, investigate clues and uncover secrets of the dead. Evidence of an afterlife may prove elusive and few hunters recognize some things are best left buried and forgotten. The anthology features stories from Alana Joi Abbott, Georgia Beaverson, Jason L Blair, Alex Bledsoe, Bill Bodden, Richard Dansky, Preston P DuBose, Nancy O Greene, Jess Hartley, Jason Sizemore and Chuck Wendig.

The collection of spooky stories was edited by Monica Valentinelli and also includes an introduction penned by Jaeson K. Jrakman, a ghost hunter who hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Suspense and intrigue lurks inside HAUNTED: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror.

The eBook editions (PDF, ePub and Mobi/Kindle) of the book are available now at DriveThruHorror.com. A print edition will be available soon.

The Flames Rising Design Essay Series started in 2008 when Preston DuBose and were chatting about different projects we’ve worked on (including Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas which we had recently released) and I asked him to write a little something about the next project on his agenda, you can find the essay below. Like other parts of the site, this series started out in RPGs, but soon expanded to include Fiction, Comics and we even have one essay about Film.

The series continues to evolve and has become an ongoing project where authors, game designers and others can tell Flames Rising readers about the creative process that went into a particular project. We have no plans on stopping this series, but I thought I’d take a moment to look back at some of the essays we’ve posted so far:

Looking back at the Design Essay Series

FlamesRising.com is pleased to announce a new type of theme week for our readers. From Monday, May 2nd 2011 through Friday, May 6th 2011 we will highlight a specific publisher.

To launch our new theme week, we have chosen Pelgrane Press as our featured publisher. If you’ve been following our site, you may recall we have provided you with popular previews, interviews, reviews and articles in the past. Based on this publisher’s popularity in the hobby games industry and with horror fans like you, we felt Pelgrane Press was a worthy choice.

So far for Pelgrane Week we have:

Pelgrane Press Week and Contest
Top 10 Gumshoe RPG Reviews
The Black Drop Review

More reviews and design essays from Pelgrane Press coming up!

I've posted a few more previews over at Flames Rising:

The Dans Macabre Excerpt - A little something from the newest Vampire: the Requiem book.

Preview of Never Knew Another by J M McDermott

Preview of Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatas

In other news (and links):

Over at DrivethruSciFi.com, Monica released a new quirky short story: Lady Yellowbird and the Flight of the Sad Panda

Moonstone has new digital editions of the classic Vampire: the Masquerade and Werewolf: the Apocalypse comics.

Angry Robot has a new contest on their website called Remix the Robot.

What news/links do you have?

A powerful earthquake struck New Zealand's already-bruised city of Christchurch on Tuesday, collapsing buildings, burying vehicles under debris and sending rescuers scrambling to help trapped people amid reports of multiple deaths. DriveThruRPG.com and several publishers have teamed up to raise funds to aid those affected by this earthquake.

DTRPG has a new bundle with over $320 of great products available now for a $20 donation.

You can also donate directly with our $5 donation offer.

Lots of great titles from White Wolf, Eden Studios, Margaret Weis Productions, WildFire, Redbrick, Contested Ground Studios, Adamant Entertainment and more!

Recent posts on Flames Rising cover lots of new fiction:

An Agreement with Hell Preview a new novel by Dru Pagliassotti

Matt Forbeck Interview - Matt tells us about his new novel Amortals

Never Knew Another Preview a new novel by J. M. McDermott

Angel of Vengeance Design Notes - Trevor Munson tells us about his latest novel.

First published in March 2010 on DriveThruHorror.com, we've expanded our digital offering to include a text-based version for your Amazon Kindle or your Nook from Barnes and Noble. Since this file format is primarily text-based, we went ahead and dropped the price to $2.99 on both the Kindle and the ePub edition. The ePub format, which is available at Barnes and Noble, is also compatible with several other devices including your Sony eReader and your iPhone. Both the Kindle and ePub format are also available through DriveThruHorror.com for your convenience.

In addition to the new version, we've optimized the original, full color file to work with your iPad. Because of the file format, we are currently only able to offer this version to you via DriveThruHorror.com and Lulu.com.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with an inside look at the design process for Scenes of the Embrace, a brand new toolkit released from White Wolf Publishing to be used with its Vampire: the Requiem role-playing game.

This exclusive article is broken up into two parts. First, we give you an overview of the design process for this product, which was inspired by Will Hindmarch's design from Scenes of Frenzy. After you read Eddy Webb and Monica Valentinelli's exchange, stick around for an exclusive preview from this new e-book.

An Inside Look at White Wolf’s Scenes of the Embrace

Scenes of the Embrace is available now at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

To celebrate the release of "Strangeness in the Proportion" a new serial World of Darkness novel by Joshua Alan Doetsch over at White-Wolf.com, all of White Wolf's fiction eBooks are on sale for the holidays!

White Wolf Fiction at DriveThruHorror.com

This deal ends soon, so grab these titles today!

Anyone up for brrrraaaiiinnnsss?

FlamesRising.com is pleased to announce we’re bringing you a full week of zombies. From essays to new interviews and reviews, we’ve got your flesh covered. So far for Zombie Week:

Top 10 Zombie Posts from past years at Flames Rising
Lori Devoti on Zombies, Romance and Contest!
Walking Dead Episodes 3 and 4 Review
Nox Arcana’s Zombie Influx Review
Interview with Daniel Davis from Eden Studios

Stay tuned for new reviews, interviews and more!