The Bram Stoker Awards

The Bram Stoker Awards ceremony was held this past weekend at the World Horror Convention in Brighton, England. I'm pleased to report that Gene O'Neill won the Award for Superior Achievement in a Collection for Taste of Tenderloin which I did the cover for. Congratulations to Gene and publisher Jason Sizemore!

Also congratulations to Norman Prentiss for winning the Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction and Michael Knost for winning the Award for Superior Achievement in Nonfiction.

The complete list of winners can be seen at the Horror Writers Association's blog Dark Whispers.

I have had the pleasure of working on a number of Gene's projects. I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to William Jones for choosing me to illustrate Gene's story "Invasors de Suenos" for Dark Wisdom back in 2005. This brought my work to Gene's attention. Most recently I illustrated his chapbook Jade, published by Bad Moon Books (available for pre-order at Horror Mall).

Congratulations again Gene, and I look forward to our future collaborations.

The year started out on a sad note for us. We lost our cat Will-o-wisp. She would have been 18 this coming June. She died of feline kidney failure, which, if I'm correct in understanding, is fairly common in older cats. She had a pretty good life aside from having to deal with our younger cats, and being nearly 18 is admittedly a good milestone for a feline. Nonetheless, I wish we could have had more time with her. I miss her rattling the door knobs on my studio doors and sitting behind me in my chair while I painted.

In news of my trade, my first assignment for the year was an Elder Signs Press project. I was very pleased with how the painting turned out. I'll post that as soon as I'm given the go-ahead. Likewise with an interior illustration for Allen K's magazine INHUMAN.

Gene O'Neill's anthology Taste of Tenderloin (published by Apex Digest) has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award (the complete list is available here) . Congratulations Gene! This is the first time that a publication with one of my covers has been on the nomination list.


A limited edition chapbook Dark Faith: Last Rights is available from Apex Book Company. And of course I'm mentioning it here because the cover is by me. This is part of a promotion for the anthology Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon. Ordering info is available at at this address.


And back to Gene O'Neill. I had the pleasure of illustrating his new chapbook "Jade" which will soon be available from Bad Moon Books. Here is the cover and interior illustrations.

"Inside The Jack-In-The-Box"

This friday (December 4th) is the opening for the December show "Inside The Jack-In-The-Box" at the Tim Faulkner Gallery. Some of my paintings will be among the fantastic work on display and for sale.

Here is the official announcement:

"Tim Faulkner Gallery will be marking it's 2nd anniversary with "Inside The Jack-In-The-Box", a Xmas group show. To celebrate this holiday season, I have gotten together with some of the city's top artists and they've produced smaller works that will be very affordable and make great Xmas presents. This will be an opportunity to own works by artists such as Steven Gilberts, Quincy Owens, Terry Tapp, Barbara Crawford, Margaret Spivey, and Jeremy Dixon at a more than reasonable cost. Please plan on attending and supporting the local arts. This should prove to be our biggest show of the year, so needless to say you don't want to miss it!"


Date: Friday, December 4, 2009
Time: 5:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: Tim Faulkner Gallery

The show will be up through December, so even if you cannot make it for the opening I hope you will be able to drop in sometime this month.

And don't forget, the gallery has moved. The new address is:

632 E. Market St. Ste. 1
Louisville, KY 40202

and the phone number is (502) 381-1314.

Ghosts and Toasts

We had a blast this past weekend.

Saturday night we hung out with the great folks of "The Old Dark Clubhouse" gang at the Wonderfest reunion. As the level of a $100 bottle of special Woodford Reserve steadily decreased the conversation ran from episodes of SCTV to old movies (I've got to see Stairway to Heaven) to tales of the fortean. At everyone's urging Troy Guinn broke out his guitar and regaled us with music from his old band The Secret Commonwealth. Later in the evening he sang a tribute song to the late, great, Jack Hunter Daves that he and Linda Wylie co-wrote which was followed by a toast in memory of Jack. There was not a dry eye in the house. Thanks again Dave and Randy for inviting us.

Sunday found us at the monthly Sunday Salon at The Tim Faulkner Gallery. The current show is Shoe Gazer Dream Pop, a showing of recent work by phenomenal artist Jen Goodell. It was good crowd. I brought some work for the upcoming December show and had my ego boosted with wonderful plaudits. And thank you again Margaret for giving me the moniker "Mystic Steve".

Among the scary subjects discussed Saturday night were ghosts, and among the scary subjects discussed Sunday was health insurance. The insurance conversation was by far the scariest of the weekend.

In other news, Perilous Press is running the NOVEMBER COPPING SQUID SWEEPSTAKES! .

Here is the info from the Perilous Press site: "STEVEN GILBERTS showered a treasure trove of darksome COPPING SQUID art upon us, and we're passing it on to you. Everyone who purchases an exclusive limited edition COPPING SQUID by MICHAEL SHEA from our site between now and Thanksgiving Day, 2009 will be entered to win a full-color, signed, limited (#1 of 500) print of eye-popping Copping Squid art by the phenomenal Steve Gilberts. The lucky winner will be notified by e-mail, and receive their print early enough to decide not to give it away for Xmas.

If you've already pre-ordered a copy, you're already entered to win. If you haven't, ORDER NOW! The limited edition of COPPING SQUID has been delayed by printing complications, but to make up for it and cover everyone who didn't win a print, we're throwing in an 11X17 poster print of OCEAN'S DAUGHTER, a Gilberts masterpiece painted for the trade edition cover, with every order.

And CONGRATULATIONS to ZAK JARVIS, the winner of our first Steve Gilberts drawing, at the World Fantasy Convention."*

Well, back to the easel. I'm still getting acclimated to my new studio, but it is great having everything in one place. Now if I can just solve the mysteries of Photoshop CS4 my life will be complete.

-Insert Witty Title Here-

Good gosh what a hectic October. Among our recent misadventures was the aforementioned repair of our rain damaged bedroom ceiling. They had to pull down all the plaster from the ceiling and replace it with drywall. Fortunately all of the wood was intact (and the bare lathe strips looked pretty neat). Mark Robinson of Robinson LTD did an excellent job of renovation.



This past Saturday Becky and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. The weather was bright and sunny just like the day we were married. The afternoon was spent getting our bedroom back in order, but we made up for it that evening by going to one of our favorite restaurants, Jeeves and Company, for a superb gourmet dinner. As we dined we watched the setting sun illuminate the fall foliage of the court house trees across the street to fiery reds and oranges. Couldn't ask for a better day.

In other news I've restored two online galleries lost in the January server crash and also added a new one.

You can find my cover art and interiors for David Lee Summers' "Vampires of the Scarlet Order" here.

My gallery for the cover art and interiors for Simon Clark's "Butterfly" is at this address.

And this is the home for the new gallery of my cover and interior art for Michael Shea's anthology "Copping Squid and other Mythos Tales".

Goodbye September, Hello October.

Sorry for ducking under the radar as of late. September has consisted of home owner dilemmas, starting with the bottom of the house (some plumbing issues) and finishing with the top of the house (multiple leaks in a two year old roof). The roofing issue created damage to our bedroom ceiling, so that will be our October adventure.

Fortunately the roof is under warranty and has now been (hopefully) repaired, insurance (sans the deductible) will cover our bedroom ceiling repairs, and in looking over our homeowners policy we discovered some gaps in coverage that have now been corrected. Whew!

So on to other news. This weekend Cody Goodfellow, Michael Shea, and S. T. Joshi will be attending the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon to promote Copping Squid. A great start for October (and much more fun than home repairs).


Cover art for the limited edition of Copping Squid.

Off and running for September

Becky and I attended Context this past weekend and had a blast! The main reason I attended was for the release party of Gene O'Neill's Taste of the Tenderloin from Apex Book Company, but I also participated in the big Shroud Publications-Meadow Hawk Press extravaganza.

Meeting Gene O'Neill and his son Gavin in person was the highlight of the convention. We also had the pleasure of meeting such wonderful folks as Gord Rollo, Gary Braunbeck, Michael Knost, D. Harlen Wilson, Sheldon Higdon, and Danny Evarts, along with reuniting with the Broaddus family, the Larsons, Tim Deal, the Gambor family, Michael West, Chris Golden, Brian Hatcher, and Grace Welch (of course this is an incomplete list).

I'm not attending Dragoncon, but some of my artwork will be there via World of Strange. They will be in the Artist's Alley at Bob Burden's booth. Of course they will also be featuring the work of such greats as Billy Tackett, Donato Giancola, and William Stout to name a few. Please drop by and purchase some shirts.

That is all I have time to write for now. I have to take our Honda in for a driver's side airbag recall, attempt to replace the wax ring on our toilet, and finish three paintings. What doesn't kill me will make me stronger (and perhaps a little smelly).