Letter From The Editor: Guest Editor Jack Getze
When the magazine is called SPINETINGLER, it’s not as tough picking through submissions as one might expect. Basically, you’re waiting for that unmistakable chill at the back of the neck.
The goose bumps take a while arriving in Sweetening The Pot by Colorado writer D.A. Davenport. But you’ll be covered head to toe when these two ladies get down to business.
In Drop Off, by Philip Beloin Jr. of Connecticut, a woman named Sarah quickly hustles us into narrow alleys and dark interiors where the tingles come early.
A Simple Kindness by Chris F. Holm features a hero who wonders where he went wrong. Here? ”I’d seen her picking absently at the hem of her skirt...”
Nice guys finish last in The Horror Novelist’s Daughter by Todd Cameron of Vancouver. When things get really bad, they’re much, much worse.
Damien Seaman is having his fiction published a lot these days, and Coming Up Roses shows us why. An undercurrent of tension and violence shimmers like the alien in Predator.
Last Writer Standing is Kentucky-resident Gene Sittenfeld’s first published fiction. The thrills jump out from behind an imaginative framework of humor.
Wolf Janus of Oregon succeeds in his quest for quirky in Prime Element, a story cat lovers may find disturbing. In fact, everybody should find this one disturbing. Wolf, dude, you creeped me out.
But new fiction is only half the SPINETINGLER story this issue. Look who we’ve interviewed for your pleasure and enlightenment:
Tess Gerritsen published her first novel, Call After Midnight, a romantic thriller, in 1987. Her first medical thriller, Harvest, was released in 1996, and marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Her suspense novels include, Gravity (1999), The Surgeon (2001), The Apprentice (2002), The Sinner (2003), Body Double (2004), Vanish (2005), The Mephisto Club (2006), and The Bone Garden (2007).
Ray Banks, author of Donkey Punch, no longer writes his own bios. Here’s why: “I am a shaman, a fabulist, a rebel with a cause, a spit-in-yer-eye-visionary with balls the size of coconuts. My job - nay, my calling - is to stare lizard-eyed into the dark heart of man and become a sculptor of dreamscapes, imagination bridges that lead from this drab reality to the emotional and spiritual core of Humankind. I am at once God and of God. I am, simply.”
Finally, this fantastic, one-of-a-kind issue of SPINETINGLER also sports a special feature on Ian Rankin. But Sandra wants to talk about Ian herself.
I hope you all have as much fun reading this issue as I had helping Sandra put it together.
Jack Getze
Special Guest Editor
SPINETINGLER Magazine