Author: Park Cooper

One time Barb got a little obsessed with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Barb answered some online student essay questions.

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT: The following Literary Corner involves big ol’ spoilers for the plot of the book and the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

by Barb Lien-Cooper

MANY SPOILERS AHEAD (You Have Been Warned)

I’ve read the novel The Haunting of Hill House five times.

The first time, as a teenager, I was frightened by the book, but I also felt conned, not by the author, but by the house itself. When I got to the last page, I said: “Poor Eleanor has been duped by Hill House.”

Okay so some time ago, a guy on a blog who was trying to write a blog post for every episode of the old TV show DARK SHADOWS… well, he also did a post for each of the two DARK SHADOWS movies. Well, he asked people for help commenting on the film NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS. Well, Barb and I riffed the WHOLE MOVIE (in an email. Not out loud. It was only out loud at our house). But the guy who ran the blog, he only used like a third of our riffs, so…

Halloween-time is one of our favorite holidays. Barb likes to watch lots of horror movies, more and more as we approach Halloween. This month we started out having trouble finding good things to watch, but then we started doing better and better.

WE HAVE ALREADY WATCHED, THIS MONTH:

I’m listening to Howling Wolf right now, as sometimes, you just need the toughest electric blues possible.

First, before anything: we’ve got a new book out!

Song to the Siren is a prose novel about:

​

–scares, drugs, and rock and roll

​

–true love, madness, and the supernatural

​

–childhood… and surviving long enough to get out of childhood…

Here’s a podcast episode that Barb and I were on once to talk about the movie of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. Enjoy!

That’s the cover image, by Afua Richardson, not to be confused for being the artist of all the rest of it, Jimmy Bott…

Half Dead was a result of us saying: “What people seem to want these days is just people fighting vampires and kicking ass… and vampires that kick ass… What if we just wrote a comic that was nothing but vampire ass-kicking, just to see what would happen and if anyone would want it?”

Everyone wanted it… sort of…

“The League of Mystery Science” is just a short story I wrote, a love letter to the original Mystery Science Theater 3000 that will hardly make any sense to anyone but MST3K superfans.

Having said that, enjoy:

The League of Mystery Science

http://www.amazon.com/Mirages-Authors-Leigh-M-Lane/dp/1617208442

Wanted to post about this anthology: Mirages: Tales from Authors of the Macabre, which has in it a short story that Barb and I wrote (mostly Barb).

The reviews are very nice, and you’ll notice that people often mention that they like our (mostly Barb’s) story, so please consider taking a look! It’s available in both paperback and digitally…

There’s a Joe R. Lansdale story in there too, if that’s the sort of thing that interests you.