I like stuff...

A new addition to the cabinet of curiosity may be found here:

http://www.ariberk.com/cabinet.html

Just in time for the post-Thanksgiving return to the grind...a little distraction...
Chapter 33 of Death Watch--wherein our hero meets some of Lichport's most eccentric specters--lovingly uploaded for your enjoyment.

Who says death and humor can't go hand in hand...

http://www.ariberk.com/deathwatch.html

I love relics and oddities.

More often than not, an artifact is the point of origin for my writing, so I thought I might, every so often, share a thought or two about the some of the objects I've found inspiring.

So, join me for a few ruminations on some well-favored curios. More to come!

http://www.ariberk.com/cabinet.html

Yesterday, my first novel (and 10th book) DEATH WATCH was published. Beyond excited. Though it was only four years ago I knew it would be a book, the world of DEATH WATCH has been with me a LONG time. From my strange, dark, seventeenth year, to all the days I ditched school to wander the cemeteries of Los Angeles, to all the books of weird and wondrous funereal lore I've sought out....this book has been waiting a long time to be born. And now, here it is between two covers. Amazing.

I have put lots of DEATH WATCH-y things up on my website to peruse: the book's first chapter, several quotes of an antiquarian nature from the book itself, photos that I used for reference in creating Lichport, the town where the story takes place, and a bunch of AWESOME reviews that I am so, so, grateful for. All that and more can be found here:

http://www.ariberk.com/deathwatch.html

Enjoy!

So excited to just (literally) receive a copy of the long-awaited Secret History of Hobgoblins book!

There was, apparently, a tassel malfunction (I couldn't make this stuff up) that slightly delayed its publication, but the UK edition is now out and I am beyond thrilled with it. The stories of Hobgoblins are closely tied to hearth and home, and from where I sit on this rainy Saturday, leaves piling up around the house, it's the perfect book for Fall and Winter. The artists have done the most extraordinary job! Larry MacDougall, Alan Lee (of Lord of the Rings fame), Virginia Lee, Gary Chalk, Douglas Carrell, Fernando Molinari....the books is bursting with the most wondrous illustrations. But don't take my word for it, I've put some art and page spreads up on my website. Have a look!

http://www.ariberk.com/hobgoblins.html


And while you're at it, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HIS LIFE AND TIMES is also now available in both its US and UK editions. This was a joint effort by Kris McDermott and myself...our first wife and husband bit of co-authoring! I've also put up some art, pages, as well as a video the publisher made of all the little flaps and pamphlets in the book being opened. It's gotten awesome reviews so far. You can see all that here:

http://www.ariberk.com/shakespeare.html

Enjoy!

Rescued from the vaults and just in time for Spring, here are some thoughts on seasonal "upheavals" and a retelling of the ancient tale of the Battle of the Trees.

http://www.ariberk.com/battleofthetrees.html

Reposted from
http://www.ariberk.com/forthcoming.html


January 1, 2010.

Up late New Year's Eve to write a few paragraphs on the novel, you know, just to start the year as I mean to go on...

Hobgoblins book slowly moving towards gettin' done. I've seen nearly all the art now, and WOW! In this book, there is art by both Alan and Virginia Lee, Larry MacDougall, Gary Chalk, and Fernando Molinari...oh just wait until you see it.

But day and night, it is the novel. Last month, I made a large map of the town in which most of the book takes place. So, now I know where people are when they walk down a particular street and take a left! More than this, I needed to see how places in the town related to each other in space.

And then there are the dead who crowd around my writing table all wanting to have their say. It is a book of many voices, which is, I think, as it should be. More and more I see these ghost stories as being about allowing people (living or dead) to speak their peace, literally; about allowing the dead to tell their tales so that a place resolution may be found. Without such a space, a space where truth may reside, there is the stasis of limbo. My town is filled with them. Limbos. The Peony Lantern Tea House. The Theatre of Midsummer, The Coaching Inne, The Red Parlor, The Lonesome Valley, The Bowers of the Night Herons...all the curious places where the dead bide their time, still bound to earth and the affairs of the living. Somehow both lost and ever-present at once.

It is a great privilege to be able to spend so much time writing. That time requires the help of others. As the new year rises, I am so very grateful for my wife and family. Without their love, help, and support there would be no words. Thank you.

And as the old year went down into its grave,
they knew at last the Great Darkness was brought
not by death,
but by distraction.
So they looked up,
on this very night,
up, up, above the sleepless wires and ordered lines,
above the mad words colliding in the lower aires.
And in that one moment at midwinter,
they gazed upon the ever-living stars,
and the darkness fell away from them,
and for all the season,
and always.

 

Shooting began in late October on Sir Lanval, latest film by the Chagford Filmaking Group, from an original screenplay written by Ari Berk and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry. Here is some behind the scenes fun. Filming continues in Brittany next year. 

Behind the scenes on Sir Lanval.

Enjoy!

And while you're at it, check out the Chagford Filmmaking Group's great website where you can learn all about their numerous projects, see production stills, and donate to their ongoing work.   www.fairytalefilms.co.uk

 A friend of mine calls them "The Autumn Fears." I love this term. I think it's about that strange feeling, deep down, that we need to be doing something just now, at every moment, something needs to be done and if we don't do it, well, something awful may come of it. Usually just before Spring.

After some mulling on this term, and after feeling a bit of the Autumn Fears myself, I've come to the conclusion that this is an ancestral condition, inherited from our very ancient agriculturalist past. Just now would have been an important time for our non-super market going ancestors. Food would be canned and put up, meat would be prepared and preserved, wood would be got in. You needed to be busy in the Fall...very busy...for Winter can be long and if you run out of something before Spring, well, you had better be able to go without it.

Of course, a lot of us aren't stocking up for winter on such practical staples. But my summer travels and the books I've been reading since summer are a kind of stockpiling. A loading up of the lore larder for the work that winter brings. Winter has always been a very writing intensive time for me. The world begins to slow down, it gets quieter (especially with a lot of snow on the ground). Ghosts of the past draw in close to the fire to tell their tales. It's the time of year I truly feel like putting things down on paper...the time when I feel a bit desperate about it. That could be part of the Autumn Fears too...the desire to get the dying year recorded before spring and its new projects and newly opened roads appear out of the melting snow.

Tonight, I am filling the shelves of  a chamber of investigation, one of the "work rooms" of a character in my novel. Lots of specimens in glass containers glowing in amber liquid. Curios from other ages of the world -- Egyptian ushabti figures, marble heads, books of frightening photographs neatly kept in their anthropodermic bindings. He's got the Autumn Fears too, got 'em bad, and so he's thinking about preservation, thinking about things that last....

It's nice when you can pass off your worries onto the shoulders of your creations. I find they bear them with ever so much more grace than I do.