The Day Your Heart Stood Still...Day

I declare October 14th The Day Your Heart Stood Still...Day. To celebrate this day, I ask that you go to Amazon.com and buy the softcover version of my new-ish story collection, My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes! Do this, and you will also have the opportunity to win some neato prizes. You may also celebrate the day by helping me get the word out about the book.

Read below to learn of my recent experiences with malignancy and my plan to conquer all evil:

“My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes!” is a story that was supposed to appear in my short story collection, which shares the same title. Due to either supernatural malignancy or the efforts of sinister actress, Betty White, the story vanished from the book after it was sent to the printer.

My publisher and I tried many times to correct the mysterious omission, but each attempt resulted in failure. Soon, the file containing the story deleted itself from my computer. Luckily, I originally wrote it in a notebook, so it was not lost forever. But when I tried to transcribe the story into my word processor, the computer exploded.

Considering I never give up when faced with adversary, I tried many more computers, and they all exploded. And since I live well below the poverty line, I was forced to steal all the computers. The story has turned me into a criminal!

Also, there is something very peculiar about the handwritten copy of the story. You’ll probably think I’m totally crazy, but at night while I sleep, I’m woken up by the story’s words floating off the page to film dating shows for television. I don’t know why this is so freakin’ great, but I’ve been approached by tons of rogue government agencies who keep trying to buy the handwritten story from me for ridiculous sums of money.

I was seriously considering taking one of those creeps up on his offer, because I am living below the poverty line, but decided to sleep on it. That night, a person smashed through my roof and tried to steal it. They were wearing a mask and a tight, black leather outfit. A cord was tied to them, which was attached to a helicopter that hovered in the sky above the hole in my roof. I fought the intruder off by engaging in a tickle war. And I totally rule at tickle wars. While I was annihilating them, I ripped off their mask. And the intruder’s true identity was revealed: It was Betty White!

Embarrassed by her defeat, Betty White pushed a button on her tight leather outfit and her cord lifted her back up to the helicopter. Then she and her infernal flying machine escaped.

Now I’m super pissed. Betty White isn’t going to get my story! A rogue government agent isn’t going to get my story! I’m giving my story to a person who helps me get my revenge against Miss White, and maybe this person is you.

So listen, this is my plan: On October 14th, I will get my revenge on Betty White, but I need your help. Currently, Betty White's autobiography, Here We Go Again: My Life In Television, is a bestseller on Amazon even though it won't be released until two day before The Day Your Heart Stood Still...Day). With your assistance, we can defeat its sales rank. All you need to do is buy my book, My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes! on October 14th. It would also be a huge help if you could promote this event on places like facebook and twitter and in your blog. Also, I encourage you to use these means to let the public know of any sightings of Betty White or other reptoid aliens. Also, feel free to tell us about your turn-ons and turn-offs if you’re interested in appearing on the disembodied letters’ dating show (you just might be the next contestant)!

Please help me get my revenge on the actress, who I’m pretty sure is a reptoid alien beneath her kind grandmotherly looks.

And now you’re asking, “What’s in it for me?”

Well, besides being the proud owner of quality Bradley Sands literature, you will be eligible to win prices.

Grand Prize: A handwritten copy of the mysterious story, “My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes,” along with a lifetime subscription to all of my forthcoming books.

First Runner Up: A few porn magazines that I’ll buy from a nearby newspaper and tobacco shop. Must be 18 or over, otherwise, you will win a few teen magazines about hunky guys and cute girls. Also, the winner should let me know their tastes in pornography and I will attempt to cater to them.

Second Runner Up: A collection of random objects from my room!

So how do you win?

Once you receive your book, email the third word of the first sentence in the fifth paragraph on page 73 to bradleysands@gmail.com and you will be entered into a drawing. It’s that easy!

So help me annihilate Betty White! Not only will you get a cool book out of the deal and maybe win some awesome stuff, but you will also feel really good about yourself after. Say goodbye to any low self-esteem!

ACT NOW!

My new story collection is officially out, so maybe I should promote it. The book is called My Heart Said No, but the Camera Crew Said Yes! This morning while waiting for the bus, I saw a man on the side of the road. He was sweaty, wearing a statue of liberty costume, and holding a sign that said, "Two days left to file!" He was sweaty because he was dancing. I think he might have also been on crystal meth, or just a lot of gourmet coffee. I approached him and said, "Hey, statue of liberty. You're really good at promoting things. Can you help me promote my new book?" He sneered and set my clothes on fire with his torch. I ran around the street in slow motion. The effect of slow motion and not dying was achieved with the assistance of film and music video director, Spike Jonez. It cost me a lot of money, so I decided to stop running in slow motion and start promoting on my blog since it's a little cheaper. I may or may not still be on fire.

You can find all the info about the book here: www.bradleysands.com/books-myheart.htm

Also, I'm offering personalized, autographed (softcover) copies through my website. During this special one-time offer, I will use my eerie powers to predict the cause of your death. You may not know about my psychic abilities, but they are something fierce. A bunch of nights ago, I was walking down the street with superstar poet, Daniel Bailey, and I was all like, "What time is it? 2:30?" And then I looked at the clock on my cell phone and it was 2:30. It was freaky! And Daniel Bailey can back me up on that shit.

Already, I can see something comical interfering with your respiratory system's ability to function. Like Dwight Johnson from Hartford, Massachusetts. Yes, I'm talking to you, Dwight Johnson from Hartford, Massachusetts. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but you will die by....MAGNETS!!!

My skillz will delight your friends and family, helping them through their emotional pain with the power of laughter. Accuracy guaranteed or your money back.

Now I'm going to be totally redundant and give you that link again cause it's the place where you can make all of your death-revealing dreams come true: http://www.bradleysands.com/books-myheart.htm

It's like a commercial on TV or something where they repeat their toll free number fifty times.

And once again, that link is www.bradleysands.com/books-myheart.htm

Operators are standing by.

AWP Stuff

I'm attending the conference in Denver. Psyched!

My second book, My Heart Said No, but the Camera Crew Said Yes! is debuting there. But Amazon beat my publisher and I to the punch, so you can buy it from them NOW if you're not going to the conference: http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Said-but-Camera-Crew/dp/1933293934/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

If you are going, I'll be around HTMLGIANT's table during the book fair, so stop by and say hey.

I am participating in two readings, and I organized a third.

So here's the info:

Mud Luscious Press/flatmancrooked reading (Author Vs Puppet): Friday, April 9th. 4 pm during the book fair at the flatmancrooked table.

Readers: Me, Joanna Ruocco, Alyssa Knickerbocker, Molly Gaudry, Emma Straub, Elizabeth Ellen, Edan Lepucki, Jac Jemc, and Aaron Burch.

Two hours later:

The Velvet/Outsider Writer's Press reading: Also Friday, April 9th. 6 pm at Leela's European Cafe (820 15th Street)

$2 off any book with a drink purchase.

Readers: Me, Caleb J. Ross, Rayo Casablanca, Richard Thomas, Nik Korpon, Gavin Pate, Gordon Highland, Paul Eckert, and some other dudes.

And introducing the Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens Reading Series: Elevator-permitting, a few of our contributors will read their short work during various times throughout the book fair. Meet at HTMLGIANT's table at the specified times if you would like to be a listener. Space is extremely limited.

Ryan Bradley (Thursday, 12 PM)
Amelia Gray (Thursday, 1:30 PM)
Matthew Simmons (Friday, 1...:30 PM)
Mike Young and Gabe Durham (doubleheaders, mystery time and mystery day)

Blurbs for My Heart Said No, but the Camera Crew Said Yes!

Here are the blurbs so far. Thanks, guys!

"There's a place past all reason, most possibility, and all the jokes I can think of. A place shaped kind of like the human heart. Bradley Sands doesn't write about this place, but he writes from it, pushing farther into the unguessable with each word, each scene."
—Stephen Graham Jones, author of Demon Theory & It Came From Del Rio

"A Bradley Sands story is not like any story you’ve read before… [Sands] discounts reality in a way that renders it obsolete. The book’s strength lies in the way irreverent images are juxtaposed, repeatedly, often rhythmically, creating a sensation that has no use for the traditional confines of literature."
—Outsider Writers Collective & Press

"There is a disorienting alchemy at work in Bradley Sands' fiction. Here phantasmagoria shifts into stand-up and the avant-garde saddles up besides the geek. Imagine: a hyper-palimpsest beneath which burbles a heady brew of surrealism, poetry, memoir, and horror all set to a DaDa soundtrack that sounds surprisingly like the End of the World."
—Rayo Casablanca, author of 6 Sick Hipsters and Very Mercenary

"Reading this collection is like ingesting a bag of fun-colored candy, removing your stomach, and then taking it to a party for use as a pinata. Some readers will love these stories, some readers will hate them but, displayed throughout, is a true love of language and a generous dose of creativity." —Andersen Prunty, author of The Beard

things are happening

Issue Y'aing'ngah of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens is out and available online as a free download.

It includes stories by Mykle Hansen, Brandi Wells, xTx, Nicole Cushing, Gabe Durham, R.E. Greene, and Jeff Lawhead. Contains book reviews of D. Harlan Wilson's Peckinpah and L.V. Rautenbaumgrabner's As I Was Cutting and Other Nastinesses. Cover art by Kristian Adam.

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My twilight wanderings had led me far. In the plains of Jum I saw pigs that walked as men and muttered wicked chants to an ancient wrathful god, in the city of Ka'esran, I beheld a chorus of wicked children piercing hearts with eldritch secrets meant for no man's ears, I met a lady whose most loving touch brought only pain and was almost deafened by the klaxons of interminable war! But, it was worth it to make it past the gibbering madnesses around me and into the company of the goddess Nish-Fkyua, The-Laugh-That-Mocks-Creation. Her skin was a thousand cats in tight corsets, her eyes two hungry Skramps, and her wide open vagina a Gnufrat of most resplendent hideousness. Her voice caused my fingernails to break off in unison and my eyes to melt into pools of jelly. But, what she told me, the ghastly primal, was worth the price I had paid and the untold millions of miles I had journeyed:

"Beyond the gates of Eth there lies a palace of dark opulence, where a king with no eyes sits upon pillows of manflesh waiting. He waits to lead the most courageous and foolish of men into a place of unspeakable horror and delight. He will take you to a golden door engraved with symbols in old Qothric that tell of the secret location of another door atop a perilous mountain where the Masters from Above Time meet every thousand years to plot the end of being. When you get there, you must...

BUST DOWN THE DOOR AND EAT ALL THE CHICKENS!

Get it here.



I'll be attending AWP in Denver from April 7-10. My story collection, My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes! will be debuting. I will be selling it at the HTMLGIANT table during the book fair (along with copies of It Came from Below the Belt, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens #9, and The Bizarro Starter Kit (Blue).

I'm also doing two readings:

Mud Luscious Press/Flatmancrooked Puppet-Theatre Reading - on April 9th, 4:00 pm, at the Flatmancrooked table during the bookfair.

and

OW Press/The Velvet Reading at Leela's European Cafe, on Friday, from 6-9: www.outsiderwriters.org/ow-press-the-velvet-reading-april-9th

In other news, Eraserhead Press is offering more free bizarro book PDFs until the end of the month: Andersen Prunty's Zerostrata and Carlton Mellick's The Haunted Vagina (which are two of my personal favorites), Jordan Krall's Piecemeal June, and the first two issues of The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction. I have a piece in the first issue titled, "How to Write a Short Story!" You can also find it online in an old issue of The Dream People, but the "The Magazine" issue also has a lot of other good stuff. Go here to download: www.bizarrocentral.com

Why I Write

I used to think I did it because it's the only thing that I'm good at. And although that's somewhat true, I don't think it's the actual reason.

Another reason is that I get depressed when I go through a period of time without writing.

But here is the most significant reason:

I have done a writing exercise called "I remember" a number of times in classes where I was a student as well as a teacher. For the exercise, I would write "I remember" before each sentence and write about memories from my past. By doing this exercises, I have thought of things I have not remembered for years. Some of them I haven't remembered since they happened.

And this is related to the reason why I write. I never know what's going to be transferred from my brain and onto the screen (or the page). And it is always exciting to find out.

Question

Does anyone (who is associated with a publication or review site) want to review my upcoming story collection? My publisher has a limited amount of review copies. The book is called My Heart Said No, but the Camera Crew Said Yes! and Raw Dog Screaming Press is publishing it in April. You can go here for more info: www.rawdogscreaming.com/myheart.html

If you're interested, email me at bradleysands@comcast.net