Edgar Swamp's Blog

Thank you to everyone who entered the Amber Hollow print book giveaway. The books have all been mailed to the readers; eight people should have received them and two will receive their copy early this week (I ran out, sorry!)

Another thank you to all of those who entered the ebook giveaway. That one wraps up tomorrow at midnight so if anyone still wants to enter for a chance to win, now is the time to do so.

Thank you so much for your interest, and I hope the winners enjoy the book!

Hello, and thank you so much for taking your time to follow my author page! I was recently interviewed by Lisa Smith at Big Blend Radio, and it airs on Sunday October 20 at 11:00 PST. If you aren't glued to the TV watching football (I totally understand if you are!) you can listen to me talk to Lisa about a wide variety of topics, including my new novel Amber Hollow. It will be aired again several times, so if you miss the initial airing, it will be replayed.
Thank you so much again foor your interest, take care!

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Thank you to all of you who entered the giveaway for my latest novel Blackout. If you entered, didn''t win, but would like to read it, I'd be happy to give you an ebook with the idea that you would be so kind as to offer a review, good or bad. To do this, please message me, and I'll need an email address to send a Kindle copy. I'm also willing to give away copies of an epub, just ask.
Thank you, read on!

Here it is, the long awaited follow up to Glitch in the Machine. This is a crime/satire novel, light at heart, but with a sadistic killer that should give you the willies. Enjoy!

I have looked high and low on this site for a place to post new information and since I cannot find it I suppose this will have to do! I have waited quite some time to hear what people think of my debut novel The Gyre Mission, and it is with great joy that I see the reviews are not only good, but totally freakin' great! Check out www.kirkusreviews.com to read the praise they heaped upon my disgusting disasterpiece, as well as www.bibliobabes.ca to read what the illustrious (and ever amusing) kat thought of it. In a saturated market where everyone and anyone is publishing a book, there are actually GOOD ones out there. Mine is one of them! For a measly $4.99 you can own the book (ebook) that will be a bestseller by this time next year, and for a lousy $19 you can have the JUMBO paperback. Come on people, I know you can get free ebooks from Kindle but if you have any taste whatsoever you will realize you get what you pay for. As soon as Stephen King tells you to buy my book you'll do it, won't you? And then you'll say to yourself: "Damn, this book is freakin' awesome! Thanks for cluing me in Stephen!"
I understand it takes a lot of convincing to make a purchase, especially from some jerk-ass you've never heard of before with an author photo that looks like a mug shot, but simply read the free preview and see for your self if the writing is any good. And leave me some feedback. Tell me what you don't like about it and I'll send you something free (like a bag of burning shit!). Tell me you like it and I'll autograph the cup I used to wear in football and send you that (limit one per household). As casual readers you have choices, millions and millions of choices. Do you want to continue giving your hard earned money to writers who've sold their souls for the corporate dollar (please contact me if you know who to sell my soul to) or do you want to take a chance on an unknown who might someday be seen in your town, wearing an orange jumpsuit and picking up trash alongside the road? Don't answer too quickly, take your time. And remember, strangers are simply friends you haven't made yet, but don't trust them with your children or the keys to your car! Peace!

I’ve always loved the supernatural, have been a fan of both real and fictitious ghost stories for as long as I can remember. My new novel, The Gyre Mission: Journey to the *sshole of the World, is not a supernatural tale per say, although it does contain some elements of the genre. It is my intention to write one in the future, although my next novel isn’t either.
Being of a creative bent, my mind has always been open to things otherworldly, such as ghosts or aliens, different time dimensions and so on. When I was ten years old a cousin of mine and I thought we saw a UFO; it was a large ball of light in the sky that changed colors from red to green to white. We even went so far as to make a bunch of long distance phone calls (my parents were not happy about this when they got the bill), trying to find an expert we could report it to. No one took us seriously, which is good because it made the phone calls shorter. As I got older, I came to realize that what we saw was probably a satellite or a weather balloon; it wasn’t unusual enough to truly make me believe we’d spotted extraterrestrial life.
But although that wound up being more a product of my overactive imagination, I will state here with serious conviction that I have seen a ghost. There is no doubt in my mind that what I witnessed was truly of a genuine supernatural nature, none. Several friends and family members have discounted my tale, owing in large part to the fact that I enjoy the occasional beer now and then, but in this instance I was not under the influence of anything other than a mild hallucinogenic drug…just kidding. Yeah, on mushrooms I once saw the creation of the entire universe, from the Big Bang Theory on up, but I must assure you, this was not the case.
I was in Blackearth, Wisconsin, visiting a friend of a friend. The name of the town alone is enough to confirm suspicions of rampant ghostly activity, perhaps a local serial killer or two, but in fact was irrelevant. I only mentioned it because it seemingly lends credence to eerie happenings.
This person my friend and I were visiting was a stranger to me; I knew absolutely nothing about he or his family, except what my friend had told me regarding his character. Jim was a brash, often outspoken individual who was a bit conceited. Upon arrival to his home the first thing he wanted to do was show it off to us. I admit it was quite large and roomy, although it wasn’t exactly going to be showcased on ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ anytime soon. After the grand tour he took us outside to the backyard, an expansive two acres on which he’d erected an elaborate playground for his children and a great wooden deck for barbequing and entertaining guests. We walked the length of the yard and I noticed that it wasn’t fenced in. When I asked him about it a look of discomfiture came across his face and he told me it was something he intended to do but hadn’t got around to it yet for financial reasons. Owing to the fact there were no neighbors nearby, it currently wasn’t an issue.
I was smoking a cigarette (lousy habit, I know, hate to even admit it) so it was for this reason I stayed outside after my two companions went back in through the sliding glass door on the deck. As I smoked I looked about the yard without really seeing it, thinking my own thoughts. We’d brought along a twelve pack of bottled Miller High Life (also hard to admit because, quite frankly, we’d probably be better off swilling horse piss) and I was drinking my first of the evening, sipping it really, when suddenly I felt a strange sensation pass through me, a curious sort of fear that had no reasoning behind it. At once I wanted to get inside, as I felt there was something out here with me, what, I didn’t know. I hurriedly put out the cigarette and fumbled for the door, stepping inside and quickly shutting it, still facing the backyard.
That was when I saw the dog, a giant German Shepherd, sitting right outside the door, eyeing me with what looked to be a request to be let in. I stared silently, wondering how I didn’t notice this dog before, and as I began to turn my head and ask if the owner of the house had a dog it vanished, simply became my own reflection in the glass. Goosebumps rose all over my body, and I backed up slowly.
“Do you have a dog?” I asked through anesthetized lips, and when I turned to look at him I saw for the first time the tombstone leaning against the far wall. A single name adorned it: ‘Jasper’.
He looked at me strangely and excused himself, told us he had to tuck his kids into bed. My friend waited until he was gone and said: “Why did you ask him that? His dog just died a month ago and he’s still pretty shook up.”
“Was it a German Shepherd?” I said and my friend looked at me with honest surprise.
“How did you know?”
“How did he die?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“Well, Jim still feels bad because he thinks it’s his fault-don’t tell him I told you this-but he let him out to go pee and went to bed and forgot about him. It was still cold outside, almost freezing, and Jasper fell into an open trench in the farmer’s field beyond their property. He probably broke one of his legs and couldn’t get out. Jim told me that throughout the night he thought he heard Jasper barking but he was so drunk he didn’t go out and check. In the morning his kids found him, frozen to death.”
I was so creeped out that I slammed the bottle of beer in my hand and proceeded to polish off another three in rapid succession. To say the least it was a very long evening, and I didn’t go back out on the deck to smoke, instead used the front porch. Even out there I felt uncomfortable, in fact didn’t feel any better until my friend and I were driving away.
My friend believed me when I told him I’d seen Jasper. He told me that a couple weeks previous he’d thought he’d heard the sound of a dog crying when he was in the backyard smoking and it sort of freaked him out.
“It’s because he killed him,” I asserted. “That’s why his spirit is still lingering.”
“Maybe,” my friend allowed.
Believe what you may, dear reader, for you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I saw that dog plain as anything, and to this day a chill passes through me when I think of the poor soul, trapped and injured, shivering and whimpering, just begging for his master to heed his impassioned cries and come and save him…

Before I took my writing seriously I was a musician, a guitarist/singer/songwriter. I played in dozens of rock/metal/grunge bands, traveling around the United States in old, dilapidated vehicles that had seen better days when Carter was president. I took my music VERY seriously, actually thought I could become a professional if I stuck with it. I’ll be honest right here simply because it feels good to do so: yes, I could have been a professional in a niche band, something along the lines of The Melvins, Mudhoney, or the Supersuckers (okay, I wasn’t that bad) but I wasn’t, like, the next Kurt Cobain. I didn’t know that then, of course, otherwise I probably would have given up and gone back to writing. ‘The Gyre Mission: Journey to the *sshole of the World’ is my official coming out party as a serious writer, having written a lot of crap before it but, like with my music, I thought the other novels and stories were good at the time.
Anyhow, seeing America via the poverty route is truly something. You meet a lot of strange people, stay in a lot of even stranger places and have to get very creative about how you go about eating every day (if indeed you are able to procure a daily meal). I’ve lived in warehouses, lumberyards, state parks and, once, in a beat-up ’81 Ford Escort station wagon for about a month. I’ve also worked just about every crappy job there is, having gotten stranded in many towns when there was no money for gas (or I got kicked out of a band for being a derelict and subsequently left behind to fend for myself). In 1994 I found myself in Atlanta, Georgia, having been kicked out of a grunge band in Raleigh, North Carolina. Kurt Cobain had just committed suicide and I was staying in a trashy motel called the Cleremont on Ponce De Leon in Little Five Points, the cultural epicenter of the ‘hip’ scene in Atlanta. Musicians, artists, actors, writers…they all congregated there to get their fledgling careers jump-started. As I sat in the shitty room, contemplating my fate as well as mourning the loss of an idealistic-turned-bitter-icon, I became aware of the sound of someone being choked, coming through the a.c. vent. Their breathing was tortured, panting and grunting, and every so often it was punctuated by the soft ‘thud’ of what could only be a fist striking human flesh. I became deadly certain that someone was being murdered, so I called down to the front desk, explaining to them the situation. My account was met with a blasé silence, no assurance that it would be looked into. In fact, the desk clerk hung up on me. So I sat there and listened, and eventually the noise subsided. I was sure that whatever was going on up there I’d be reading about the next day in the paper, but that never happened. In retrospect I’m sure it was a sex game involving asphyxiation and S&M type torture. The motel also had a strip club in the basement featuring some of the most bruised (yet hot) chicks I’d ever seen, featuring 'Blondie', a huge woman who's claim to fame is crushing beer cans between her breasts. She is still there. Atlanta is very big on strip clubs and the laws very lax. Full nudity was the norm in most joints, this being one of them. Punk rock bands played on Tuesday nights.
There was a club I hung out at called The Masquarade; it was a converted factory turned music/dance/S&M club, and it had three levels: the first floor was Hell (a leather/bondage club) the middle floor was Purgatory (a dance club) and the third Heaven (a live music venue). I’d be there to see cutting edge bands and folks in full body leather bondage suits with their slaves on a collar and leash (on all fours) would wander up from the first floor. I never quite knew what to make of them, these leather-clad freaks, and I almost never looked them in the eye.
I worked as a telemarketer for a while in Conyers, a tiny town thirty miles south of Atlanta. The place was insane, populated by misfits and miscreants of every kind. The owner kept loaded automatic weapons in his office and snorted cocaine off his desktop. In the heat of an especially brutal summer when the a.c. went out he bought us whiskey, beer and blow to keep us at our desks working. I blacked out at one point and have no recollection of driving back to Atlanta. All I do remember is that I didn’t go home; instead I went to a warehouse I’d recently vacated (I’d left amidst a chaotic backdrop of acrimony and moved into a lumberyard with a marijuana activist group) and got into a fistfight with a drug dealer and his buddy/body guard. I call it a ‘fistfight’ but actually I did most of the damage to myself; while they held me down on a concrete floor I flailed and thrashed and battered my own face on the cement. The moral of that story: make sure the a.c. doesn’t go out in August in Atlanta; you never know what is going to happen.
I worked in a restaurant as a line cook for a while after that, a trendy place where Michael Stipe (singer of REM) ate all the time. I did terrible things to his food because I didn’t like his band (don’t tell him, he might get pissed). Henry Rollins ate there once and I wanted to meet him. I rushed out into the dining room preparing to approach him and declare: “Dude, you are, like, the true embodiment of punk rock!” and when I got within five feet of the table he fixed me with such an icy, homicidal glare I stopped dead in my tracks, frozen. I was wearing jeans that needed to be washed three months ago, ripped t-shirt in the same shape, and a filthy apron stained with humus, salad dressing, human blood (my own) and so on. My hair was wild and crazy, my face that of a rabid, sycophantic fan. As he glowered I quickly realized he probably didn’t want to be bothered and I fled. To this day I still think that was the right move.
A few weeks later I decided to get out of Atlanta; the drug dealer I’d had the skirmish with wanted me dead and several members of the marijuana activist group were arrested for possession of narcotics and unregistered firearms. The only reason I wasn’t in jail with them was because I’d scraped up enough cash to go to the movies; when the DEA raided the place I wasn’t home.
And then I was in Chicago, staying in a closet-sized room infested with so many roaches they fell off the ceiling onto my head at night. Three months later I was in Milwaukee, playing in a post-grunge band called Gasoline Heart. If that name sounds familiar it isn’t because you heard MY music; Paul Westerburg of ‘The Replacements’ has a band by that name presently. I failed to trademark the name so it was up for grabs. I’m sure he thinks he came up with it. Whatever…