Info comes from their website:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/117721

Location  Warner Grand Theater
478 West 6th Street
San Pedro, CA 90731-2632   

SCHEDULE AND DESCRIPTIONS
2pm - 2:45 = Socializing and opening ceremonies
2:45 - 5:45 = Movie Block 1 (180 minutes)
5:45 - 6pm = Q&A with block 1 cast and crew
6pm - 6:45 = Break
6:45 - 7pm = Astra Dance performance
7pm - 9:30 = Movie Block 2 (150 minutes)
9:30 - 9:45 = Q&A with block 2 cast and crew
10pm - 2am = Party at Whale & Ale (free admission with festival ticket, 21+), music by Thelonius Dub

CONFIRMED GUESTS
Portland H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® founder Andrew Migliore

All directors of all six films: Stuart Gordon, Frank Woodward, Bryan Moore, David Prior, John Strysik, Andrew Leman & Sean Branney

Music composer Richard Band (Re-Animator, From Beyond)

Actor Eric Lange (AM 1200, Lost)
Actor Jack Donner (Cool Air, Star Trek: TOS)
Cast and crew from The Call of Cthulhu: Noah Wagner, Barry Lynch, Patrick O'Day, Richard Lucas, Leslie Baldwin, Cinematographer David Robertson and Special Visual Effects artist Dan Novy

VENDORS
The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (http://www.cthulhulives.org/toc.html)
Behind the Scenes Costumes (http://www.behindthescenescostumes.com)
Author Cody Goodfellow and Perilous Press (http://perilouspress.com/index.html)
Artist Mike Dubisch (http://www.dubisch.com/theartofMike/TheArtofMike.html)

I really dug her in KICK ASS, but Ernie, I'm betting the world would be much better off watching the original, which is one of the top horror films of the last decade.

Agreed. (And your spelling is correct too.) This one certainly falls under the category of "Well, theres something you dont see every day." Hey, maybe they should have ended THE X FILES this way. It would have been more memorable than what C Carter and Co came up with. I wont go into plot details because few on the BB have probably seen it. But youre right. They should. And Bill Pullman especially should get more work. (I assume he agreed to star in this no budgeter as a favor to the Lynches.)

Did I spell that right? Every version looks wrong.

Anyway, watched the Jennifer Lynch thriller last night & LOVED IT. Thoughts?

Julia Ormond & Bill Pullman were awesome.

Gary Braunbeck did a story in CORPSE BLOSSOMS called "Need" in which he managed - at least I think he did - to capture a kind of film-cutting technique in his transitions. The story IS clever, but I'm betting he worked it to death; no two paragraphs in it relate directly, but by the end you realize they've told one big story.

i like the idea of cutting like film, but one of the things I'd suggest is that you always KNOW when there's a cut in a film - you see the visual difference, so on some subconscious level you understand that there's been a change. If you're going to pursue that sort of transition in prose, then you need to find a language device that will do the same thing, whether it's a section break or a particular phrase or whatever. And don't forget how jump cuts can kill a movie!

Hi, Jason -

I'm Martel, the new "virtual" member of the group.  I don't think we've met (correct me if I'm wrong on that). So I figured it might be nice to introduce myself before giving my commentary.  I've been writing with the intent of being published since 2005.  I've had several short stories and poems published to date.  I write non-fiction for Dark Scribe Magazine and Cemetery Dance Magazine.  I'm also a submissions editor for Apex Magazine.  I'm very happy to be a part of the group and hope you'll find my comments helpful.

That said, here we go...

P.1 - I'd cut the first paragraph.  I don't think you need that setup.  I don't like stories where the narrator tells the reader what the story is or what it's supposed to be...let me figure that out for myself.

After the accident, I would like some sort of confrontation with the boy's father or some kind of warning from the police that the guy is crazy and/or prone to violence.  What you've given the reader is a kind of vague warning "it won't be pretty" but no indication as to why.  I didn't care for the tone at this point in the piece either.  The policeman should be sympathetic to the narrator and the boy's father unless there is a known reason not to be.  I was actually kind of feeling sorry for the mailman at this point...he's just lost his son.  The teacher blames the dad for the accident.  The cops don't seem to have much sympathy.  I was wondering why no one is on his side.  Without knowing why, it makes his reaction to kidnap and kill Marjorie sort of unbelievable. 

Something that would have worked for me here is if the dad feels slighted by all of this.  Something like..."You killed my kid.  If it was an 'accident', why didn't you ever apologize?"  Maybe the narrator gets mad and says "I'm not the one who dropped him away from the crosswalk."  And then the dad says, "You're just like the rest of them....the teachers...the cops...can't admit it when you're in the wrong.  Always trying to pin it on me."  Show me that the mailman fails to see how he is to blame...and that the "eye for an eye" is the only way to make things right.

I think I also would have liked it if the reason that Marjorie was sent back in pieces was because the narrator did call the police for help.  Would she have come back alive if he hadn't?  The police can't find the killer.  So now the narrator has to take matters into his own hands.

The narrartor tells Marjorie that he is "going to make the responsible party pay" but you leave that open as the piece ends.  I found myself wanting to know how the narrator intended to do that and wishing that the story wasn't open-ended (either he chooses to seek revenge or decides that revenge isn't the answer because it can't bring the dead back to life.)

Hope that helps.

Martel

I'm failing to come up with a good example of a descent into madness story...but one thing that would make it less confusing for me is some kind of tangible marker that let's the reader know that madness is coming.  You could use smells (like the scent of onions) in this way.  Every time David smells that scent weird shit starts happening.

An aside, did you pick onions for a particular reason?  The reason I ask is that I used that in a story to indicate the presence of sickness/death based on a personal observation made while my dad was sick/dying of cancer.  I just wondered if there was some folk legend or something related to onions being indicative of a supernatural presence.  Kind of funny to see that in someone else's story.

And also, I find when I intentionally try to be clever, it never works.  I guess it's like trying to be cool

Martel

Thanks, guys! I was trying two things with this one that it seems didn't work. One, I wanted this feel of madness and confusion. So when he crawls back into bed and Becky is there, for example, I wanted it to seem a perfectly normal thing as though she belonged there, hoping there'd be a little moment of confusion and then a kind of freaky madness that sets in. I don't think that's working. Two, I was trying something narrative wise where I was treating transitions like editing in a film, just jumping to him walking back up the stairs, for example. I also don't think that worked. I think those two (failed) experiments should be done away with.

As Joey said this might be splitting hairs, but I also wanted it be less of a "ghost" kind of feel and more of a "what the hell is wrong with this place?" I need to brew that a bit, it seems. As Martel suggested I should have reason that comes to light.

Some of the others are my failure to sit things up properly beforehand, like assuming Jacob's a pedophile. I need to milk that more when Carolyn is whispering about the family. I talk around her suspicion too much, methinks.

I see what you guys are saying about David, too. I was trying to make him seem like the house was pushing him off-kilter. I think I need to beef that up a bit or re-examine his motivations.

Oh! And you're spot on about the title, Lisa. I'll kick that around, too.

I think this story illustrates a flaw I'm realizing I fall prey to sometimes: trying to be "clever." Like Tyler Durden asked, "How's that working out for ya?" Not so much, Tyler. I don't think I'm at a point where I can experiment and try too many "tricks." I need focus on just solid storytelling. I also think I fought my gut too much. I had the idea for this set-up and tried to fight it being a ghost story, which is what it wanted to be while writing it.

Thanks for taking a crack at this everyone! I'm taking Lisa's challenge of writing a novella seriously and will be doing some research and note scribbling for the next week on an idea I've had. After that I'll be rewriting this and a couple of other shorts while the novella percolates. Then submissions! I gotta get these stories off of my hard drive and into someone's Inbox.  

Oh, one other completely ludicrous notion just occurred to me:

Since one of your chief supporting characters is the real estate agent who keeps trying to sell this house...the title doesn't really work!

Brad –

There are some interesting bits here.

I liked the scene with the cell phone continuing to ring.

I liked the scene where Becky is asking David to witness her rape/murder.  But why is he being tormented in this way? Did he send her out alone or fail to protect her?  Does he feel guilty about what happened? Does the ghost have the gift of being able to haunt people by making them relive moments like that?

In addition to the things Lisa brought up, here are some questions that came to mind as I was reading:

There are creepy things happening.  But why are they happening?  One of the things I enjoy most about haunted house stories is finding out why the house is haunted.  Most readers will feel cheated if you don’t give them something in the way of lore.

How do you plan to make this story different from all the other haunted house stories that currently exist?

What does the ghost/supernatural entity want?

Is there a way for our hero (David) to defeat the ghost?

Whether the answer to the above is yes or no, how is David changed by what he has seen?

I don’t feel like I read a completed story.   I’m not crazy about the way this piece ends.  It doesn’t feel like an ending to me because I’m left with the same questions I had at the beginning.  Why is this happening?  What can be done to stop it?  If nothing can be done or David fails, how is his life different when he moves on?

Pg. 5 – When David senses that the Jacobs’ are lying about the house, Carolyn should tell him that they believe it’s haunted.  Making Carolyn a non-believer (and possibly vehemently opposed to the notion) will give more weight to her statement about David sounding like Mr. Jacobs at the end.

I don’t know why this thought keeps occurring to me, but I kind of like the notion the real estate agent somehow being involved in the haunting.  Either the house isn’t really haunted (and she is involved in some sort of a hoax to scare people out of the house) or she’s really called some ghost/demon forth to scare people out so she can sell it again and thereby make another commission.  I keep thinking about the only realtor to be making money in our current market…probably not germane to your original intent…so take that for what it’s worth.

I hope that helps.  I’m looking forward to seeing where you decide to go with this.

Martel