My career has been a long strange trip. Here are some of the milestones in Publications, Notable Blog Activity and Appearances/Performances.
PUBLICATIONS:
• “Packing Foam,” my weird tale, was published at Daily Science Fiction, appropriately enough on Friday 13, Febr 2015. http://dailysciencefiction.com/hither-and-yon/magic-realism/james-frederick-leach/packing-foam
• “Hard Truth,” HellNotes, Horror in a Hundred, 15 December 2014. (100 words about work day horror)
• “The Laughter of Dead Children” (Poem/Sentimental Nihilism) Grim Corps II, October 2013. http://grimcorps.com/magazine/
— I blogged about this publication, here:
• “Changed” (100-word Prose Poem/Lycanthrope Woes) 13 Quick Shivers from DailyNightmare.com, October 2013. https://gumroad.com/l/IZHm
— I blogged about this publication, here:
— This poem was also adapted for a promotional video which can be seen here:
• “Crawlspace” (Short Story/Home Improvement Horror) in Eerie Tales: Dreadful Delusions, 2012. Available HERE:
— Eerie Tales is a annual benefit anthology produced by the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers that supports a literacy project run by nuns. Can even you GET more wholesome than that?
• “Not Entertaining” in Necrotic Tissue, January 2011 (100-word prose poem/zombie-oriented domestic comedy)
• “Pisser” in Necrotic Tissue, October 2009 (100-word prose poem/unfortunate metamorphosis)
• “Bent” in AlienSkin, June/July 2009 (paranormal romance gone awry)
• “A Public Relations Nightmare” in Necrotic Tissue, January 2009 (100-word prose poem / economic impact of the zombie apocalypse)
• “Baptist” (Full-length Musical/A Singing, Dancing Beheaded Prophet), won the Christians in Theatre Arts National Playwriting Contest in 1997 and was given a full production at Spring Arbor University, Spring Arbor, MI in November, 2008.
— Equal parts Oscar Wilde’s Salomé and Bertolt Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle with a dollop of Grand Guignol late in Act Two.
• “Local History” (Poem/Conjectures about a Lightly Haunted House) Old West Side News, May 2005
• “That Delicious Torture, Love” (One-Act Comedy/Lover’s Revenge) produced by Heartlande Theatre as part of Play-by-Play Festival in April, 1999
• “Two Coffees, Black” a one-act play was produced by Heartlande Theatre as part of Play-by-Play Festival and re-mounted as part of the Playscape 1997 Festival in June, 1997 (teen suicide and soda shops)
• “seconds” (Poem/The Brother of the Prodigal Son) in Christianity and Literature, 1995
• Safe Passage (One act drama/Father Abraham explains it all), commissioned for and produced at the conference “An Ethos of Compassion and the Integrity of Creation,” Toronto, ON, 1992.
• “Fixtures and the Box They Came In,” (Full-length drama/ Communication Technology vs. Communication), commission for and produced at the conference “The Sound of Silence,” Niagra-on-the-Lake, ON, commissioned for the ICS Family Conference
August 1990
• Instructive Ambiguities: Brecht and Müller’s Experiments with Lehrstücke, Master’s Thesis. 1992. pp. 156 plus notes. Text available here.
— I remain proud of this bit of pious juvenalia, not just for the scholarship but also the weirdo typography of text, marginal gloss and footnote, an attempt at a dialoguic text. Dig particularly page 6!
• “Collection,” (one-act drama/garbage and redemption), first produced by Trinity House Theatre, Livonia, MI
BLOGGING:
I blog almost constantly over at DailyNightmare.com (Midwest Snob Horror) under the oh-so-clever pseudonym “Doktor Leech” (the Leech Doctor). Here are a couple representative posts from recent months:
• “Life Lessons from an Active Shooter Training”
• “Theatre Bizarre 2013 The Procession”
• “Robbed by a Pirate in New Orleans”
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I have contributed many articles over the years to 20 Minute Garden.com, mostly practical instruction pieces but I’m most proud of the more reflective, philosophical posts. Here are three of them:
• “Must We Wait for the Worst to be our Best?” (Meditation and Tragedy)
• “The Newel Post” (Meditation and the “Answers” of Prayer)
• “Rejuvenation of Technology” (Reflections on the glee of seeing an electric sports car)
APPEARANCES and PERFORMANCES
• Penguicon 2015
— I assisted my partner Janice in a presentation about “Conflict in the Garden” — and no, we didn’t play “The Trees” by Rush.
— Speculative Poetry with Matt Betts, Nicole Castle and Trico Ludkins… and later read my poem “Solstice 2014” at a Poetry Jam.
— Dealing with rejection, an all star jam panel with Steven Saus (Alliteration Ink) Sarah Panda (ed. Steampunk World) Patty Templeton,
— “You got SciFi in my…” with Charlie Jane Anders, Patty Templeton and Matt Betts
• CONfusion 2015
Kameron Hurley, Saladin Ahmed, XXX and CCC.
Beer in Speculative fiction with XXX of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, SSs and ccc
• CONtext 27, 2014
PENGUICON 2014
• “Mood and Setting in Scary Stories” (Non-Fiction) presented at the Ann Arbor Public Library-Mallet’s Creek Branch, Sunday December 8th, 2013, with the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers/Three Corpse Circus.
— I’ll post the text of this presentation real soon. I promise.