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Home , Bram Stoker Award, Flash fiction

Warning: High Voltage

100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories by Michael A. Arnzen Raw Dog Screaming Press, 5103 72nd Place, Hyattsville, MD 20784, 301-577-3840 156 pages, trade paperback, $12.95 ISBN: 0-9745031-2-6 / LCCN: 2003099176 Release date: May, 2004

Raw Dog Screaming Press continues to push the boundaries of with the release of

100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories by Michael A. Arnzen. This trade paperback collection is 156 pages in length, yet contains one hundred short-shorts, or works termed “flash fiction.” This book is distributed through Ingram.

Author Michael Arnzen attended the International Conference for the Fantastic in the

Arts (March 24th-29th) in order to read from 100 Jolts, moderate panels, and present an academic paper on the films of William Castle. Two weeks later the book officially debuted at the (April 7th-11th) with a pre-release party, discussions on short fiction and horror, signing, and reading. Arnzen is nominated in two categories for the Bram

Stoker award and will attend the annual award ceremony held by the Horror Writer’s Association in New York (June 3-6). Promotions will continue with signings at this year’s Horrorfind

Weekend (August 13-16) and readings at several Barnes & Noble stores and Waldenbooks.

Arnzen is well known as a frontrunner in the new and exciting field of flash fiction, a form that has risen to prominence on the Internet. Generally, a flash fiction story consists of one thousand words or less, although some purists insist on five hundred, two hundred, or even one hundred words or less. 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories is the first full-length single author collection of horror flash fiction.

Those with a taste for dark fiction, experimental , or edgy will be interested in what 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories has to offer. This book will be of special interest to those who would prefer to finish reading an entire story while commuting on public transportation, lounging between meetings, or waiting for class to begin. About the Author

Michael A. Arnzen is the author of the Award-winning , Grave Markings (Dell Books). His collection, Fluid Mosaic (Wildside Press) collects his best stories from the 1990s. His chapbooks include Freakcidents, Gorelets: Unpleasant Poetry, Dying (With No Apologies to Martha Stewart), Paratabloids, Chew, Sportuary and Writhing in Darkness.

Arnzen holds a Ph.D. in English and presently teaches graduate studies in “Writing Popular Fiction” at Seton Hill University in Western Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife, Renate, and a brood of cats. He maintains a popular horror website at http://www.gorelets.com and publishes a free monthly newsletter of offbeat thought, The Goreletter. Gorelets.com has not only been nominated for multiple awards, but also featured in Wired magazine and listed as SciFi.com’s Cool Pick of the Web.

From the introduction of 100 Jolts:

Boo! Eek! Ahhhh! Horror is the genre of the one syllable word, the exclamation point, the elongated scream. Notwithstanding the commercially successful of writers like Dickens and King, horror is predominantly a genre of the short story. Notably, both those popular writers mastered short forms first. But before them, Poe—credited with both the invention of the short story as a genre and being a founding father of today’s horrific tale—predicated his work on the notion of the “single desired effect.“ That effect, in “The Cask of Amontillado,“ is the terrifying notion of imprisonment, which he achieved in under 2500 words. One could read that short tale as an extended for the human condition; one could even draft a dissertation on the tale’s for the writer’s relationship to his own addiction. But the entertainment value is what mattered to him most—the emotional urgency. Poe was going for the frisson at the end. The chill. The shock. The surprising revelation of a secret plan, which the of Fortunato (and the reader) only gets to glimpse momentarily before it is all too late. Horror is the genre of the jolt, the shock, the spark. The horror story’s is always a matter of life and death, but death—even to an undead creature—always comes as a surprise. The of a horror tale is almost unilaterally a killing blow, catching someone or something unaware. Death almost always comes too soon—that’s why we fear it. Life is always too short. Never long enough. Horror’s shortest stories replicate this logic, capturing the brevity of life in its most distilled form. Whether in the deeply felt frisson or the immediate spring of a surprise, horror requires brevity. Less is more…horror is a thrill ride that’s over before you expect to be, yet none too soon. If you stay aboard the ride for too long, you become immune to the curves that toss you around in your car. You see the cardboard cutouts coming. You might even stare at the safety mechanics with bemusement. Good horror is the shortest and most dangerous ride at the literary carnival. Critical Commentary

100 Jolts:

“Michael Arnzen writes slam-dunk horror. No prisoners and no cowards…Get this book. Order it right away.”— Flash Fantastic

“In infusing this densely-compacted, Po[e-]stmodernist theory into one hundred flash , yes, predictably, Arnzen routinely shocks us…it’s in the most unpredictable ways, however, that Arnzen most titillates and humors us.”—Trevor Dodge, author of Yellow #10

“Michael Arnzen's new collection of macabre sudden fiction hints at the broad possibilities of flash fiction…It demonstrates the form's breadth and potency.”— FlashQuake

“Arnzen's is infectious. His intimacy with horror—even if it's not a genre you normally read—will entice you…another delight for the flash fiction reader is rereading stories quickly, experiencing the bone-tingling effect Arnzen creates time and time again... He is a master of the short form”—Flashfictionflash

“…may be The Next Big Little Thing.”— The Agony Column

“The bottom line: Michael Arnzen’s writing is a tremendous amount of fun to read, and horror enthusiasts everywhere should pick up a copy of 100 Jolts.”— SpecFicMe

“I think 100 Jolts is going to garner a lot of attention for Arnzen when it comes to awards next year…a remarkable achievement, and a book that all serious readers of should have in their hands and on their shelves.”—Gary Braunbeck, author of Graveyard People

Gorelets:

“Gorelets is an example of horror's rebirth.”— Pittsburgh City Paper

Grave Markings, winner of the and the Horror Critics Guild Award:

“An authentically painful read, which conveys a real sense of a mind and a culture dangerously out of control.”— , Author

“A Horse's Mouth from hell. A piercing look at art's illegitimate underbelly. Michael Arnzen is an excellent writer, and Grave Markings is a uniquely disturbing debut. Arnzen has a big future ahead of him.”—Bentley Little, Author

"Michael A. Arnzen is...the most interesting new voice this year.”—Locus

Awesome...let me tell you, this Arnzen guy makes you shudder. Undoubtedly, Arnzen will be a heavyweight to contend with in future days."—American Book Review