1999 - 01/1999 Meeting

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/25/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 05/11/08.

STEFAN DZIEMIANOWICZ

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: January 9, 1999.

Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 23.

Meeting Program: Talk by Horror Editor / Anthologist.

Notes:

Association member Charles Garofalo sold stories to two of Mr Dziemianowicz's anthologies, 100 CREEPY LITTLE CREATURE STORIES and 100 VICIOUS LITTLE VAMPIRE STORIES.

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 1999 Philip J De Parto:

Stefan Dziemianowicz was the featured speaker at the meeting of the Association held at the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center on Saturday, January 9, 1999. The club held its thrice a year book sale before the meeting in addition to the regular anime and broadcast viewings. Our thanks to everyone who helped with the set up and clean up for the event.

Mr Dziemianowicz is best known as the co-editor (along with Martin Greenberg) of a number of theme anthologies published by Barnes & Noble Press. Most of these fall into either the horror or mystery genres and include 100 VICIOUS LITTLE VAMPIRE STORIES and 100 WICKED LITTLE WITCH STORIES.

He hooked up with Barnes & Noble in a rather roundabout way. Stefan read widely and particularly enjoyed collections of short stories. He proposed the idea for a collection of stories by Charles Dickens to Bonanza Books, a division of Crown, which had published collections of this sort in the past. They agreed. The published collection enjoyed brisk sales, so they asked him to pitch them ten ideas for other collections. He suggested a number of literary or Victorian authors and, needing one more idea to complete the list, tossed in the idea of an anthology from WEIRD TALES, one story from each year of the magazine. Bonanza gave the go ahead for the WEIRD TALES idea.

The biggest difference between the Dickens and the WEIRD TALES projects, from a procedural point of view, was that Dickens is in public domain and WEIRD TALES is not. Mr D was put in contact with Martin Greenberg who had extensive experience in settling rights, royalties, and related matters. Stefan handled the editorial side and Marty took care of the paperwork.

The twosome put together a reprint anthology of 101 short mystery stories. Barnes & Noble knew that they could cheaply produce and market it in house and bought it. They changed the title to 100 (although there were actually 101 stories) and put it out. Sales went through the roof. Naturally, they said, give us more. More followed.

It was becoming increasingly more difficult to find stories to reprint which both satisfied the theme and length requirements of the series. The editors explained that the only way that they could continue the series would be to accept original stories. Barnes & Noble agreed to the A HORROR A DAY anthology which contained 365 short stories.

This anthology came out two years later than planned. The hold up was that the original stories need to be typeset off manuscripts, have galley copies produced and sent to the authors to review, and then have the revised galleys corrected. This takes time even in an experienced, well-staffed operation. B&N was neither.

Stefan Dziemianowicz explained that the short short is a peculiar and demanding format. He was embarrassed to have to reject stories by a number of accomplished professional writers who have not mastered the form. One author who is extremely skilled in writing to this length is Brian Mc Naughton, who appears in the anthology under a variety of pseudonyms.

Mr Dziemianowicz is also the editor of the semi-pro zine, NECROFILE. The magazine started in 1991 as a review and critical journal covering the horror field. Its contributors include professional writers like Brian Stableford.