Celluloid Diaries: Drowned Sorrow
Showing posts with label Drowned Sorrow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drowned Sorrow. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Exploring Brussels with Books

monument everard serclaes brussels

Travel blogger Ingrid Dendievel from Road Tripping Europe photographed Avalon and Drowned Sorrow against the backdrop of famous Brussels' attractions. Here are some of her pictures. To see the full, original post, visit: Exploring Brussels with a Horror Writer. Enjoy!

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Let's Scare Jessica to Death

let's scare jessica to death poster

I'll be giving an introduction to John D. Hancock's Let's Scare Jessica to Death at the Offscreen Film Festival in Brussels on March 20th.

In this chilling ghost story from 1971, the fragile Jessica longs for a new beginning, having recently been released from a psychiatric hospital. She isolates herself in an old farmhouse with her husband and a friend. But is she safe from the aftermath of her mental illness? Once she hears the local stories about vampires roaming the countryside, Jessica starts having nightmarish visions that will defy everything she has ever experienced before.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Exciting book and movie news

book signing event
Signing session after a screening of Un homme bien (A Good Man)

Lots of exciting things happening, guys. LOTS of exciting things. 


NEXT TO HER 

In half an hour, I'll be off to yet another film production meeting. If everything goes well, my short film script Next to Her (which you can read here) will be filmed this August. It'll be part of an anthology, but will also be available separately. Thrilling, right? Of course, Avalon will have a BIG appearance in the film. 


AVALON 

Talking about Avalon... His book is my most popular and best-received one to date. It has been listed as one of Amazon's best-selling cat books almost constantly since it came out. Of course, with Avalon as the main character, I didn't expect anything else. Lots of blogs have been talking about Avalon lately. Too many to mention them all, so here are a few favorites: 


A GOOD MAN 

Un homme bien (the French film adaptation of my vampire story A Good Man) continues to thrive at festivals. Recently, the film was screened at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in India, the Flanders Week in Gdańsk (Poland), the Independent Days 15 Filmfest in Karlsruhe, Germany, and the Shamiana shortfilm happening in India.


DROWNED SORROW 

Horror author Stuart R. West interviewed me about my supernatural thriller Drowned Sorrow. It was one of the best interviews I've done in a long time. Read the interview here.

Also, this is the last day to enter for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card, a signed copy of Avalon, a cat collar, and a selection of cat toys. Enter now before it is too late.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friday, December 19, 2014

Awards, film festival selections, and new editions

a good man movie

* My blog Traveling Cats has won The Bloggers' Lounge Blogger Of The Year Award. A big thank you to everyone who voted and shared. What a great way to end 2014.

* A Good Man (Un homme bien) is going to India! The French film adaptation of my vampire story, will be shown at the Imphal International Film Festival in India on December 27 and 28. 

* A Good Man (Un homme bien) has also been officially selected for Film Festival System D in Brussels, Belgium. The festival starts today.

* I concocted horror movie quizzes for an upcoming trivia book by the makers of Horror 101 and Hidden Horror. The book will have over 1200 questions covering hundreds upon hundreds of films. The working title is Horror U: Twelve Twisted Trimesters of Horror Trivia. It'll probably land in January in both ebook and physical form.

* My supernatural thriller Drowned Sorrow is available in a new paperback edition with a cover by award-winning designer Gilles Vranckx. Some places where you can get the book are Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, and B&N

* The Strange Color Of Your Body's Tears (the movie for which I modeled for the poster) is now available on DVD/Blu-Ray and Instant Video. It's an excellent film, so be sure to watch it.

* My short film script Next To Her will most probably be directed by Fedrik De Beul (Août 1914). The movie will be in Dutch, but I'll make an English version of the script available on Kindle, Nook, etc. The cover is being made as I'm writing this. If you have a blog and want to do a cover reveal, review, or interview I'd greatly appreciate it. You may contact me at eeriestories75(at)gmail(dot)com.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Re-release Drowned Sorrow

Drowned Sorrow by Vanessa Morgan

After five years, I've decided to leave my publisher and re-release my supernatural thriller Drowned Sorrow. It's been re-vamped with a new cover by Gilles Vranckx and additional edits.

This novel about a remote village where water has become a supernatural element that can think, move and kill is selling at an introductory price of only $0.99. The price will go up after the weekend, so get your copy now through Amazon, Smashwords or Barnes and Noble.


Here's what a few others have said about Drowned Sorrow:

"A disturbing gem of the horror genre." - The Current Reader

"Drowned Sorrow is definitely creepy. Possibly even crawly. I wouldn't sleep in the same room with it." - SP Review

"Pretty damn spooky." - Book Cover Justice

"If Jaws kept you away from the ocean, Drowned Sorrow will keep you away from any water." - The Literary Lioness

"The scariest story of the year." - Sword and Magic

"A breath of fresh air in the horror literature." - Dark Sites

"Everything horror fiction should be: creepy, scary, suspenseful, and yet also touching." - Suko's Notebook

More reviews on Drowned Sorrow at http://vanessa-morgan.blogspot.be/2010/11/drowned-sorrow-reviews.html.


Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Alternate cover art for Drowned Sorrow

Alternate Cover Art by Gilles Vranckx

Alternate cover art for Drowned Sorrow, by Gilles Vranckx.

Have a look at this artist's fascinating portfolio at http://gillesvranckx.blogspot.com.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Haunted Lakes and Creepy Villages


haunted lakes creepy villages

Last month, the website City Girl Who Loves To Read interviewed me about the haunted lake and creepy village in my novel Drowned Sorrow. Here's the interview in case you missed it.

Why did you choose the setting of Moonlight Creek?

Moonlight Creek is a remote town where water has become a supernatural element that can think, move, and kill. The imaginary village - with its haunted lake and worn-out, musty buildings - is literally alive and thus one of the characters in Drowned Sorrow. Old Saybrook and Chester in Connecticut (which were also the filming locations for the movie Let's Scare Jessica To Death) fit the description and formed the basis for Moonlight Creek.

How is this village a fundamental part of your overall theme?

Water and its symbolic meaning (cleansing, rebirth) is the main theme of Drowned Sorrow. Everything in Moonlight Creek reminds us of this topic: the lake, rain, leaking walls, damp atmosphere, and shops that sell nothing but water.

How do you transport the reader there through your writing?

In order to have a constant feeling of impending doom, it was important that readers understood Moonlight Creek was alive and breathing; the organic feel of the village had to be present on almost every page without being repetitive. The best way to do this was to make the village part of the action.

How do you introduce them to an area they may not be familiar with?

The reader discovers Moonlight Creek the same way the main character does. Because Megan visits Moonlight Creek for the first time, she initially gets an overall feel of the place before the vague menacing atmosphere slowly turns into something more specific and sinister.

***



A story of suspense, mystery and water... Lots of water...

Megan Blackwood has just lost her son in a terrible accident. Now she has come to Moonlight Creek with her teenage daughter, Jenna, hoping that a change of scenery might help to put their lives back together. But something odd is going on in Moonlight Creek. When rain falls over the village, its inhabitants commit grisly murders, leaving the place deserted with the first rays of sunshine. Beneath the lake's surface, an eerie presence watches... and waits... Waits to reveal a tragic past drowned in mystery and fear. One that doesn't bode well for visitors. By the time Megan realizes that her daughter's life is in danger, it might already be too late.

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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Creepy Facts About Water

creepy facts about water

In my novel DROWNED SORROW, water has become a supernatural element that can think, move... and kill. Discover some creepy facts about water, and read about how they connect into the novel.

We are water


The remote lakeside village from Drowned Sorrow is the home of ghosts that materialize out of water. We all know that our bodies consist of over 80% of water. But what is the rest made of?

Basically, it is pure energy. "Up until recently, physics was based on the Newtonian concept that the building blocks of all physical matter were atoms that formed molecules. These atoms were described as having a solid central nucleus," R. Whitfield says. "The modern interpretation is much different. Rather than the central nucleus being solid, it is composed of smaller particles; more of which are being discovered as time goes by. In fact, it looks as if there may be no end to the discovery of smaller and smaller particles. If an atom could be magnified up to the size of a Cathedral, the particles would only appear as grains of dust. There appears to be no physical basis for matter."

Just like in real life, the water ghosts from Drowned Sorrow are nothing more than water and energy.

Water has a memory


Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Wherever it travels, water carries all the chemicals, minerals and nutrients with it. What's even more... water has a memory. No matter what the level of dilution, the water molecules will always remember what particles were once dissolved in it. Thus, however, dilute the solution becomes, it is still imbued with the properties of the original substance. How is this possible? No one really knows.

In Drowned Sorrow, the "data" of all the deceased inhabitants of Moonlight Creek are preserved in the local lake as well as in all the other water from the village. The water literally takes over the identity and the substance of everyone who has ever come into contact with it... just as water does in real life.

Water reacts to our thoughts


Dr. Masaru Emoto explains in his book The Message In Water that our thoughts are able to influence and even transform water. For his research, he exposed water in glasses to different words, pictures, and music and then freezing and examining the aesthetics of the resulting crystals with microscopic photography. What he found was that the water reflected the composite energy of what was being sent to it. Water that had been exposed to positive thoughts formed beautiful water crystals whereas water that had been exposed to negative thoughts formed ugly water crystals.

Emoto even tried pasting written words onto a bottle to see how the water reacted to the words. They came to the same conclusion. For example, they tried using the words "thank you" and "you fool" in German. The people on the team who took the actual photographs of the water crystals did not understand the German for "you fool," and yet they were able to obtain exactly the same kind of results in the different crystal formations based on the words used.

So if water is really able to react to our thoughts, then it is only logical that the water from the lake in Drowned Sorrow is able to "read" the thoughts of humans, too, and to know when someone is planning an escape from the accursed village. The water ghosts in Drowned Sorrow are also capable of influencing water with their thoughts, transforming it into a human shape and returning to pure water again when necessary.

Ghosts appear most frequently in or near water


The ghostly appearances in Drowned Sorrow are only visible in and through water. Little did I know at the time of writing that most real-life ghost sightings happen in or near water. Dr. Masaru Emoto claims that when a person dies, their soul remains on this planet as water if they are unable to attain sattori. This connects into the concept of reincarnation where spirits keep falling back to Earth and need to redo their lives here. "The Japanese character for spirit is a combination of the words 'rain' and 'soul', Emoto says. "People who have seen ghosts report seeing them in water or in places where there is a lot of humidity. It's as if the imprint of the soul, which is in the form of water, suddenly takes form when surrounded by water or moisture -- much like a mirage."

Water comes from outer space


Water in the form of ice can also be found at the polar ice caps of the planet Mars. Some scientists have even suggested the possibility of liquid water on the red planet. One of the characters in Drowned Sorrow shares a story about how a meteorite fell into the lake once, impregnating the local water with a substance from another planet.

Water is essential for our survival


Water is absolutely essential to the human body's survival. A person can live for about a month without food, but only a week without water. Water aids digestion, transports nutrients, relieves pain, increases energy, makes us less hungry, decreases the risk of certain types of cancer, and makes us more beautiful. The water ghosts in Drowned Sorrow are no different. If they don't come into contact with water regularly, they simply stop being.

Water is a mystery


Water may be one of the most important and abundant chemical compounds on Earth, but its true nature is still a mystery to scientists.


Creepy Facts About Water has appeared as a guest post on Beck Valley Books.


Creepy Facts About Water
A story of suspense, mystery, and water... Lots of water...

Megan Blackwood has just lost her son in a terrible accident. Now she has come to Moonlight Creek with her teenage daughter Jenna, hoping that a change of scenery might help to put her life back together.

But something odd is going on in Moonlight Creek.

When rain falls over the village, its inhabitants commit grisly murders, leaving the place deserted with the first rays of sunshine.

Beneath the lake's surface, an eerie presence watches... and waits... Waits to reveal a tragic past drowned in mystery and fear. One that doesn't bode well for visitors.

By the time Megan realizes that her daughter's life is in danger, it might already be too late.

Let's Scare Jessica To Death

Friday, December 16, 2011

Book trailer for Drowned Sorrow


Here's the book trailer for my novel Drowned Sorrow, a creepy tale about a New England village where water has become a supernatural element that can think... and kill.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Drowned Sorrow Reviews

Drowned Sorrow
The Literary Lioness

"If Jaws kept you away from the ocean, Drowned Sorrow will keep you away from any water!"

BK Walker Books

Drowned Sorrow by Vanessa Morgan is a heart pounding, suspenseful, and got-to-know what happens next read! (…) Morgan did a fantastic job of keeping the suspense alive. This is one book that will have you turning the pages to find out what happens next. I give Drowned Sorrow ***** (5) Stars.”

The Horror Hotel
"The horrors that hide in the dark shadows and unknown depths of Moonlight Creek are in many ways externalisations of the main character's trauma. Morgan is using the accursed township to say something about relationships. As we all know, if you hold onto something too tight, it may well slip through your fingers, sometimes literally. The town is also awash in rain, clearly a symbol of cleansing. The novel is full of such symbolism which elevates it from simply being a ghost story to being something of a study of grief, the family unit, and how we deal with both. It is thougt provoking, intelligent stuff, and makes for a fascinating read. Each scene from the tough opening till the final moments when the town's secrets are revealed, is tense, atmospheric, and often very disturbing. As a lover of classic horror and of a good ghost story, this novel had me at 'hello'."

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Drew Barrymore Slated to Direct Drowned Sorrow



Drowned SorrowHere’s an article from Moviepulp that talks about the upcoming projects of The Content Factory, including the movie adaptation of my novel DROWNED SORROW: http://www.moviepulp.be/9479/life-is-an-art-opent-deuren-voor-the-content-factory.html.

Snippet: “Drowned Sorrow is a thriller based on the book by Belgian author Vanessa Morgan (The Strangers Outside), starring British actress / model Alison Carroll. American actress Drew Barrymore (Charlie’s Angels, Whip It!) is slated to direct. Filming will also be done in the United States."

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Scariest Story Ever

scariest story ever

Drowned Sorrow is now available on Amazon Kindle. It had already been released in paperback earlier this year. The words creepy and scary come back in almost every review of the book. Sword and Magic even called it "the scariest story of the year."



About Drowned Sorrow

Why do the shops and bars in Moonlight Creek sell nothing but water? Why do the inhabitants commit eerie murders when it rains? What are the white phantom-like creatures that move through the local lake? A mother and her teenage daughter are about to discover the secret of Moonlight Creek, but by the time they realize they are in danger, it may be too late to escape.


This is what reviewers and authors have to say about Drowned Sorrow:

"Vanessa Morgan has the gift of pacing and spookiness" - Scott Nicholson, author of They Hunger and The Farm

"A startling new voice in horror" - Lucky McKee, director of May and The Woods

"Drowned Sorrow is definitely creepy. Possibly even crawly. I wouldn't sleep in the same room with it" - SP Review

"An original twist to small-town ghost stories" - Target Audience Magazine

"The scariest story of the year" - Sword and Magic

"A racy thriller in the vein of Dean Koontz and John Saul" - Dirk Vandereyken, author of Baour and Fates Worse Than Death

"The female version of Stephen King" - Pedro Chaves, director of Reiki

"A good, creepy story" - The Horror Fiction Review

"Increasingly creepy atmosphere" - Monster Librarian

"One of the scariest books you'll ever read" - Infonu

"A gripping horror novel" - Crystal's Book Reviews


WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE SCARIEST STORY EVER? It may be a novel or a movie or even a true story you have heard somewhere. Let me know in the comment section below.