4/30/26
If you’re a regular here or on my YouTube page, then you’ve probably noticed the podcasting migration taking place, as I slowly move episodes off YouTube and here instead (as evidenced by the tabs in the menu above). Why? For the same reason I’ve slowly been reclaiming the rights on all of my works. Those collective podcast episodes took just as much creative energy as the books and stories I’ve written, and my children should benefit from them when I’m gone, rather than some tech or media conglomerate. I know my worth, and I will not be told that my worth is otherwise by some ketamine-addled, effete, privileged Silicon Valley greedhead who used my work to help build his machine that will eventually burn the world down because girls wouldn’t talk to him in High School.
“Which one are you talking about, Brian?”
<waves hand> All of them. They’re all like that.
Anyway, all of KEENEVERSATIONS is now posted here and gone from YouTube (except for the paywalled episodes, which will stay exclusive to Patreon for a month, before then being made available to the general public). It will also remain available on Spotify for the time being. And I’ve slowly begun migrating old classic episodes of THE HORROR SHOW WITH BRIAN KEENE and DEFENDERS DIALOGUE, which can be found here and here.
Remember, there is no algorithm here. This is Algorithm Zero.
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While you’re poking around up there in the top menu, click the Women In Horror Year Index. It compiles all of the books featured here, for easy browsing.
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Women In Horror Year: Day 26
Beauty & Dynamite by Alethea Kontis
An updated and revised edition celebrating the sixteenth anniversary of this cult classic memoir!
Once upon a time, a young girl walked into a world of wonder and delight. But that's not where this story starts.
The young woman published a nationally recognized children's book and edited a star-filled collection of stories to benefit the tsunami relief effort. But that's not where this story ends.
Meet Alethea Kontis, whose life is an adventure that tears through these pages like a hurricane of inspiration. Carrot-a-day cancer cures and Murphy as a guardian angel (yes, that Murphy, the guy with all those irritating laws) are just a part of the daily routine for the Incredible Whirlwind of Beauty and Dynamite, the force of nature masquerading in human form.
Through essays, poetry, and commentary from family, friends, and famous authors alike, a world of Blood Oaths and road trips, broken hearts and mended cars, comes alive with the strength of one woman's conviction that the world is there to be befriended.
You have now been introduced.
Let your adventure begin.
Long before she became a New York Times bestselling author of children’s books, fantasy, and a hit paranormal romance series, Alethea Kontis was hanging out in horror, adored by folks like myself, Mary, and Tom Piccirilli. And although I haven’t seen her in person in years, I think of her often, and fondly, and this memoir constitutes all the reasons why. It is simultaneously whimsical, heartfelt, heartbreaking, funny, dark, and chaotic. I once sold a copy to a customer at Vortex by saying the following as I put the book in their hands: “Imagine a women’s version of Richard Laymon’s A Writer’s Tale crossed over with my own End of the Road, but written by Tanith Lee and John Urbancik, if John identified as a woman.”
And I stand by that. Women who want to be writers will find much to cheer, celebrate, and nod about as they follow Alethea on her journey, and she writes about with a prose that seems — at times — to be a magical invocation rather than a narrative. That’s a style that very few can pull off successfully (the aforementioned John Urbancik and Tanith Lee, China Mieville, Charlee Jacob, and a select handful of others). Alethea does it effortlessly.
And, special bonus, the book has an Introduction by me. Beauty & Dynamite is available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook.
