Tag Archives: bizarrocon

2017 The Year In Strange

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2017 saw more than two thirds of the total traffic this website has ever seen. It was by far our biggest year. It was also the year I lost nearly every single liberal friend and colleague I’ve ever had. I lost friends so close to me this year, I had to re-write my living will to remove a guy I trusted so much, I was willing to put my entire literary legacy in his hands after I die.

It’s also the year I launched my podcast network and skyrocketed past 20,000 downloads due to my coverage of the Bizarrocon and Bizarrogate controversies. Speaking honestly about those two events got me blacklisted and excommunicated from the horror and bizarro small press communities.

2017 was also the year I showed everyone in those communities that their endorsement is basically worthless. I have higher web traffic than even their main hub for bizarro fiction, BizarroCentral.com. I am far more popular now without their seal of approval than I ever was with it. In fact, it seems to me like the years between retiring from filmmaking and leaving the bizarro community did little other than hold me back artistically and socially.

2017 was the year I finally drew a line in the sand and stood up for my country and my culture after years of biting my tongue in a sea of liberal writers. Yes, everything before this year WAS me biting my tongue. As outspoken and vociferous as I’ve always been, I’ve always tried to maintain an air of civility and open-mindedness about my liberal cohorts.

But Trump derangement syndrome changed all of that. It is no longer possible for me to sit by and watch so-called professional writers claim that “white men” are responsible for all of the atrocities on the planet. I can’t sit back and listen to them psychotically call President Trump a Nazi, or anyone who disagrees with their opinions Nazis for that matter. I can’t allow editors and publishers of so-called subversive fiction to publicly praise censorship and privately reject any fiction not expressly promoting and praising progressive politics.

Brilliant authors have been reduced to writing inside a narrow minefield of topics and points of view for fear of offending the alt-left feminist leaders who have taken over small press fiction. Writers who in years past have never shied away from controversy now just existing as quiet, muted voices fearing that they’ll be the next white guy to fall to the ferocious beast that is the progressive Left.

Amazingly talented artists have gone off the deep end and now just draw pictures of Donald Trump and Mike Pence as gay lovers as if being gay lovers is some kind of insult.

Worse are the soy boy male feminists who have decided that the best way to navigate Trump Derangement Syndrome is to go balls-in and pretend that their girlfriends and wives ballooning up an extra 75 pounds, growing out their armpit hair and dyeing it blue while shrieking like starving hyenas on social media about the evils of all men is AWESOME! If 2017 has taught us anything it’s that the male feminist is feminism’s biggest target right now.

These guys have to spend every night laying awake just sweating bullets hoping against hope that their number isn’t picked next.

2017 saw the closing of Lazy Fascist Press, one of the premiere bizarro small press publishing imprints. Although, ask anyone associated with them and they’ll tell you that the mysterious “market downturn” had nothing to do with Trump Derangement Syndrome nor the curious tendency for more and more bizarro authors to simply stop writing bizarro fiction while pushing for mainstream literary acceptance.

Even though the editor of LFP himself said he’s a leftist who feels uncomfortable owning a press with the word fascist in its title. He’s gone so far as to leave the press’s logo off of the last few books released by the imprint. If that’s not Trump Derangement Syndrome, I don’t know what is.

This time last year I was promoting my newest short story collection ALL THE TOXIC WASTE FROM MY HEART. I went on to publish two more novels in 2017, I DIED IN A BED OF ROSES and BEETLE BRAIN while I serialized a 4th book for free right here on this website called SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN which is currently published through chapter 32.

My podcast READING TO STRANGERS not only covered controversial publishing news, we also recorded and released half a dozen brand new audio books from the Kevin Strange collection. I hope to get back to recording in the new year to provide you with even more audio flavor from Strangeville.

Not to be outdone, our podcast partner Jeremy Maddux launched a podcast on the Strangeville Podcast Network in 2017 called THE QUIET PLACE. Jeremy broke his own ground by covering a myriad of important social, political and publishing world topics. He was able to secure fantastic interviews with highly relevant guests like conservative cartoonist Ben Garrison, Lovecraftian historian ST Joshi, freelance journalist and tip-of-the-spear covering the Mandalay Bay mass shooting in Las Vegas Scott Binsak and many, many more.

2017 was by far one of the best ever for Strangeville. I see nothing but greatness on the horizon in the next few years, as well. Conservative voices will continue to rise throughout western culture but particularly in the entertainment fields where progressives and deranged feminists have begun to lose their choke hold on audiences.

I will proudly count myself among those new voices who offer a sane alternative to all of the caterwauling and teeth gnashing coming from the insane Left. President Trump is truly making America great again and we here in Strangeville are doing our part to make conservatism weird again!

God bless and happy new year from Kevin Strange and all the peculiar denizens of Strangeville!

Exclusive New Kevin Strange Interview!

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Click here to listen to Kevin’s latest appearance on Bizzong!

Like clockwork, you can always expect Kevin Strange to pop up a couple of times a year on Bizzong, the bizarre and weird fiction podcast run by the king of weird himself, Mr. Frank!

In this interview Kevin drops a TON of exclusive, never before heard info about his brand new StrangeHead Book Club hitting Patreon at the beginning of next year. The two dudes talk about Kevin’s new serialized hardcore horror novella SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN and delve DEEP into Kevin’s writing process which involves both marathon and daily writing schedules.

Then, ooooh boy the gloves come off as Mr. Frank asks Kevin about the Wonderland Award for excellence in Bizarro fiction and the controversy surrounding whether or not the award is honorary or merit based.

You gotta listen to this one, gang. It’s hot hot HOT and it’s sure to ruffle quite a few feathers in the bizarro writing community. Get your drama hats on boys and girls, and GIVE US THE GONG!

What #BizarroGate Is Not

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Social media is on fire talking about #BizarroGate right now. But there is a lot of misinformation, some deliberate, some not that is flying around the virtual water cooler we call Facebook.

Today I’m going to address and debunk some of the more common misconceptions and fallacies about #BizarroGate:

1. Kevin Strange is trying to make money from #BizarroGate.

False. This is a rumor started by social justice bizarros on Facebook. SJBs throw wild accusations around with zero evidence to back them up. They’re irrational and they always lie.

My podcasts are free. We have bonus episodes on our Patreon page that we heavily advertise on our shows, just like every other podcast. It’s a common way to make money podcasting.

We also do paid advertising for our shows on Facebook and elsewhere on the web. Again, a podcast paying for advertising is normal operating procedure.

But our coverage of #BizarroGate on READING TO STRANGERS features no ads for Patreon. We don’t even use our intro or outro specifically because I don’t want to profit off of this situation.

You can also look around on the site itself. There is no advertising. It doesn’t matter if ten or ten thousand visitors come to the site. I don’t make a cent. I could easily add Google Adsense to the site, but I’d rather make my money from my books and my podcasts.

2. Kevin Strange thinks he’s morally superior to the rest of the bizarro community.

False. I never claimed to be a moral authority. I’m just a dude who writes fucked up books and thought I was joining a writing community that enjoyed doing the same thing.

I have no idea why the bizarro gate keepers are so fixated on the sex lives of their authors.

Why aren’t they just as concerned with violent felons or thieves or fraud artists in their midst? It’s bizarre and troubling and I have never once claimed to be morally superior to anyone else in this community.

This isn’t young adult fiction, for fucks sake. This is a genre which celebrates books like I’LL FUCK ANYTHING THAT MOVES AND STEPHEN HAWKING and ULTRA FUCKERS.

Why do they give a fuck who or how we fuck people in our personal lives? It’s just a culty purity test to keep their numbers small and their flock obedient. Just SJW virtue signalling bullshit.

3. Kevin Strange started the public fight with Brian Keene in order to get famous.

False. Before this, I had the greatest respect for Brian Keene. I spent a considerable amount of money and traveled 15 hours one way just to be on his show last year.

We had a great time together and he publicly said it was one of the best shows of the year. He promised it would make the best of 2016 year in review episode (although considering the fallout from Bizarrocon 2016, I doubt my appearance made the cut.)

In fact, I didn’t start this public feud. He did. He started it when he accused me of protecting harassers and stalkers and publicly banned me from his show in early 2017.

Before that, I had not mentioned his name once. I suspect he took issue with my blog campaign to end public shaming, an SJW tactic which he loves to employ on his podcast.

Only after I was publicly banned did I respond with a series of facts disputing his supposed eye witness account of author harassment at BizarroCon 2016 which prompted him to accuse me of starting a fight with him before he then blocked me from his social media.

It was only after that public response that I became aware of his role in #BizarroGate. I can’t honestly say that I still have any respect for the man, but I can say with confidence that he brought every ounce of my criticism onto himself.

It’s always a sad day when your idols fall.

4. Kevin Strange exposed #BizarroGate because he failed as a bizarro writer.

False. I am a two time Wonderland Award for excellence in Bizarro Fiction nominee. The only author to be nominated twice in the same category in the same year.

I was among the first authors to be interviewed in the bizarro fiction Facebook group. I was the first bizarro author of the month in the goodreads bizarro group.

I’ve hosted and sat on panels at Bizarrocon. I’m one of the only authors to appear multiple times on the Bizzong weird fiction and bizarro podcast.

To date I’m one of if not the only bizarro author to appear on both Bizzong and The Horror Show With Brian Keene.

My web traffic is higher than any bizarro publisher’s website and most small press horror publisher sites, let alone individual author websites according to Alexa.com.

To say that I’m a decorated and respected member of the bizarro community would not be an overstatement of my achievements in the genre.

If I’m a failure in bizarro, well, then what the hell is everyone else?

5. Kevin Strange hates the author/editor at the center of the #Bizarrogate scandal.

False. On the contrary, I’ve always had a good relationship with this author. We’ve had many great conversations and we sat together for over an hour at Bizarrocon one year sharing beers and geeking out over writing.

It’s really unfortunate that his personal life became the center of #BizarroGate but the personal lives of MANY other authors have been dragged through the mud by Brian Keene and others.

The bizarro powers that be have never once publicly denounced witch hunting or public shaming. #BizarroGate rests squarely on the shoulders of the gate keepers of bizarro fiction for keeping authors’ private lives in play regarding their participation in the genre.

A public denoucement of this behavior by high ranking officials in the genre would go a long way toward protecting the private lives of authors in the future.

So there you have it. If you see any misguided or fallacious posts about #BizarroGate on social media, throw up a link to this post and set the record straight. We have a lot of work to do, together as a community, to fix our broken genre.