Author Sidney Williams enjoys cooking with his wife, Christine.
You never know when a good opportunity will come your way. Case in point: a few year’s ago, I inherited a box of vintage aprons. “These could be handy,” I thought, as I unfolded the polka dotted one on top and tied it around my waist. It happened that I was getting ready to start up horrorhomemaker.com, a website that would feature cocktail recipes and household tips alongside links to my work. Twirling around the kitchen in my dotty little apron, I got a dotty little idea: “I wonder if people would model aprons for me at horrorhomemaker.com?”
Long story short, they would!
The concept for my website came along after years of encountering surprise and distress whenever those who saw me as a mommy and a baker of cookies learned that I also wrote horror. I wanted a site that would capture the darker side of myself – that side that sometimes irons, and hangs curtains, and fishes the potato chip crumbs out from underneath the couch cushions. The Apron Hall of Fame gave me a starting place for the Horror Homemaker and it’s turned out to be a barrel of fun.
For a Links Page, it gets an awful lot traffic but then, who wouldn’t want to peep at a man hunting a Sasquatch in a lovely floral number? More importantly, the Hall of Fame gives me a reason to contact other authors and let them know how much I’ve enjoyed reading their stories or books, a thing I should have been doing all along, but wasn’t. And writers aren’t the only ones who have posed for my site. Apron-wearers have reached out from all over the world. There are musicians, artists, editors, readers, and devout apron-lovers to be found through out the Hall of Fame. And boy have they been creative. In one picture, a bridegroom sports an apron with a message across the front informing his wedding guests that he’s poisoned all of their food. In another, an aproned horror writer smiles sweetly as she sautés a severed hand. And once, when a very pretty writer/editor modeled an apron for the site wearing an apron and nothing else, you practically had to stand in line and wait your turn to get inside the Hall of Fame. For three days. Aproned authors and the links that lead to their work have proven to be two great tastes that taste great together –like ketchup and spam!
There’s no way I would have ever guessed how much joy was tucked away inside that simple box of aprons. The opportunity to learn and grow by connecting with other writers (and readers) is a treasure you don’t want to overlook. Whether you join a critique group, take part in an online forum, or offer tatter tot casseroles with your books at conventions, swapping experiences (and perhaps a recipe or two) is an essential part of the writing life. Finding a way that works for you and jumping in feet first is all that really matters. Just have fun!
By the way, if you’ve ever hoped for the chance to catch Sully sawing the head off a swan, your search is over: http://horrorhomemaker.com
It was self-defense…er, I thought it was a swain…um,swan? That was a swan? I thought it was an albino pterodactyl. Actually, Carole, it was more fun than a barrel of rubber ducks. Your inspirations always are. Hope people take an in-depth look at your website, including the links to your personal book/story video trailers. Yes, there is the tongue-in-cheek, severed or otherwise, but there are also hints of your elegant prose and exquisitely delicate character relationships. That’s what hooked me on your writing — not just the dawning awareness of aberrations but the deft touch you have with human psychology at any level. If the phrase “galvanizing subtlety” does not exist, I hereby coin it to apply to you. C’mon, editors & publishers of dark fiction, wake up! Here’s a writer who can broaden the whole marketplace.
– Sully
Gosh, Sully, you give me such high praise. Galvanzing subtlety. It sound so beautiful. You are a shining example of the support that is to be found out there in the writing community. It makes all the difference in the world.
And now I must confess that I told one lie in the column above. I do not iron. The rest is all true though.
Well, the last thing I expected to see was Sid cooking. Odd that it didn’t bother me to see Christine’s head, more that it was Sid actually in front of a stove.
My guess is that Sid saw Tropic Thunder one too many times.
Enjoyed the background, Carole. I got your invitation the other day, so expect at least the first of a two-stage reply soon…
Thank you for reading, Wayne and Brian. Sid was a good sport, wasn’t he? I’d never spoken to him until he stepped into an apron for me. Thanks to this hitherto unforeseen opportunity, I now know a) that Sid is alive, and b) the color of his wife’s eyes.