BIBLIOGRAPHY.....NEWS...REVIEWS
PHOTOGRAPHS...POETRY...GRAVES...LINKS

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"The Disinterment of Ophelia" by Michelle Scalise, an oddly touching
look at how a spot of grave robbing for the sake of poetry affects a nicely
varied cast of Dickensian characters.-Rambles.net
The issue also features six short fiction selections; one of which is entitled
"Three Floors Down We Cleanse the Soul" by Michelle Scalise, a particularly
chilling little piece about familial decay in the South.-Coolshopping.com
Here's what reviewers have had to say about my recent story THE BEAUTIFUL ONES which appeared in Crimewave 8 and received an honorable mention in this YEARS BEST FANTASY AND HORROR
"In "The Beautiful Ones," Michelle Scalise takes us back in
time to Victorian London for the first person tale of a failing poet and playwright
who is secretly gay and addicted to chloral, which causes vivid hallucinations.
When one of his associatesa more successful playwright named Childeis
arrested for indecency for cavorting with young, male prostitutes, our protagonist
must decide whether to publicly come to the aid of his friend, or suffer what
he is in silence. Or does the chloral have other plans?This is a well-written
story. Scalise does a wonderful job of painting a different time period for
us and has peopled it with sympathetic characters who are fully realized."
TANGENT ONLINE
"The Beautiful Ones by Michelle Scalise is a story that
works on many levels. The narrator is a failed playwright and wannabe aesthete,
who lives on the fringes of the Edwardian gay in-crowd, the beautiful
ones of the title. He is haunted by visions of a drowned woman, the
wife of Childe, an Oscar Wilde character facing the same kind of trial that
the great man did. Mrs. Childe is very much alive as the visions are induced
by chloral, the drug of choice for the beautiful and sophisticated. The aesthetes
are portrayed as desperate, elegant, and persecuted but also have their
delusions about themselves revealed. They hand hard faced rent boys roses
and quote poetry in an effort to gild a lifestyle that is self centred, shallow,
and exploitative, devoid of any loyalty, affection, or genuine emotion. When
the crisis comes, both Childe and the narrator are abandoned by their friends.
The most honest assessment of them comes from a renter who betrays them :
pretentious fops pretending you were better than me.Threaded through
this story is another one: that of Childes wife, a pathetic creature
who loves her husband and retains her devotion to him although she is of no
importance to him. She is fated to be a shadow drifting past his window,
an object of mockery to his witty friends (her dress sense is despicable,
apparently, and her loyalty and devotion of no account). The narrators
visions turn out to be premonitory for all the excessive emotion and
dramatics of the aesthetes, it is she who commits suicide, quietly and without
fuss. The haunting of the narrator is really a battle with his inner self.
Marriage with a suitable girl who bores him is on the cards. He knows the
damage done to Mrs. Childe, but he tries to love his fiancée (after
all, her father will finance his latest play) but in the end is torn hopelessly
between his desire for men (eerily explored in dream sequences) and the security
of the camouflage of marriage. The denouement is shocking and it is impossible
to know who to feel most pity for. " Laura Hird THE NEW REVIEW
Michelle Scalise's "The Beautiful Ones", a spooky tale narrated
by a chloral-supping aesthete, goes the whole hog and plunges into the demimonde
of Oscar Wilde's Victorian London. -Guardian.co.uk
.raise
for my first collection, Intervals Of Horrible Sanity
"It isnt often that a collection reveals its brilliance so quickly,
but Intervals of Horrible Sanity trumpets Scalises unique talent from
the intense, harrowing first story and maintains its
unbreakable hold until the last page...More than the plots in this collection
make it one of the
truly great books of 2003; Scalise has a gift for creating unforgettable characters."
-Lisa DuMond
Contributing Editor and Senior Reviewer for SFSite and Black Gate Magazine
"Michelle Scalise is soon going to be one of the big names in horror, and one you won't forget after reading Intervals of Horrible Sanity" -Jonathan Reitan, Cemetery Dance Magazine
"Visceral, Dark, Disturbing. The
images stand out like old scars, pain and suffering that stay with you forever.
Be prepared for an unsettling read." - Talebones Magazine
"Michelle Scalise's writing is entertaining, emotionally charged and
challenging. She manages to be shocking and surprising, brutal and moving,
lyrical and gritty, and her stories have a way of staying with you for a long
time. I don't know what dark magic she uses ... but I like it!" -- Tim
Lebbon, Bram Stoker award winning author of AS THE SUN GOES DOWN and THE NATURE
OF BALANCE
"Michelle Scalise is a born storyteller
who fills her tales with narrative muscle and the relentless draw of seductive
dreams. Once hooked you won't be able to resist her dark charms."Tom
Piccirilli, Bram Stoker award winning author of THE NIGHT CLASS and A CHOIR
OF ILL CHILDREN
"Michelle Scalise's poetry and
stories are siren songs from the heart of darkness: they draw the reader in
with their beauty and passion, and deliver terrible truths with precision
and power. Her work captivates and torments with its haunting vision."
- Gerard Houarner, author of THE BEAST THAT WAS MAX, ROAD TO HELL
"MICHELLE SCALISE'S writing evokes the dark beauty of a razor glinting
in the moonlight. Sharp, powerful and emotinally unsettling, Scalise is a
masterful new talent. I'm a fan!" --Brian Keene, author of THE RISING
and NO REST FOR THE WICKED
"The company of accomplished poets that have turned their hands to crafting exceptional weird tales is a small but distinguished group that includes Clark Ashton Smith, Joseph Payne Brennan, and of course Edgar Allan Poe. With the publication of Intervals Of Horrible Sanity we can now add the name of Michelle Scalise to this dark and august company. Definitely an important new voice in the genre." --John Pelan, Bram Stoker award winning editor of THE DARKER SIDE and co-author of FAMILY TRADITION
"Michelle Scalise's work doesn't scream or howl or scratch at the walls trying to get out . . . but it doesn't have to be to get the job done. Subtle and hard-edged, her stories will slip quietly into your mind like a knife made of ice and stay with you long after the blade is removed." --P.D. Cacek, Bram Stoker award winning author of NIGHT PRAYERS and CANYONS
"Michelle Scalise is one of those rare writers who can successfully pair shock with sensitivity. Her work is at turns poetically conceptual and viscerally riveting. INTERVALS OF HORRIBLE SANITY will take you places you may not always want to visit but which you will never forget." -- Charlee Jacob, author of THIS SYMBIOTIC FASCINATION and GUISES
"When I read erotica, I rarely
have much of a reaction. When I read Scalise's erotica, my wife flees in terror."
-- Michael Oliveri, Bram Stoker award winning author of DEADLIEST OF THE SPECIES
and co-author of 4x4
"Michelle's work is always intense, very energetic, with compelling,
poetic use of language. I predict we'll be seeing the name Scalise in more
tables of contents and on many more book-spines as the years progress!"
Mark McLaughlin --Bram Stoker award winning co-author of THE GOSSAMER EYE
and YOUR HANDY OFFICE GUIDE TO CORPORATE MONSTERS