In an attempt to get more organized in regards to my writing endeavors, I decided it would behoove me to erect a blog designed specifically to focus on my multiple creative projects. With that in mind, I've decided to give birth to this pallid moonchild, The Onyx Glossary, a reliquary of words that shall serve as the official place where interested parties can get news related to my various writing projects.
A brief history of my life as a writer: I've pretty much been writing my entire life. I won a young author's contest both in grade school and also in middle school, but it wasn't until high school that I started to take writing all that seriously. It was around that point in my life that I started to write out entire books by hand, on folded up pieces of paper, and many of these books were as long as 300 pages (the biggest one topped the 360 page mark). I wrote six of these kinds of books in high school and four during my first two years of college. In college I began taking a number of creative writing courses where I temporarily abandoned the novel form to focus on poetry and short stories. Upon graduating from Rhode Island College in 2003 with a degree in English, I began typing out my first full-length novel, PunkModernist, which had at first been a short story I had written during my final year at RIC as an assignment for an advanced creative writing course... this 23 page short story blossomed into a nearly 400 page novel. To date I have not tried to have it published though, as it was just an experiment to prove to myself I could type out a novel on computer. In 2005 through 2006 I typed out a second novel, Confusion, which I self-published through iUniverse towards the end of that year. In 2007 a short story of mine appeared in the anthology known as Userlands, published by Akashic Books and edited by Dennis Cooper. It was my first official publishing credit. In 2008 I began writing a number of horror stories which ended up being collected into a single volume I entitled Grimoire. This collection of interconnected short stories, which I completed in late 2009 and continue to polish, will be published by Rebel Satori Press sometime in the near future.
My goals as a writer are fairly modest. I know I'll never be a big-shot novelist, but I wouldn't want to be anyway (I wouldn't mind the money, though). I'd be much happier to be a cult writer with a small but fanatical following that I could take the time to interact with. My dream is to one day get to a point where the editors who compile anthologies of short stories ask me to contribute stories for them, rather than the other way around. As a longtime admirer of the literary genre known as "Weird Fiction," it would be cool to be mentioned in the same breath as such diseased luminaries as H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, and Ramsey Campbell.
Although this blog has been created mainly as a way to track my literary "career," I also intend to fill it with other material: reviews of books I've read, videos I watch online that I find enjoyable, articles related to the occult and religion (my favorite pet topics), shout-outs related to books or stories published by my other writer friends, entries related to books or stories I've written in the past, and so on.
Finally, a bit of biographical data related to myself. My name is James Champagne. At the time of this writing I am 30 years old. I was born on June 17, in the year MCMLXXX, and I have lived in the city of Woonsocket in the state of Rhode Island my entire life. I am the oldest of four brothers, and at the moment work part-time at a Barnes & Noble bookstore. In terms of politics I'm fairly liberal (especially in relation to social issues). In terms of religion I identify as a Gnostic though I also have a fascination with Thelema, the Hermetic Qabalah and also Eastern religions (in particular Buddhism and Hinduism). My favorite animal is the cat, of which I have two. My favorite color is black, then blue, then mauve. My favorite food is pasta. My favorite TV shows include Friends, Glee, Monk, Frasier, Mr. Bean, and the Death Note anime. My favorite film directors are Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and David Lynch. My favorite school of art is Surrealism, followed by Pop and Symbolism (favorite artists include Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Max Ernst, Odilon Redon, Leonora Carrington, Man Ray, Gilbert & George, Edward Gorey, H.R. Giger, and Camille Rose Garcia). In my spare time, aside from writing, I enjoy creating electronic music (much of which ends up on my Mauve Zone Recordings netlabel). Recently I've also begun visiting the old cemeteries and churches of my hometown, a practice I find extremely relaxing and artistically satisfying.
In terms of music my top ten groups or acts are Current 93, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Whitehouse, Madonna, Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Ministry, Nurse With Wound, and Sonic Youth. Some modern acts I like include Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, Justin Bieber, and Greyson Chance. My top ten favorite albums of all time (in no particular order) are:
Nico: The Marble Index
Manic Street Preachers: The Holy Bible
The Residents: Third Reich and Roll
Siouxsie & the Banshees: Join Hands
Coil: Horse Rotorvator
Current 93: Imperium
Nurse With Wound: Merzbild Schwet
Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation
Nine Inch Nails: Pretty Hate Machine
Whitehouse: Asceticists 2006
My literary heroes include H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, William S. Burroughs, Dennis Cooper, Bret Easton Ellis, Grant Morrison, J.K. Huysmans, Kenneth Grant, Poppy Z. Brite, Kathy Acker, Cormac McCarthy, Jean Genet, J.G. Ballard, Jorge Luis Borges, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Vladimir Nabokov.
It would be nice if I can add content to this blog everyday, if only to keep myself intellectually occupied. Time shall tell.
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