ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Weston Ochse is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than 26 books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war. Weston likes to be called a chaotic good paladin and challenges anyone to disagree. After all, no one can really stand a goody two-shoes lawful good character. They can be so annoying. It's so much more fun to be chaotic, even when you're striving to save the world. You can argue with him about this and other things online at Living Dangerously or on Facebook at Badasswriter. All content of this blog is copywrited by Weston Ochse.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Shout Out -- Scott Bradley

This blog isn't all about me. I mean it is, but even I need a break from myself. Sometimes I like to talk about folks I like. Sometimes I just like to explain why some people are cool.

Take Scott Bradley for instance. I first met Scott at the Stoker Weekend in Burbank in June 2009. A bunch of us were lounging on some outdoor furniture-- Larry Roberts, Cody Goodfellow, John Skipp, others -- and Scott was there as well. I was at the Stoker Weekend because of my novella Redemption Roadshow, published by Burning Effigy. It was one of four long fiction finalists for the Bram Stoker Award. Scott was there for the non-fiction category, The Book of Lists, which he contributed to and edited along with Del Howison and Amy Wallace. We must have sat around drinking and talking and just having a solid evening. I remember how intrigued I was about his pending trip with his father to Vietnam.


He promised that he'd send me a postcard. And if you look at this, you can see he did. I have to admit, I added something to it. You probably can't figure out what it is. But the overwhelming feeling of someone taking the time when they are overseas having what is probably one of the best trips of their lives to send you a postcard-- well, in this case it was like a 7,000 mile handshake and inclusion into something special between him and his father.

Scott and I converse on FB all the time. Last year during my Poisoned Soup Book Tour, where I appeared at Book Soup in L.A. and The Poisoned Pen in Phoenix the same weekend, I was supposed to hook up with him, but it wasn't to be. But because Scott couldn't come, I was able to meet Pete Giglio instead, who I'm also very pleased to know.






So this year, out of the blue, I get another postcard, this one from Thailand.

Now that's just badass. I miss Thailand. I've been there six times and wish I was there again.

So where can you find Scott, besides googling him or facebook friending him? You can find a fairly amazing and insightful article of his in Vince Liaguno's Butcher Knives and Body Counts fiction book. Scott's contribution is an essay about The Hitcher titled 'There's Something Going on Between the Two of You.' I have the book because I'm looking at it for a possible award and Scott's essay is one of the finest they have. There's something about the way Scott approaches things that is different from most people.
 He's also working on a novel with Pete Giglio for John Skipp's Ravenous Shadows. Can't wait for that to come out.

Most of all, just send good thoughts his way. He deserves it.

Here's Scott. I like this picture because it could have
been taken on the Left Bank in Paris had we been part
of the Lost Generation.

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