Iowa Author Makes Transition to Collectible Commodity

Bram Stoker Award-winning author Mark McLaughlin is finding out that winning a literary prize can do much to forward a writer's career. In fact, it can even make his work collectible during his own lifetime.

DAVENPORT, IA (PRWEB) May 25, 2004 --Bram Stoker Award-winning author Mark McLaughlin is finding out that winning a literary prize can do much to forward a writer's career. In fact, it can even make his work collectible during his own lifetime.

Mr. McLaughlin's upcoming short story collection, "Motivational Shrieker," will be coming out as a limited edition collector's volume from Indiana publisher Delirium Books, which in the past has released collector's editions by best-selling horror and fantasy authors Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell and Tom Piccirilli.

What kind of stories can be found in "Motivational Shrieker"? "It's a book of funny, mostly urban monster stories," said Mr. McLaughlin. "I'm shaking the dust off of monsters and dragging them kicking and squealing into the new Millennium."

Mr. McLaughlin is the author of the 2003 story collections "Once Upon A Slime" and "Hell Is Where The Heart Is," and the poetry collections, "The Gossamer Eye" (2002), "Professor LaGungo's Exotic Artifacts & Assorted Mystic Collectibles" (2003), and "Men Are From Hell, Women Are From The Galaxy of Death" (2004). "The Gossamer Eye," which was written with Rain Graves and David Niall Wilson, won the Bram Stoker Award for Excellence in Poetry in 2003, and the "Professor LaGungo" collection is currently a finalist for the Bram Stoker poetry award to be presented in 2004.

In addition to writing "Motivational Shrieker," Mr. McLaughlin also did the full-color cover art, since he also an accomplished artist who has illustrated for numerous magazines. Each copy will include a different handwritten poem by Mr. McLaughlin, making this edition especially collectible.

The book will be released in a limited edition of only 100 copies, and those copies will be available for pre-order for two months before it is released. Collector's editions from Delirium Books sell out early and often double or even triple in value once they go out of print, and buyers have been known to pay $300 for a single copy.

Information on the book's pre-order period is forthcoming on the publisher's website at www.deliriumbooks.com.

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