The Prince of Pulp: "My Quill Is Quick"

"Beatnik Bash" at Forbidden Island, 8/22/11

My new business cards

I finally made it. I'm actually earning a (very, very modest) living as a freelance writer. I have a cool new gig reviewing all kinds of online series and web channels for PlaceVine; my ongoing Examiner movie column, along with regular film columns for Bachelor Pad Magazine, Varla Magazine, and the Noir City Sentinel; several Facebook/Twitter "ghost-posting" accounts for various clients; a Top Secret Freelance Writing Assignment, the details of which I cannot divulge quite yet; and of course The Thrillville Pulp Fiction Collection. On top of all that, I'm still proudly hosting my monthly "Forbidden Thrills" movie nites at Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge - the next one is a "Beatnik Bash" on Monday August 22, featuring Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood plus The Rebel Set, both classics rom 1959. I'm happily and semi-lucratively busy doing what I love, at last. Below is a recent official press release that sums it up all. Now, back to work. Cheers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 29, 2011

Full-time freelance writer and part-time performer Will “the Thrill” Viharo first gained fame as programmer/publicist for Speakeasy Theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area, extending his reputation beyond those borders via his popular live cult movie cabaret “Thrillville,” a retro stage show combining classic B movies with burlesque and bands, performed at the Parkway and Cerrito Speakeasy Theaters on a regular basis for twelve years, followed by a year of “road shows” at various venues around the region. Along with his wife and co-host, actress and model Monica “Tiki Goddess” Cortes-Viharo, Will also presented Thrillville Halloween Shows on an annual basis at Copia in Napa, with side trips to the Werepad, the Vortex Room, the Roxie, the 4 Star and Balboa Theaters in San Francisco; the Camera 3 in San Jose; a special guest appearance at the B Movie Celebration in Indiana in 2008; and several stints for the popular convention “Tiki Oasis” in Palm Springs and San Diego.

After Speakeasy Theaters folded in 2009 and the road shows dried up in 2010, Will returned to his real creative roots as a novelist, resuming a career that had been interrupted by Thrillville, which in fact was conceived as a platform from which to promote his first printed novel, “Love Stories Are Too Violent For Me,” published by Wild Card Press in 1995. The small press was founded by the folks behind Speakeasy Theaters, who asked Will to create and host a midnight movie series, which he initially called “The Midnight Lounge,” in April of 1997. In January of 1999 the show, now a Parkway staple, switched to prime time on Thursdays nights, rechristened Thrillville, which took on a life of its own. Meantime, actor Christian Slater discovered and optioned “Love Stories” for a film. Now, “Thrillville” has finally evolved from Will’s online B movie lounge into official headquarters for his one-man pulp fiction factory.

Will the Thrill is now “Will the Quill,” the self-proclaimed Prince of self-published Pulp. Many of the great artists who created his stunning Thrillville posters have been tapped to supply equally stimulating book covers for all of Will’s eclectic novels, including previously unpublished and unfinished manuscripts, along with current works in progress. He calls them “B movies in book form.”

Part of Will’s marketing scheme was to commission a professional “book trailer,” in grindhouse-film noir style, edited by filmmaker Christopher Sorrenti, and largely shot at Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge in Alameda CA, for which Will currently serves as publicist/music booker, and where he hosts a monthly movie night called “Forbidden Thrills.” Forbidden Island also features “Will the Thrill’s Pulp Cocktails Menu,” literary libations inspired by his novels.

For more information and reviewer PDFs, please contact Will at will@thrillville.net.
Also please visit his web site, which includes purchasing info & the book trailer: http://www.thrillville.net/fiction/index.html

Cheers.

THE THRILLVILLE PULP FICTION COLLECTION, BIBLIOGRAPHY TO DATE:

LOVE STORIES ARE TOO VIOLENT FOR ME (Wild Card Press, 1995; out of print)
Meet Vic Valentine, a San Francisco private eye whose romance is on the rocks, with a twist. Join a twisted hopeless romantic on his personal quest for the truth in his twisted tale of old-fashioned romance gone awry in a shadowy, postmodern world of lovelorn losers, vengeful vice, dangerous deceit and swingin' Sinatra songs.

A MERMAID DROWNS IN THE MIDNIGHT LOUNGE (Thrillville Press, 2010)
A Mermaid Drowns in the Midnight Lounge is a lushly lurid, exotically exploitative, sensationally sensual pulp-noir potpourri where star-crossed lovers, sea sirens, monster men, gangsters, porno filmmakers, jazz standards, and an Elvis-spawned zombie apocalypse all intermingle across several parallel dimensions in time and space. This story is unlike anything you’ve ever read. (Cover art: Mike Lewis)

CHUMPY WALNUT (Thrillville Press, 2010)
Chumpy Walnut is a nostalgic fable about a guy only a foot tall - lost, alone and looking for love and friendship in a wacky, wondrous world of hobos, gangsters, gamblers, gun molls, showgirls, and other colorful characters. It is a story anyone who has ever felt “small” can relate to. (Cover art: designed by Miles Goodrich, illustrations by Will Viharo)


DOWN A DARK ALLEY (Thrillville Press, 2010)
Down A Dark Alley is a torrid tale exploding with raw romance, savage sex, voluptuous violence, mirthful mayhem and delirious decadence as a sorry sap takes a breathless cross-country walk on the wild side with a ferocious femme fatale, desperately trying to escape a chaotic past and facing an uncertain future. This is hard-boiled but heartfelt neo-pulp fiction for fearless dreamers. (Cover art: R. Black)

LAVENDER BLONDE (Thrillville Press, 2011)
Lavender Blonde is a psycho-sexual portrait of erotic obsession, conveyed in soul-searching conversations between an itinerant jazz musician, raised in a brothel, and a savvy, sexy social worker, exploring and exposing themes and tales of loneliness and lust as the mysteries behind the madness are slowly revealed. (Cover art: Mister Lobo and Dixie Dellamorto)

FATE IS MY PIMP/ROMANCE TAKES A RAIN CHECK A Vic Valentine Double Feature (Thrillville Press, 2011)
Fate Is My Pimp picks up the torrid trail of Vic Valentine, Private Eye as he traverses the mean streets of San Francisco and beyond in search of a mobster's missing teenage daughter, encountering various voluptuous vixens, a female surf band, and a stalker leaving him mysterious musical messages, all while infiltrating an Elvis-theme commune for runaways, led by a deviously decadent Deacon Rivers. Follow the further misadventures of the misguided hero of LOVE STORIES ARE TOO VIOLENT FOR ME as he continues looking for love in all the wrong places, and unfortunately for him - finding it.
Plus! Romance Takes a Rain Check finds Vic back on the East Coast, tracking down a lead on his cop father's killer, visiting his mother in an asylum, and reuniting with his high school sweetheart, Dolly Duncan, now married to a doper dentist. Nothing is what it seems, times and people have changed, and Vic is going to learn the hard way - again - that some bones, and boners, are best left buried. (Cover art: R. Black)

 I LOST MY HEART IN HOLLYWOOD/DIARY OF A DICK Another Vic Valentine Double Feature (Thrillville Press, 2011)
I Lost My Heart in Hollywood chronicles the strangest case yet in the so-called career of Vic Valentine, Private Eye, as an unlikely tryst with the B movie scream queen of his dreams, Velma Vale, leads him down a dark, twisted path of paranoia, voyeurism, degradation and death. The bizarre action heats up even as his burning loneliness and simmering sexual obsessions flare at the forefront of his tormented consciousness, with caution and common sense cooling idly on the back burner.
Plus! Diary of a Dick tells further tantalizing tales of Vic chasing tail while allegedly on the trail of True Love, all the way to New Orleans and back again, as the femme fatales of his past and present suddenly converge with prurient promises of promiscuity. As always, strings are attached to these erotic escapades, but the ties that bind begin rapidly unraveling, and Vic is left hanging by a thread like a doomed puppet. The mysteries of love have never been more elusive. (Cover art: Rick Lucey)

Work In Progress:

FREAKS THAT CARRY YOUR LUGGAGE UP TO THE ROOM (Thrillville Press, 2012)
“Extreme Erotic Horror Noir” with cover art by Christopher Sorrenti

Stay tuned…