ken barber

I am excited to see how the authors attack this. I am sure there are going to be some amazing Halloween late night ready, with a cup of mulled cider and a warm blanket. The doorbell will ring and I will laugh and grab the almost empty candy bowl. There is always those last few trick or treaters right at the time that it’s almost to let’s. You will open the door and laugh. “Wow those are some great zombie costumes.....

Good point. I think that both made massive impacts on the genre.

The Castle’s 6th Annual Halloween Short Story Contest. Just over 50 years ago, a movie was released that changed the world of horror. It swept away the dusty cobwebs of the horror genre and pulled it out of the dark corners of the castles it resided in and made it modern. Unleashing a horde of flesh eating zombies on rural pennsylvania “Night of the Living Dead” would change the way we view the horror genre forever. Can you live up to the expectations of the zombie loving fans or will your brains be eaten by the very creatures you try to bring to life or death in your story? This year’s contest theme should be your take on the classic “Night of the Living Dead” Zombie Genre. Challenge yourself and tell us the story from a different perspective. Can romance blossom or can love endure during a zombie invasion. Set your story in any time period post 1950 and include at least two characters that develop or maintain an LGBT affair, romance or relationship in the story. Who will survive this contest and who will be eaten alive? The Rules Castle Roland's 6nd Annual Halloween Short Story Contest timeline Submissions Open Date: September 1, 2019 Midnight Eastern Standard Time Submission Deadline: October 3th, 2019 Midnight Eastern Standard Time Forum Member Voting start: October 7 th, 2019 Forum member Voting conclusion: October 25th, 2019 Midnight Eastern Standard Time Winners Announced in Special Halloween Edition of The Castle Herald and a Special Halloween Update: October 31, 2019 Story Guidelines: Stories should be edited and polished. They will be posted exactly as you send them. We will not edit for you once you submit it however it is acceptable to get help with editing Stories should contain a Halloween theme with zombies and Embrace it and have a blast with it Challenge yourself to create a short story with the classic theme but with your twist. Stories should be more than 7,500 words and less than 25,000 words Castle Roland short story contests are designed to challenge. For those that typically write less than the minimum challenge yourself to stretch to the minimum For those that typically write more than than the maximum challenge yourself to stay under the maximum and still get your story told Submissions must be sent to castlerolandpr@gmail.com Submissions sent to any other email address with be returned as disqualified. This is to maintain the anonymity of the stories so it's a true blind vote. Submission will be posted to a special members only forum on the Castle Roland Community Forum Site and will be posted without author name and title. They will be listed as a numbered submission for example Halloween Story #1 Halloween Story #2 Judging: The Forum members will be asked to Judge the stories based on the following Criteria. Theme: Does the Story fit the Zombie theme The Theme was the primary focus point of the story 10 points The story used and followed the theme but it wasn’t the primary focus 5 points The story was set using the theme but the theme did not affect the characters 2 points The story did not use the theme at all 0 points Romance in the zombie apocalypse The realtionship between the queer characters was so believable I wanted to hug them both 10 points The realtionship between the queer characters was pretty realistic 5 points The relationship felt forced but was there 2 points The author did not include a relationship between queer characters 0 points Content. Did the story engage you all the way to the end I couldn’t stop reading it 10 points It was great but there were a couple dull spots 5 points It was enjoyable but not gripping 2 points I had to force myself to finish it 0 points Character Development: Where the characters believable The Characters reactions to theme and each other was very realistic 10 points The characters reactions to the theme or each other was very realistic 5 points The characters reactions were a bit of a stretch in some places 2 points The characters reactions where not believable at all 0 points Technical: did the authors follow the rules and tell a good story The author told a great story and kept within the word count challenge 10 points The author stretch the story will fluff to make the minimum word count 5 points The author cut important details to get under the word count maximum 5 points The author was under the minimum or over the maximum 0 points Overall satisfaction with the story I am thrilled with this story 10 points I am happy with this story 5 points It's an ok story 2 points I am unhappy with this story 0 points The points will be tallied as a grand total and a winner declared In the event of a tie the story with the highest points in the theme category will be declared a winner. If this does not resolve the tie then two 1st place winners will be declared. Administration of the contest The Contest will be administered by Ken Barber and Al Norris All questions should be submitted to castlerolandpr@gmail.com. Publicity and copyrights Authors retain all rights to submitted works with the following exceptions Castleroland.net reserves the right to post, promote and present all submitted stories through its website and forums. Castleroland.net and its officers may decide to remove any submission from its website and forums at any time without notice Castleroland reserves the right to use any submissions in promotions and specials in the future without advanced notice. Authors agree to not publish or post their Halloween Contest Submission on any site or media other than Castle Roland for a minimum of 6 months after the contest ends. Contest official end date: November 1, 2019 Stories are no longer held as exclusive to Castle Roland on May 1, 2020 Castle Roland does not have the right to release submissions to other online hosting services or publishers without express written permission from the author. Authors must be recognized as the original creator in any future promotions and/or specials.

Question 1. New York, NY. The Stonewall inn today is a historic landmark Question 2. The Advocate. The Advocate was first published as a local newsletter by the activist group Personal Rights in Defense and Education (PRIDE) in Los Angeles. The newsletter was inspired by a police raid on a Los Angeles gay bar, the Black Cat Tavern, on January 1, 1967 Question 3. 1970 and it was called the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade Question 4. 1973 In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members attending its convention to vote on whether they believed homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, and 3,810 to retain it. Question 5. Harvery Milk. Harvey Milk was elected to the San Fransico Board of Supervisor in 1977 and served 11 months before he was assisinated. During his 11 months Milk Sponsored and got approved the first city ordance banning discrimination in public accomadations, housing and employment. He was assisinated on November 27, 1978 along with San Fransico Mayor George Mascone. Question 6. Wisconson. Pennsylvania became the first state to ban public sector employment discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1975. Wisconsin became the first state to ban both public and private sector employment discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1982. Question 7. Gilbert Baker. Gilbert Baker died in 2018

Here is a little fun trivia about about the Gay Rights Movements

Parker, Thank you for sharing. The fear all of us older LGBTQIA+ people experienced will live with us forever. I still look over my shoulder frequently waiting for someone to say or do something. That fear has only lessened slightly for the younger generations and in some areas of the world is even worse now. Thank you again. we must always remember our past and never stop fighting for our future

So I am curious is there anyone on the forums that remember the Stonewall Riots via news or in person and would you be willing to share your experience or feelings or just some of the things you may have heard or seen.

Here is another great article about Stonewall and the Riots http://www.back2stonewall.com/2019/06/the-true-history-stonewall-riots.html

During the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City Police raided the Stonewall Inn. By itself this raid was not at all unusual. Members of the LGBT Community in New York and almost everywhere where used to these raids. The difference with this raid is the bar patrons and community members that had quickly gathered around had had enough. There is a lot of speculation as to who and what was initially thrown at the police. Some say a brick, some say a bottle and some say a high heel shoe. I personally love the High heel shoe story. But what happened at the moment was a match setting off a powder keg The LGBT community was done being second class citizens. 50 years later and we celebrate that moment of defiance. There is still a long way to go in the fight for equal rights for our whole community but this year we pause and look back at how far we have come. For more information here are some links wikipedia "it all began at Stonewall and other Fairy tales" History.com How the Stonewall Riots Sparked a Movement | History - YouTube Stonewall riots anniversary: How the New York media covered the gay ... www.today.com "stonewall riots witnesses mark 50 years since historic rebellion"

Thank you for your input

Nor did I claim it to be resolved Thank you for calling our volunteers lazy. The website does not run its self and there is way more involved in running it than you are obviously aware of based on this comment. When a story is submitted we schedule it with the author. If we stop receiving submissions we reach out to the author but if we do not receive a response we leave it alone. This is not laziness but you can imagine how an author would feel of they came back from an extended vacation to find the status of their story has changed without their permission. This is not, regardless of your careless comments, a simple matter with a simple solution. I am sorry our volunteers do not work hard enough for you. We have three statuses "in progress" "on hold" and "complete" There are thousands of stories on the site we do not have the time go back and look through the entire library to see if we have an incorrect status. When someone points out an error or issue to us we correct it as quickly as possible. As you can see from Adam's post most of his concerns have been addressed. I am unable to address the concerns where he only listed the author and not a story. I have asked him to follow up with me with more detail. Or I could just leave my own stories incomplete and perpetuate the issue to take the time to go through the entire library to check statuses. The rest of your post is an opinion that rebuts my opinion so I am not going to just leave that alone.

here is some motivation for you a list of earthquake movies with links to wikipedia. Enjoy 10.0 Earthquake (2014) 10.5 (2004, miniseries) 10.5: Apocalypse (2006) 2012 (2009) The 5th Wave (2016) Aftershock (2010) Aftershock: Earthquake in New York (1999) The Big One: The Great Los Angeles Earthquake (1990) Deluge (1933) Earthquake (1974) Earthquake (2016) Earthquake in New York (1998, TV movie) Geostorm (2017) Ghostquake (2012) Kuso (2017) Megafault (2009) Nature Unleashed: Earthquake (2005) San Andreas (2015) Nihon Igai Zenbu Chinbotsu (2006) San Andreas Quake (2015) (PG-13) San Francisco (1936) Short Walk to Daylight (1972, TV movie)

@Adam if you would be willing to send an email to castlerolandpr@gmail.com with a list of story titles I would be happy to check into the status of those you discovered. As it is we updated Cynus' stories to complete, Parker's "Mountains of Memories" is on hold and we updated the status of "Undersong" "Time Quake" "Time May Change" and we checked the status of "Billie Joe's Journals" all have been marked complete for some time.

Cynus "Rivers of the Dead 4" is now marked complete and we also marked "Logan and Seth" Complete.

Parker Mountains of Memories' status has been changed to "On Hold"