Tag Archives: Nancy A. Collins

A Tweet Grows in Brooklyn

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Once upon a time phone pranksters called tobacco shops and asked, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” (When told “Yes” they’d scream “Well, let him out!”)

Today it was no prank when people contacted the Gwinnett County District Attorney to ask if Ed Kramer was still in the can. Because they’d seen on his @edwardekramer Twitter account that Kramer was listing his location as “Brooklyn.” Kramer is supposed to be under house arrest in Georgia.

Comics Beat broke the story on July 9.

On his twitter profile, Kramer claims to be located in Brooklyn, NY, which WOULD be a clear violation of house arrest if I’m not mistaken. A search at his website also reveals a stunning new bio:

An award-winning editor and writer, Edward E. Kramer’s published works includes Sandmanwith Neil Gaiman, Elric with Michael Moorcock, and The Crow with James O’Barr; he received the Prometheus Award for the Libertarian SF anthology Free Space, with Brad Linaweaver. Ed agented volumes of classic work for Harlan Ellison (Edgeworks), Fritz Leiber (Lankhmar), and Michael Moorcock (Eternal Champion). Ed arranged the literary partnership between authors Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson which re-launched the Dune universe; the first Herbert / Anderson collaborative trilogy was dedicated to Ed’s efforts.
 
As a photojournalist and music critic, Ed’s features were syndicated through the NY Times regional wire; his photography and portraits graced the pages of Billboard, Rolling Stone, Time, and USA Today. Ed’s original fiction appears in numerous anthologies, collections, and magazines. In 1987, Ed founded America’s largest annual pop-cultural event, Dragon Con, and served as Chairman for fourteen years. An active member of the Science Fiction Writer’s Association (SFWA) for more than two decades, and a past Nebula Awards host, Ed also served as Vice-President and Trustee of the Horror Writers Association (HWA).
 
A graduate of Emory University School of Medicine, Ed’s work in Violence Epidemiology with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) helped develop the technology to decrease fatalities through a pilot study for Atlanta’s Domestic Crisis Intervention Unit (DCIU). His experience includes more than two decades of work as an administrator in the psychiatric and addiction treatment professions, and eight years as Producer of the Tovia Singer Show for Arutz Sheva, Israel’s only independent national live radio station. 

Commenters on the Comics Beat article said they forwarded the information and got this reply from DA Danny Porter:

He’s not in New York. He’s on a GPS bracelet which shows he’s in Duluth Ga which has been confirmed.

Nancy Collins reports that Kramer has since taken his Twitter feed private, but screencaps were recorded. Collins has further learned:

He’s also on Google + & one of the people in his “circle” is the boy he was caught with in 2011.

The boy was 14 in 2011 when Kramer was arrested and by now would be older than 16, so while it’s a creepy thought, that probably doesn’t violate the sentencing court’s order that Kramer have no contact with anyone under the age of 16.

Update: The Gwinnett Daily Post is reporting that among the 1,900 people Kramer was following on Twitter was a user who identified herself as a 14-year-old-girl from Brisbane, Australia.

That, [District Attorney] Porter confirmed Wednesday, could represent a violation of the plea agreement, which bars Kramer from having any contact “either direct or indirect with any person under the age of 16.”

“(It’s) certainly possible,” Porter said in an email. “I’m looking into this.”

Kramer’s account was created in 2011, but had been dormant for the past three years. Two weeks ago it became active again.

Representing himself as a Brooklyn, N.Y.,-based editor, writer and producer, Kramer has tweeted more than 50 times recently, primarily sharing links to news stories covering topics like human rights, jury bias and social media best practices.

Dragon*Con Reorganizes,
Cashes Out Kramer

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Ed Kramer will no longer own part of Dragon*Con following a cash-out merger agreed to by directors and shareholders of Dragon Con/ACE, Inc., producer of Dragon*Con. The old company is merging into Dragon Con, Inc., a new corporation whose ownership includes five of the six founding owners of Dragon*Con – but not Kramer.  

According to Dragon*Con’s official statement:

Edward Kramer, who has not had any role in managing or organizing the convention since 2000, was offered cash for his shares in the old company. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

However, Kramer has not accepted the terms according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

McNeill Stokes, who has represented Kramer in lawsuits against DragonCon/ACE, called the merger a “discriminatory squeeze-out” and said the cash offered for Kramer’s shares was “grossly inadequate.”

Stokes said he expects a legal challenge.

The company had offered three times to buy Kramer’s shares for $500,000, in 2004, 2006 and 2008, according to spokesman Greg Euston.

Kramer remains in jail facing multiple counts of child molestation that have been pending since his arrest in 2000. Although no longer involved in the convention’s management, Kramer continued to earn dividends from his 34 percent ownership in DragonCon/ACE, which led Nancy Collins to call on fans to boycott Dragon*Con. The social media response has finally pressured the con’s leadership to take a step that just last February they publicly claimed was not possible.

[Thanks to Don Cook for the story.]

Dragon*Con Boycott Gets Atlanta Coverage

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed past Dragon*Con guests who plan to stay away due to the boycott in its March 27 edition.

It was the Connecticut charges, and a detailed account of Kramer’s saga published in Atlanta Magazine last fall, that convinced one-time Dragon-Con performer and customer Jim Stacy to stay away this year. “I can’t in good conscience have money that I’ve spent going to continue to allow him to skirt a trial date,” said the 6-foot-6 Stacy, a well-known figure in local theater and music circles. Stacy once performed at the convention in a Star Wars themed band (he was dressed as Darth Vader) and is the star of the PBA food series “Get Delicious!”

And —

Don Murphy, producer of the “Transformer” movies (which have earned $2.6 billion at the box office), is a one-time Dragon-Con panelist who won’t be going back.

The for-profit nature of Dragon-Con is what chains the organization to Kramer, said Murphy. “The fact that it’s a profit motive is what’s keeping them from doing the right thing and getting rid of him.”

Nancy Collins, who called for the boycott, told a reporter, “I’ve had people threaten violence and death to me because of the boycott.”   

Kramer is presently in custody at the Gwinnett County Detention Center (Ga.). The district attorney’s office plans to have him examined for fitness to stand trial.

Kill City Kickstarter Campaign

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Urban fantasy and horror writer Nancy A. Collins, author of Sunglasses After Dark, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the completion and publication of Kill City, the first new novel in the Sonja Blue series in ten years.

If the campaign is successful, Kill City will be the first traditional print novel from Collins’ Hopedale Press.

Traditional publishers deemed her initial book proposal for Kill City to be “uncommercial” — largely due to “a biting take on a certain popular series of vampire novels aimed at the Young Adult market.” So Collins is taking her case directly to the fans of the Sonja Blue series.

Kill City opens with vampire/vampire slayer Sonja Blue still doing what she does best–hunting down and killing undead and other dangerous “Pretenders”–inhuman creatures, such as werewolves and demons, who pose as humans in order to prey upon mankind. 

She receives a letter from the aged Senator Holden, looking to sell her a rare occult artifact. But upon arriving at his estate, she soon discovers that he knows who and what she really is, and wants her to search for his missing granddaughter, who was spirited away by a man on the internet claiming to be the vampire protagonist from the wildly popular Eventide series.

The Kill City Kickstarter campaign runs until November 28.