Still Floating: 40 Years of Pennywise contributor Michael Rowe

I met Michael during the summer of 2016 at my first NECON. I was a newbie, completely overwhelmed as people rolled in on Thursday afternoon and exchanged gleeful greetings and hugs. It was like being at a family reunion but you didn't know anyone. Yet.

Later that evening I went out into the lobby, still completely out of my element, to have a quiet moment. I started chatting with another camper who immediately made me feel more comfortable. Then, I realized I was talking with the author of one of my favorite vampire novels, Enter, Night, and I instantly reverted to fanboy. Still, Michael was wonderful and gracious and made me feel completely at home. We've been friends ever since and I cherish the times we meet at events.

Michael's essay for Still Floating, "Ghosts of the Kenduskeag Stream: The Gay Bashing of Adrian Mellon and the Restless Shade of Charlie Howard," is nothing short of brilliant. As the titles states, Michael takes a hard, unflinching look at the Adrian Mellon scene in the novel and the real-life event that inspired it, the hate-crime murder of Charlie Howard in Bangor. A powerful read.

Michael's bio:

Michael Rowe is an award-winning essayist and former journalist. They are the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of three novels, a book of interviews, and two volumes of essays, as well as the editor of four anthologies of original horror fiction. For 17 years Rowe was also the first-tier Canadian correspondent for the international horror film magazine Fangoria. It was in that capacity that they interviewed Stephen King on the set of Storm of the Century in the summer of 1998. In 2022, Rowe was asked to write the introductory essay to Rolling Stone magazine photojournalist Nate Gowdy’s INSURRECTION, Gowdy’s first-person monograph of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. INSURRECTION won the 2023 Paris Photography Prize.  Michael Rowe lives in Toronto, where they are at work on their fourth novel. They welcome readers at www.michaelrowe.com