Since 1976, novelist, screenwriter, editor Thomas F. Monteleone has been chronicling the art and business of horror in his MAFIA column, bouncing about small press magazines, usually moving whenever its venue folded. Horror is older and broader than its recent reputation for slashers, its literary pedigree including authors such as Mary Shelley, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shirley Jackson, and Russell Kirk. Horror literature has long reflected broader societal concerns, and MAFIA likewise covers issues that overlap, but extend beyond, horror. All past columns are now reprinted (with annotations by Monteleone) in a volume from Borderlands Press.

MAFIA's broad reportage and brazen attitude are both hinted at by a name that seems incongruous for a horror column, but Monteleone often confounds the expectations of polite society. He claims to have named his column after a Sicilian belt buckle he spotted at a hippie festival, but one infers he also wishes to annoy politically correct sensibilities. After describing the buckle, which bore the full name of that infamous organization, he adds: "I'm described as an outspoken, up-front kind of person. I believe in order to de-sensitize ourselves from these meaningless taboos, we have got to promote the use and acceptance of 'gutter' ... language." (Understand, Monteleone's grandfather entered Ellis Island from Sicily).

It's remarkable how little publishing culture and business practices have changed over 27 years, despite distribution and technological innovations such as superstores, internet retail (especially Amazon.com), and print-on-demand self-publishing. Dip into MAFIA at random and you will find each column enjoyable and surprisingly relevant, written in prose that is erudite, colloquial, and eminently readable.

The problem of "orphaning" (when an editor buys a book then quits, leaving the book without an advocate inside the publishing house) remains unchanged from the time of Monteleone's 1988 "Maxwell Perkins Died a Long Time Ago." Monteleone's publisher lost interest in Monteleone's orphaned book, but instead of reverting the rights (and saving money), the publisher delayed printing the book until the last contractual moment — then didn't promote it, thus assuring its financial failure. Small wonder publishing has long been said to be in a "crisis."

As a former anthology editor, Monteleone reveals the common mistakes writers commit that guarantee rejection. He also warns of the career risks of writing media tie-ins (books based on TV shows, movies, and comic books), describing the tie-in ghetto as just notch above "all the hopeless mooks who send their stuff to rip-off artists in the Writers Digest Classifieds." And he covers his experiences writing for Hollywood.

MAFIA also has literary etiquette tips. Never ask "some of the dumb questions writers are always asked," such as, Where do you get your ideas? Especially unwelcome is the usual followup, whereby the boor offers a book idea, which the writer can write for a 50/50 split. Says Monteleone, "Now isn't that just about the most fabulous thing you can ever imagine happening to a writer? I can tell ya, friends, we all dream about that one ... it's right up there with being at the top of the bestseller list for 47 weeks and selling movie rights for ten mill."