On March 14 -18, Associate Professor of English Dr. Michael Arnzen attended a panel discussion on his horror writing and hosted a screening of the film based on his work, Exquisite Corpse, at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts-28 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. In her paper, "Domestic Dissection," critic Gina Wisker (U. Brighton, UK) examined Arnzen's treatment of ordinary domestic spaces (the household, the shopping mall, etc.) as a site for Gothic horror. In "Hookers and Housewives: The Use of Stereotypes in Short Horror Fiction," Writing Popular Fiction alumna Tanya Twombly (SHU 03) discussed how Arnzen's short-short horror stories manipulate reader assumptions to generate surprise. Also attending the conference were Writing Popular Fiction student, Venessa Guinta, and WPF alumna Nalo Hopkinson (SHU 02), who performed a fiction reading in support of her book, The New Moon's Arms. Dr. Arnzen also delivered a fiction reading alongside writer Peter Straub, and presented an academic paper, "Tonka Terrors," which applies comedy theory to Stephen King's lowbrow film, Maximum Overdrive. This essay is scheduled to appear in a scholarly book, The Films of Stephen King, to be published by Palgrave-MacMillan at the end of the year.

Dr. Arnzen also screened Exquisite Corpse at the 2007 World Horror Convention, which took place in Toronto, Canada, March 29 – April 1. At the World Horror Convention, Dr. Arnzen also participated in panel discussions, performed readings of his fiction, and helped to present the Bram Stoker award for poetry.