biography

WINNIPEG HORROR CON, September 12, 2026

Ladies and Gentlemen, Genders of all tastes, I present… Winnipeg Horror Con, September 2012.  I’m D.G. Valdron, and I’ll be one of the dealers – offering my personal bookstore of weird tales of every kind. Starting with…

A dark excursion into cosmic horror, existential dread, over the top gore, featuring 90s slasher movie killers assembled, vampire infestations, river gods, wendigo, human farms, giant centipedes, alien dimensions, and stuff too weird and scary to describe.  The trigger warnings alone for this went on for three pages.

And more…

Read more

A FIELD GUIDE TO SELF PUBLISHING – September 5, 2026

Exactly what it says on the box.  Got the craving to write? Eager to see you work in the world? Want to do it your way?

Welcome to the Crash Course in Self Publishing, by yours truly, hosted by the Manitoba Writers Guild.  We’ll guide you through ISBN registrations, the National Library of Canada, Copyright, book formatting, cover design, all the ins and outs of signing up to IngramSpark, Amazon and other spaces and getting your books out. Ebooks, Hardcovers, Print-Books and Audio, the opportunities and challenges of each.  Print on Demand, Small Presses, Small Printers, Friesen Press, Vanity and Hybrid publishers, cover designers and artists, editors. You name it.  Spaces are limited, they’re going fast. So sign up today!

All proceeds are donated back to the Manitoba Writers Guild.

Sign Up Here…

Field Guide to Self-Publishing

Read more

WHEN WORDS COLLIDE – MY SCHEDULE

Ladies and Gentlemen, Genders of your Choice, Children of all Ages, Assorted Sentients and Sophonts,

Here’s my schedule for When Words Collide 2026. This is the stuff I’ll be actually doing. Basically, three low impact items, meet and greet, autographs and stuff. And three big items – Panels on AI, Presentations on Copyright and Contracts. You’ll find my notes on the big items on this website. Feel free to stop by and sit in.  I’m very entertaining. If you’re very entertaining too, so much the better!

Read more

A CRASH COURSE IN CONTRACTS FOR WRITERS

WHEN YOU’RE A WRITER, YOU’RE NOT JUST AN ARTIST. YOU’RE ALSO A VICTIM.

A SAP, A SUCKER, A DOOFUS, A STUMBLEBUM, A BLINDFOLDED TRAVELER TRYING TO CROSS THE ROAD AT RUSH HOUR, YOU’RE THE ROADKILL ON THE PUBLISHING HIGHWAY.

But do you have to be?

WRITING IS NOT JUST ART, IT’S A BUSINESS, PUBLISHING IS A BUSINESS. YOUR PUBLISHER IS NOT YOUR FRIEND, YOUR EDITOR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND, YOUR AGENT IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.

Or rather, everyone is friends right up until they’re not friends 

IT’S ALL BUSINESS, AND YOU NEED TO KNOW THE CONCEPTS YOURSELF, TO UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES, AND HAVE SOME CONTROL OVER YOUR CAREER.

THERE ARE WAY TOO MANY STORIES ABOUT HOW THE WRITER GOT SCREWED. OFTEN, IT COMES DOWN TO ‘SHIT HAPPENED’  BUT ACTING LIKE A PROFESSIONAL MAY SAVE YOU SOME HEADACHES. HERE ARE THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PUBLISHING CONTRACTS, AND SOME OF THE TOOLS TO AT LEAST KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON.

Read more

BANNER

BANNER –  Commissioned from VistaPrint.  Designed myself modifying the templates – so no snark please.

The image is from a photograph of mine from my home town. Fossil Cove is just on the edge of town, Dalhousie, a cove just off the Inch Arran beach (it’s a terrible beach, a field of rocks, but go figure, it’s the tourist site).  This is one of the ‘flowerpot’ rocks, exotic shapes carved by ferocious tides.  This rock is so big you can literally walk right underneath it.

Read more

CREATING A COVER

OKAY – Here goes.  You need a cover. You have no money.  You can’t pay an artist. You have no talent, you can’t draw or do artwork.  What do you do?

Well, you get sneaky.  I was doing a book, B-Movie Monsters in Love!  It’s just a personal project, it’s a fun book and I want it to be out there in the world. But I’m a quirky eccentric guy, and this is a really quirky eccentric book. So while I want it to be available, I don’t know that it will sell. At all. But I need a cover.

The Book’s theme is mainly deconstructing movie monsters. So that’s where I’m heading. I need a picture of a monster. Preferably a public domain picture, one without copyright issues.  You can find public domain images if you keep your head around you and look around.  Anything from the 19th or early 20th century can be fair game.  We’re up to 1931 in the United States. Any image you can find that’s earlier than that is reliably public domain. Some of the stuff after that – from say Night of the Living Dead, or the Hideous Sun Demon is in Public Domain because the registrations got screwed up – you can get a screen capture from those. Or outside the US, the limitation period is 70 years after the death of the creator.

You can also buy ‘stock photo’ images with a legal license to use, from places like Alamy and Adobe. Some cover artists use them. I haven’t.

I poked around and poked around, and I found a really nice poster for the original Lost World, the 1926, Willis O’Brien stop motion animated film.  Due to copyright registration issues, the film and its materials had gone into public domain long ago. This was safe.

Read more

KEYCON 2026

I’ll be doing the Dealer’s Room at Keycon 2026,

Hilton Winnipeg Airport Suites, 1800 Wellington Avenue

May 15th – 17th, 2026

I’ll be going in with other Authors of Manitoba, notably Nancy Walker, Rachael Clark, Sandra Terra and V.H. Balaban.

Since the last Keycon, I’ve got several new books – Squad Thirteen, Murder Chickens on Mars, The Time Traveller Chronicles, 1 and 2.  And I’ll be bringing back several classics – Starlost Unauthorized, Drunk Slutty Elf and Zombies, Axis of Andes, the Mermaid’s Tale, Lexx Unauthorized, Bear Cavalry and More.  It’ll be great. Don’t give money to Amazon, come to Keycon and give money to me directly!  Meet the authors!  I’ll autograph. We all do autographs.  I’ll give bulk discounts! Cash, Interac or Credit card!

Also, I’ll be doing panels and presentations:

Saturday 9:00 AM – Executive 4 – Worldbuilding Panel – Den Valdron & Casia Schreyer

Saturday 12:00 Noon – Executive 4 – A Starter Guide for Self Publishing  – Den Valdron

Saturday 4:00 PM – Executive 4 – Comedy and Sci Fi – Den Valdron & Casia Schreyer

Sunday, 12:00 Noon – Main Room – Authors Roundtable, Den Valdron & Others

Drop by!

 

The Time Traveler’s Chronicle – Season One

The further adventures of H.G. Wells’ nameless TIME TRAVELER, with his associates, Heart and Diamond, mysterious twins gifted with sarcasm and superpowers. Season One chronicles five adventures of the Traveler, as he encounters an alien blancmange trying to go home, teams up with Sigmund Freud, tries to solve the murder of a giant frog, flees an extra-dimensional parasite and fights Morlocks on an alternate Earth doomed to destruction. With nothing more than keen intelligence, compassion, a dash of humor and his associates superpowers, the Time Traveler arrives to try and save the day, with mixed results. Featuring:

The Monster of Ness– A community is plagued by an invasion of Lizard Men, who turn out to be regular humans in really bad costumes. But this is only the beginning of the confusion, as each new clue creates an even more impossible mystery.

Vienna 1913 – Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky and Josef Tito are all living within a few square miles of each other in the city of Vienna in the summer of 1913. As the Archduke goes about his business, these four men become embroiled in an alien plot to bring on a war to destroy humanity.

The Clone Soldiers– The Traveler is summoned to Citadel Prime, the world of the Clone Troopers, where everyone looks and thinks exactly the same, but somehow, secrets and conspiracies abound. Can the Traveler figure out what’s really going on and save himself and his Associates?

Time Parasite – The Traveler and his associates find themselves on a famous derelict ghost ship of the Clone Troopers, the Emploder, lost in space for centuries. But they’re not alone, something hungry waits, even as the ship teeters on the edge of the universe.

Volcano– Cast into an alternate universe where a fascist government rules England, the Traveler and his friends struggle to save the planet from impending doom and an invasion of Morlocks. Meanwhile, in a mausoleum, a sinister Dracula-like figure watches and plots its escape.

Read more

MURDER CHICKENS ON MARS is out!

It’s official!  And available in Ebook and Print at Amazon, Apple, Smashwords, Google, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Vivlio, Biblioteca, Baker & Talyor, Draft2Digital, etc. I think some 18 platforms in all.  Or it will be.  It’s out there, it’s just taking time.
SO WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?

Let me try to explain the existence of Murder-Chickens on Mars, and help people understand, if not appreciate, what this book is.
I am the son of a Mechanic. I grew up around cars, fixing flat tires, pumping gas, taking things apart and trying to put them back together. I was an okay mechanic, but not gifted. My father and brother were both very gifted. But I could do breaks and exhaust pipes, replace whatever needed replacing, taking breaks and engines apart and put them together. I’m also the grandson of a Carpenter, and along the way I learned to hammer a nail, lay a beam, bevel, mortice, measure and cut. And along the way, I had other experiences.
I have always been driven to examine, to understand, to try to figure out how things work. There’s an elegance to the way a machine or a body works, to the precision gears of a clock or a social system, the intricacies and harmonies. My world is one of blood and chaos. And perhaps because of that, I’m desperate to understand to make sense of things.
I’m fascinated by the overlooked, by the hidden corners, all the stuff we take for granted. I think I was a journalist once, because of that. And a teacher. And a historian. This world of randomness and horror, I want to unravel it, perhaps to find a way to to make it less random and less horrific.

Read more

SQUAD THIRTEEN – THE BOOK LAUNCH

I’m announcing a book launch for SQUAD THIRTEEN, a scary slasher horror novel, for Sunday, November 2, from 2 to 4 pm at the Artspace building, 100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg.
This is a kick ass horror/dark comedy featuring slashers recruited into the army and asks the bold question: “What would happen if Francis Ford Cuppola’s Apocalypse Now met Hungry Hungry Hippos from Mattel.”
I won’t tell you, but a Ferris Wheel is involved.
Recently got a kick ass review in Amazing Stories Online, here’s a quote:
“I’d like to tell (warn?) you that this book is a slasher-splatterpunk-bloody horror book that makes Skipp & Spector look like wussies, and leaves Clive Barker and Steve King in the dust. I loved it! So if you’re not too scared read on!”
In the meantime, here is the draft Agenda, we’ll have a refreshments, a short stage play, a video, some really interesting talks, a question and answer session, and we’ll be bringing copies of Squad Thirteen and my other books.
***
2pm – call to order, MWG introduces DGV

2:10pm – DGV opening statement – The secret history of Slasher movies

2: 15pm – DGV introduces video, Video (5 min). (the video covers the Slashers, so DGV can talk more about other characters)

2:20pm – 2:36 pm DGV discusses book, where it came from, how it got written.

2:35pm – DGV introduces play, Play (10 min)

2:50pm – DGV introduces cast, presents signed copies of books.

2:55pm – DGV wraps up book talk.

3pm – Q & A with DGV

3:15pm – Book signing, mingling.

…and here’s another quote from Amazing Stories online.
“Den has managed a tour-de-force in this genre, and I think it’s a good thing; along the way he’s examined the kinds of brutality humans are capable of, and given a lot of thought to whether there is much good in the world, and what our reactions should be to various evils. In a weird way, it’s a philosophical book, and the gore and inhumanity recede into the background of what the protagonists are feeling throughout the story. But for fans of horror and slasher-type films, you won’t be able to find a book or film to top this one!”
I just might have these quotes tattooed on my body, I love them so much.
And here’s a link, which proves I’m not delusional:
I’ve had my shots and I’m no longer contagious, which means if I bite anyone, they’ll be fine, as long as they get prompt medical attention and/or amputation. It’s all perfectly safe, the Thunder Bay outbreak is officially under control, or will be any day now.
Anyway, if you’re in or near Winnipeg, or have friends or family, or enemies in Winnipeg, consider sending them to my book launch..