Mid-2017 Roundup

I’ve been slow in updating due to life stuff, but here’s what’s new since the last one.

NecronomiCon 2017: I’ll be volunteering at the convention and I’m also honored to have been included as a panelist on a discussion called “THE DREADED SURREAL: Landscapes in Weird Fiction”.  I’ll be joining Craig Gidney, Mike Griffin, Eric Schaller, Farah R. Smith, Jeffrey Thomas for this panel.  More info on this and the convention’s core programming can be found here.

I’m also delighted to have been invited to conduct an interview with Stephen Graham Jones, one of the guests of honor at the convention, which will be included in the souvenir book.  This is easily the lengthiest and most in-depth interview I’ve worked on, and I think it’ll make for a great read.  Stephen had some fascinating things to discuss and really challenged me to develop my own skills as an interviewer.  The program book will be sold at the convention, but there may be copies available afterward through Lovecraft Arts & Sciences.

Thinking Horror, Vol. 2: Release date is estimated as late summer or early fall 2017.  It will contain an essay from me alongside many other pieces that look like they’ll be well worth a read.  Can’t wait to see it!

Weird Fiction Review: I’ve got a recent review up of the collection Spells by Michel de Ghelderode.  In addition, one of my favorite stories from it is available for free on WFR: “A Twilight”

Also slated for July, I’ll have another interview up that I enjoyed quite a lot with an author I’ve become a fan of in the past couple of years.  More on that later, want to keep it a secret for now.  I think one of the best things about doing so many interviews in the last couple years is that it forces me to think about writing in a different way by trying to focus my attention on how others work, and that always prompts me to think more critically about my own creative processes.  I’ve learned things from every single person I’ve had the privilege of putting questions to, so if that’s you: thanks!

I realized recently that almost all of my reading for the past year has been for projects I was working on, so I decided I need a bit of a break for a couple of months until after the convention to see if I can do some reading strictly for pleasure and maybe feel like I have bandwidth to work on some fiction.  I expect I’ll resume nonfiction endeavors after NecronomiCon.   That said, the first thing I picked up was Shadows and Tall Trees Volume 7, which has been excellent.  WFR has reprinted one of my favorite pieces from the anthology, “The Voice of the People” by Alison Moore, which I found to be elegantly simple in a good way, well executed, and quite relevant to our present moment.  I was also really floored by the Conrad Williams story, ‘The Closure,” and can’t wait to read his upcoming collection from Undertow.

Alongside that I’m reading “Palladium at Night” by Christopher Slatsky, which I have no doubt I’ll enjoy as much as his collection, Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales.  In the world of nonfiction, I’ll soon be reading Mark Fisher’s The Weird and the Eerie, which looks right up my alley.  I don’t always get around to reviews, but if you want to follow what I’m reading you can hit me up on GoodReads. I also saw a recent review of Nightscript Volume 1 that I was flattered to see call out my story as a favorite.