Lynda E. Rucker's Blog, page 10

Film and horror nerd alert: Miskatonic goes online

Have you ever looked over the lecture offerings at The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies in LA, New York, or London and thought, “Damn, I wish I could go to that!” Conversely, are you going “Wait isn’t Miskatonic a fictional university from the stories of H.P. Lovecraft?” or “What the hell is she on about anyway?”

Well, if you like it when smart people say intellectual things about horror, you might like the lectures that Miskatonic hosts–and while the benefits of COVID have been well, pret...

CROOKED HOUSES featured in RUE MORGUE magazine

I’m delighted to report that the Sept/Oct edition of the magazine Rue Morgue (on newsstands September 1) features an article on the anthology Crooked Houses by Dejan Ognjanovic. It’s a terrific little piece that includes remarks from editor Mark Beech and writer Reggie Oliver as well as writer Steve Duffy and me talking about the origins of our stories. Subscribe or buy a copy and support the existence of the all-too-rare print horror journal! (Or, you can get a digital edition if you prefer.)

C...

mid-August watching roundup: the 1970s, mostly

I love 1970s American cinema, and lately I’ve been filling in some of the gaps in my viewing. Some things I’ve enjoyed watching so far in August:

The first film I watched this month was the 1978 Paul Schrader-directed and co-written Blue Collar. This movie about three Detroit auto workers who decide to rob their union and get a lot less money and a lot more trouble than they bargained for stars Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor, and Yaphet Kotto (you may be most familiar with him from Aliens) and is ...

a chat with Timothy J. Jarvis for Swan River Press

As you may know, Dublin’s Swan River Press publishes an unthemed anthology of strange and unsettling fiction known as the Uncertainties series, and I had the pleasure of editing volume 3. The talented Timothy Jarvis was the editor of Uncertainties 4, and after many delays, pandemic-related and otherwise, Tim and I sat down, virtually speaking ,and had a chat about the editing process, the book and many other things. We are quite simpatico in many ways in how we approach this type of fiction, and...

on all the things you don’t have to do

Wherever humans go, there we are. We talk a lot about how online has changed us, fractured our attention spans, made us more vicious, more judgmental, (more connected? hmmmm), more more more everything, but it’s that “more more more” that’s the key. I do think we are changing but there’s nothing fundamentally new about how we behave as internet dwellers. It’s just more intense, because we have the tools to make it so.

Specifically, what I have been thinking about lately is the extent to which pe...

in which I think about Anthony Bourdain and Zadie Smith and reach no satisfying conclusions for your edification

When Anthony Bourdain died, I was devastated. He was someone who really had a huge influence on me. I loved traveling and food before I discovered Bourdain in the early 00s, but he put both in a context for me, showed me a way of being in the world, that influences me to this day. Among the many things I loved about him was that mix of cynicism and black humor alongside a genuine openheartedness–let’s fact it, the only way something “life affirming” is ever going to be palatable to me is when it...

CROOKED HOUSES is available for pre-order!

Hey! I mentioned a few posts ago that Egaeus Press would be publishing another of their beautiful books, Crooked Houses, this one containing my story “Miasmata.” Now, the book is available for pre-order, to be released later this month.

We were asked to contribute stories to this book about hauntings, but not the kind that could be neatly explained. Instead, we were encouraged to consider more ancient terrors, the stuff of folklore and legend, the inexplicable. As Egaeus Press puts it “Though m...

things that matter and things that don’t

What matters: seagulls (screaming kiss her, kiss her, kiss her, kiss her as XTC sang) soaring on an updraft of warm air; the cold North Sea curling round your ankles; your first time in a used bookstore post-pandemic-lockdown, the rows and rows of battered pre-loved or never-loved volumes, the wood shelves and creaky floors and quirky little rooms leading labyrinthine-like one into the other, the careful perusal and selection of one or two for purchase (Lawrence Durrell’s Bitter Lemons of Cyprus...

“The Preacher’s Wife is a Witch”

After considering and rejecting several framings for this piece over the last few days, I’ve decided to just let Autumn Christian‘s writing speak for itself, which it is more than capable of doing. This short piece “The Preacher’s Wife is a Witch” suggests to me that she’s a writer to watch, and you can subscribe to her newsletter and get more work like this delivered straight to your inbox here.

And as you read her cautionary tale, remember: you might be very surprised, when the time comes, at ...

“unanimity of voices”

You do find some lovely things online while passing through the circles of hell that comprise social media, which is why I’ll probably figure out some way to keep an eye on certain corners of Twitter even after I delete my account. There are a few things I’ve read in the last few days I want to recommend to you but I’ll stick to one a day for now in the interest of keeping these posts somewhat bite-sized.

Anne Louise Avery’s Twitter feed is reason alone to gird your loins and pay a visit to that...