Michael Kelly's Blog, page 25
May 29, 2014
Rave review of Shadows & Tall Trees at Arkham Digest
Justin Steele over at Arkham Digest has some great things to say about the latest Shadows & Tall Trees: http://bit.ly/1oP6uNR
May 28, 2014
Nice article about Year’s Best Weird Fiction
Nice little article about Weird Fiction in general, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction. http://bit.ly/1k22Gt4
3rd review of Shadows & Tall Trees 2014
Very positive review at this link: http://bit.ly/1lR3xs9
May 27, 2014
Second review of Shadows & Tall Tress 2014
Short but sweet review of Shadows & Tall Trees 2014. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
May 13, 2014
May 5, 2014
Other Notable Works of Weird Fiction
These are the “Other Notable Works of Weird Fiction” that will be mentioned in the Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume 1. In essence, these are the stories that made the very short list, and were in serious final consideration to make the book.
“Vivian Guppy and the Brighton Belle” Nina Allan, Rustblind and Silverbright
“Americca” Aimee Bender, Slate
“The Sweet Virgin Meat” Kola Boof, Exotic Gothic 5
“The Vast Impatience Of The Night” Mark Fuller Dillon, In a Season of Dead Weather
“Oubliette” Gemma Files, The Grimscribe’s Puppets
“Rocket to Hell” Jeffrey Ford, Tor.com
“The Man Who Escaped His Story” Cody Goodfellow, The Grimscribe’s Puppets
“Diamond Dust” Mike Griffin, The Grimscribe’s Puppets
“Baba Makosh” MK Hobson, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
“Mother of Stone,” John Langan, The Wide Carnivorous Sky & Other Monstrous Geographies
“Interstate Love Affair” Stephen Graham Jones, Three Miles Past
“The Cave” Sean F. Lynch, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
“Hideous Interview with Brief Man” Nick Mamatas, Fiddleback
“In the Darkest Room in the Darkest House on the Darkest Part of the Street” Gary McMahon, For the Night is Dark
“The Design” China Mieville, McSweeney’s 45
“All Your Faces Drown in My Syringe” Ralph Robert Moore, Black Static 37
“Black Hen a La Ford” David Nickle, Chilling Tales: In Words, Alas, Drown I
“The Last Hour of the Bengal Tiger” Yoko Ogawa, Revenge
“The House on Cobb Street” Lynda E. Rucker, Nightmare Magazine
“How I Met the Ghoul” Sofia Samatar, Eleven Eleven
“The Painted Bones” Kelly Simmons, Unlikely Story Issue 6
“Touch Me With Your Cold, Hard Fingers” Elizabeth Stott, Nightjar Press
“Abyssus Abyssum Invocat” Genevieve Valentine, Lightspeed Magazine
“The Fox” Conrad Williams, This is Horror
“On Murder Island” Matt Williamson, Nightmare Magazine
April 4, 2014
Kathe Koja to edit volume 2 of Year’s Best Weird Fiction
Kathe Koja to Edit Volume 2 of ‘Year’s Best Weird Fiction’
Press release
For Immediate Release
Toronto, Canada, April 2014 — Kathe Koja, whose intense and original fiction helped revive the weird tale, will edit volume 2 of the Year’s Best Weird Fiction for Undertow Publications, an imprint of ChiZine Publications. Koja’s work has been widely recognized, translated, and optioned and adapted for film and performance, as well as reprinted in numerous “Best Of” anthologies.
“What’s weird is unclassifiable, beyond the boundaries, above the rules, and passionately individual,” Koja said. “I’m looking forward to having a lot of editorial fun with this project.”
Established in 2009 by writer Michael Kelly, Undertow Publications (UP) is home to the acclaimed weird journal Shadows & Tall Trees, from which a number of stories have been selected for various “Year’s Best” anthologies. As editor, Kelly has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson and British Fantasy Society Awards, and his fiction has appeared in a number of venues.
“I’m delighted that Kathe has agreed to edit this next volume of the Year’s Best Weird Fiction,” Kelly said. “I am an enormous fan of her work. She is an original and distinct voice, and will bring a unique perspective to the series.”
Undertow Publications is publishing the inaugural volume of the Year’s Best Weird Fiction, edited by Laird Barron, this August. Kelly says, “I’m pleased to be publishing a dedicated volume of the year’s finest weird fiction. It’s long overdue.”
For more information, please visit www.undertowbooks.com
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March 30, 2014
Table of Contents for the inaugural Year’s Best Weird Fiction
Laird Barron and I are very pleased to announce the Table of Contents for the Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume One, due August.
“Success” by Michael Blumlein, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nov./Dec.
“Like Feather, Like Bone” by Kristi DeMeester, Shimmer #17
“A Terror” by Jeffrey Ford, Tor.com, July.
“The Key to Your Heart Is Made of Brass” by John R. Fultz, Fungi #21
“A Cavern of Redbrick” by Richard Gavin, Shadows & Tall Trees #5
“The Krakatoan” by Maria Dahvana Headley, Nightmare Magazine/The Lowest Heaven, July.
“Bor Urus” by John Langan, Shadow’s Edge
“Furnace” by Livia Llewellyn, The Grimscribe’s Puppets
“Eyes Exchange Bank” by Scott Nicolay, The Grimscribe’s Puppets
“A Quest of Dream” by W.H. Pugmire, Bohemians of Sesqua Valley
“(he) Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror” by Joseph S. Pulver Sr., Lovecraft eZine #28
“Dr. Blood and the Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron” by A.C. Wise, Ideomancer Vol. 12 Issue 2
“The Year of the Rat” by Chen Quifan, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August.
“Fox into Lady” by Anne-Sylvie Salzman, Darkscapes
“Olimpia’s Ghost” by Sofia Samatar, Phantom Drift #3
“The Nineteenth Step” by Simon Strantzas, Shadows Edge
“The Girl in the Blue Coat” by Anna Taborska, Exotic Gothic 5 Vol. 1
“In Limbo” by Jeffrey Thomas, Worship the Night Ranger“Moonstruck” by Karen Tidbeck, Shadows & Tall Trees #5
“Swim Wants to Know If It’s as Bad as Swim Thinks” by Paul Tremblay, Bourbon Penn #8
“No Breather in the World But Thee” by Jeff VanderMeer, Nightmare Magazine, March.
“Shall I Whisper to You of Moonlight, of Sorrow, of Pieces of Us?” by Damien Angelica Walters, Shock Totem #7.
March 16, 2014
Excerpt: The Quiet Room
Excerpt from V.H. Leslie’s ‘The Quiet Room,’ forthcoming in Shadows & Tall Trees.
That night Terry dreamt of the music room. It was full of people, dressed in black, sitting around the piano as if for a recital. Terry walked among them, noticing how still they all sat, their heads cast down. He saw instruments in their laps or at their feet. He tripped over a cello, the strings catching on his trousers, but it didn’t make a sound. Nor did the cellist stoop to pick up the instrument. It was so quiet that even the sound of his footsteps seemed to have been silenced somehow. Terry stamped his foot, trying to make as much noise as he could, and when that failed he knocked over a set of cymbals, expecting the vibrations to shatter the silence. But nothing dented the stillness of the room. He tried to address the gathering but his voice faltered, the people didn’t even look at him. Terry grabbed the nearest man by his lapels and shook him roughly, but the man merely stared back vacantly. Terry tried to scream into the man’s face, pouring all his confusion and rage into one almighty cry, but no sound came and his throat became hoarse with the effort.
In the background he heard the piano.
Dissonant notes at first, but gradually they merged to form the beginnings of a melody. He avoided looking at what was on top of the piano but glanced across at the keyboard. The lid was down. To signify the beginning of the movement, he remembered. But how could that be? The melody began to gain speed, the volume creeping higher and higher, the playing becoming more crazed, more erratic, building toward an inevitable and deafening crescendo—
Terry sat bolt upright in bed.
He breathed deeply, trying to steady himself, fancying he could hear the sound of his racing heartbeat. As it slowed he was conscious of another sound. He strained his ears and thought he heard the same dissonant notes from his dream.
It was the piano.
It echoed through the corridors of the old house, drifting up the stairs, filling the rooms and recesses with its melancholic air.
Ava.
Terry pulled aside the covers and began down the stairs. He pushed his dream to the back of his mind as he followed the melody to the music room, opening the door with a thud.
The music stopped.
“Ava?”
Ava sat at the piano in her nightclothes. Her fingers were stretched out on the polished veneer of the piano lid. Had she closed it suddenly when he entered the room?
Terry walked towards her in the silence. She opened her eyes slowly as if waking up. She looked around dazedly at her surroundings.
“It’s ok,” Terry soothed, placing his arm around her, gently bringing her to her feet. “You’ve had a bad dream. Let’s get you back to bed.”
As he closed the door, he looked one last time at the piano but saw only the urn.
March 14, 2014
Call for submissions: Year’s Best Weird Fiction 2
Since I’ve heard from a number of authors that they didn’t even know there was a call for volume 1 of Year’s Best Weird Fiction, I will put this out there again. And again. And again. I’m starting to receive books, as well, so, authors, if you want to query me first to see if I have received a book or magazine you are in, please do so.
