Laird Barron's Blog, page 22
March 24, 2015
Read This: Women Writing Horror
Thank you to Mike Davis and the Lovecraft Ezine panelists for having me on the show the other night. Joe Pulver asked about women writers of horror. It’s an important topic because despite their important contributions to literature, representation of women in horror and the weird (especially horror) leaves much to be desired.
I’d like to follow-up my comments from the show with a (very) short list of women who are doing great work. ETA Please, feel free to list others in the comments.
Ellen Datlow*��
*In a field managed by topnotch editors, these may be the three best.
March 20, 2015
Watch This: Live Show with The Lovecraft Ezine
Sunday, March 22 I’ll be on the air with Mike Davis and company at��The Lovecraft Ezine. The show starts at 6PM Eastern. We’ll field questions, so tune in.
March 19, 2015
ToC Reveal for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015
Paula Guran has released the ToC for��The Best Dark Fantasy & Horror of the Year 2015. Thank you to Paula for taking “(Little Miss) Queen of Darkness” and to Aaron French for originally publishing it in��Dark Discoveries #29. It’s a sequel to “Slave Arm” and another in the Jessica Mace continuum.
Via Paula Guran:
Content (in alphabetical order by author)
Kelley Armstrong, ���The Screams of Dragons��� (Subterranean Press Magazine, Spring 2014)
Dale Bailey, ���The End of the End of Everything��� by Dale Bailey (Tor.com, 23 Apr 2014)
Laird Barron, ���(Little Miss) Queen of Darkness��� (Dark Discoveries #29)
Elizabeth Bear ���Madam Damnable���s Sewing Circle��� (Dead Man���s Hand, ed. John Joseph Adams)
Richard Bowes, ���Sleep Walking Now and Then��� (Tor.com, 9 July 2014)
Nadia Bulkin, ���Only Unity Saves the Damned��� (Letters to Lovecraft, ed. Jesse Bullington)
Gemma Files, ���A Wish From a Bone��� (Fearful Symmetries, ed. Ellen Datlow)
S. L. Gilbow, ���Mr Hill���s Death��� (The Dark #4)
Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter, ���The Female Factory��� (The Female Factory)
Maria Dahvana Headley ���Who Is Your Executioner?��� (Nightmare Magazine, Nov 2014)
Stephen Graham Jones, ���The Elvis Room��� (The Elvis Room)
Caitl��n R. Kiernan, ���The Cats of River Street (1925)��� (Sirenia Digest #102)
Alice Sola Kim, ���Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying��� (Monstrous Affections, eds. Kelly Link & Gavin Grant/Tin House #61)
John Langan, ���Children of the Fang��� (Lovecraft���s Monsters, ed. Ellen Datlow)
Yoon Ha Lee, ���Combustion Hour��� (Tor.com, 10 Apr 2014)
V. H. Leslie, ���The Quiet Room��� (Shadows & Tall Trees: 2014, ed. Michael Kelly)
Ken Liu, ���Running Shoes��� (SQ Mag, Issue 16, Sept 2014)
Usman T. Malik, ���Resurrection Points��� (Strange Horizons, 4 August 2014)
Helen Marshall, ���Death and the Girl from Pi Delta Zeta��� (Lackington���s, Issue 1, Winter 2014)
Brandon Sanderson, ���Dreamer��� (Games Creatures Play, eds. Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner)
Simon Strantzas, ���Emotional Dues��� (Burnt Black Suns)
Steve Rasnic Tem, ���The Still, Cold Air��� (Here with the Shadows)
Lavie Tidhar, ���Kur-A-Len��� (Black Gods Kiss)
Jeff VanderMeer, ���Fragments from the Notes of a Dead Mycologist��� (Shimmer #18)
Kali Wallace, ���Water in Springtime��� (Clarkesworld, Issue 91, Apr 2014)
Damien Angelica Walters, ���The Floating Girls: A Documentary��� (Jamais Vu Issue Three, Sept 2014)
Kaaron Warren, ���The Nursery Corner��� (Fearsome Magics, ed. Jonathan Strahan)
A. C. Wise, ���And the Carnival Leaves Town��� (Nightmare Carnival, ed. Ellen Datlow)
– See more at: http://www.prime-books.com/2015/03/18/toc-years-best-dark-fantasy-horror-2015/#sthash.vchXzZJS.dpuf
March 18, 2015
Listen to This: The Commander Thinks Aloud
The Long Winters and their beautiful ode to the crew of the Columbia.
March 11, 2015
Watch This: Pirate Birthday Party
My girlfriend Jessica has a role in an independent film directed by Peter Ferland called��Pirate Birthday Party.��It was shot in the New Paltz area and environs and features a cast drawn entirely from Hudson Valley residents. Jessica plays the part of sinister Ms. Blackburn. Way to go, Jess! One night only engagement on March, 25th at the��Rosendale Theater
Release Day for Southard & Walters
Two excellent collections have dropped in the past 24 hours. Nate Southard’s��Will the Sun Ever Come Out Again?��hews toward the traditions of crime and noir and mixes in plenty of supernatural horror.
“[Southard] doesn���t pull his punches, he doesn���t flinch from the harsh truth, and he doesn���t coddle his characters or the reader. And no, he isn���t constrained by the usual paradigms. What Southard is, is one of the hardest working writers tilling the field. He���s a maestro in the art of lo-fi blood in your eye horror, psycho-slasher creepiness. That���s only the beginning of the particular madness he���s laying down: Horror is merely a sample of his palette. His narratives pitch into crime, science fiction, and pulp noir with admirable facility. I possess a fondness for the Ellroy/Thompson end of the spectrum–scotch, lead, and femmes fatals, and so does Southard. His words smell of gun smoke that follows five rounds and whips of sparks through the barrel of a .41 magnum. He captures the reek of flop sweat and the baritone drone of murderous bastards talking themselves into another killing. He drives a story with steely-eyed recklessness down night-roads, tires screaming, headlights out, strange silhouettes rearranging through a windshield smashed to hell in a spider web of cracks.” -Laird Barron (from his introduction)
The other book that just hit:��Sing Me Your Scars��by Damien Angelica Walters. Walters has made serious inroads into the genre scene over the past few years. Her work is powerfully imaginative and dark, dark, dark. She’s a major talent on the rise and this will be one of the finer horror/dark fantasy collections of 2015.
March 7, 2015
Cover art for New Cthulhu 2
Paula Guran is reprinting��Mysterium Tremendum in��New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird. Available soon.
Read This: Richard Gavin Non Fiction
Richard Gavin has been at the leading edge of weird fiction over the past decade or so. His work is heavily informed by the likes of Machen, Blackwood, Barker, and Ligotti, although the filter is uniquely Gavin. He approaches the genre in a quiet and cerebral fashion. I recommend��At Fear’s Altar��if you’ve a hankering for some candlelight and scotch reading material.
I note that he’s written a book of “occult non-fiction” entitled��The Benighted Path: Primeval Gnosis and the Monstrous Soul. Color me intrigued.
March 3, 2015
Reddit AMA with Robert Levy
Robert Levy is available for questions��at his Reddit Ask Me Anything session happening now. Then go buy his fabulous debut,��The Glittering World.
