Scott Nicolay

Ana Kai Tangata

Tag: A Head Full of Ghosts

Will Ludwigsen: Decruiting the Normal | The Outer Dark: Episode 32 — FEBRUARY 25, 2016

February 26, 2016 / / 0 Comments

ludwigsen-insearchof-coverWill Ludwigsen discusses his acclaimed collection In Search Of and Others (Lethe Press), which was a Shirley Jackson Awards finalist and named by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best books released in 2013. The conversation delves deep into the stories and his writing process including utilizing Charles Fort as a character, childhood misconceptions about the Boy Scouts, why he likes his characters (yes, even Charles Fort!) to be “unprepared for the strange,” Han Solo in a supermarket, the ironic back-to-back juxtaposition of In Search Of and Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World, growing up before the Internet and the things that made him a “weirdo,” the closest he has personally come to a Fortean experience at age 14, spiritualism and theosophy, nosiness and breaking into abandoned buildings, the assets of novellas, the challenge of “teaching faith in form” to creative writing college students, writing as fishing, attending Clarion in the same cohort as Livia Llewellyn, Robert Levy and Lethe Press publisher Steve Berman, how there is “a little bit of a hoaxer in every good horror writer,” and his bright future, with Scott, as a “decruiter.” Plus his finished young adult novel which he describes as “The West Wing Meets Back to the Future,” future novels and stories that defy expectations, his gratitude for the Weird and why it’s not accidental that he’s writing Weird fiction, a favorite Shirley Jackson story, and a reading of the title story “In Search Of.” His recommended authors include Peter Dubé, Jennifer McMahon, nonfiction memoir My Father the Pornographer by Chris Offutt and rediscovering John D. McDonald who may have been a bigger influence on Stephen King than any horror author.

royle-regicideNews From the Weird: Justin Steele reviews Regicide by British Weird author Nicholas Royle (Solaris Books, 2011). Plus The Outer Dark’s win as Best Podcast in the 2015 This is Horror Awards, the complete roster of winners, more cover reveals and collection announcements from Word Horde and Undertow Publications, and Strange Aeons magazine news.

This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

Next week’s guests: Double the Weird with Mike Allen, author of Unseaming and the forthcoming collection The Spider Tapestries, AND Nicole Kornher-Stace, author of The Archivist Wasp.

Please vote for The Outer Dark in the People’s Choice Project iRadio Podcast Awards. Deadline: Feb. 26! https://www.projectiradio.com/podcast-awards/

Order The Outer Dark T-shirts at SkurvyInk: https://skurvyink.com/products/outerdark-shirt

More Links:

https://www.lethepressbooks.com/store/p111/In_Search_Of_and_Others.html

Can anyone advise me if Levitra 20mg really is that safe?

Weird Fiction Review Interview with Will: https://weirdfictionreview.com/2013/02/interview-will-ludwigsen-and-the-weird/

fortCharles Fort biography: https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Fort-The-Invented-Supernatural/dp/1585426407

The Whisperer in the Darkness (film): https://www.cthulhulives.org/whisperer/trailer.html

Venture Brothers Bigfoot episode clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcyCQT-FKCA

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/199/house-on-loon-lake

Shirley Jackson: https://www.pages.drexel.edu/~ina22/+301/hnrs301-text-Intoxicated.html

News From the Weird:

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2819/the-art-of-fiction-no-91-alain-robbe-grillet

Show credits:

Host/Executive Producer: Scott Nicolay

Co-Host, News From the Weird/Producer: Justin Steele

Associate Producer/Show Notes/Publicist: Anya Martin

Logo Design: Nick “The Hat” Gucker

Music: Michael Griffin

John C. Foster: On the Road of a Dark Americana | The Outer Dark: Episode 23 — DECEMBER 15, 2015

December 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Dead-Men-updated-coverJohn C. Foster unburies the genesis of his Libros de Inferno trilogy (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing) which starts with Dead Men, playing in an ugly rough reality that is slipping and in decay, how he develops his storytelling via set pieces and way stations, his repulsion for spoon-feeding readers, his fascination with the concept of dread and creating a sense of jeopardy even for a tough guy, aiming for a dark Americana, Dead Men’s setting in Texas and northern Mexico, moving the second novel Night Roads (Oct. 2016) to Louisiana, blending hard-boiled and noir with more horrific elements, square-jawed heroes versus flawed characters in new lives, a dialogue with Frankenstein’s creation, writing as a corridor with many windows and doors, a Star Wars interlude, his influences including Stephen King, Raymond Chandler and Donald Westlake’s Parker novels, his other upcoming novel which is a dark espionage thriller called Mr. White (Grey Matter Press, March 2016), why you should “get out of the way when you see that Foster-John Smith sketchblack Cadillac coming,” using Mad Max as a structural model, epic narratives such as Gilgamesh and the notion of demi-Gods, revealing character through action, burial suits, damned books, occult versus super-science, the fearlessness of Laird Barron, what’s next for John including another novel, collection and upcoming short stories including “Dead Air” in the highly anticipated Lost Signals, edited by Max Booth III, and his reading recommendations of other contemporary writers to watch including Peter Straub (Koko), Josh Malerman (Bird Box), Paul Tremblay (A Head Full of Ghosts) and Thomas Ligotti (Penguin editions).

case6.000x9.000.inddNews of the Weird with Justin Steele includes the monumental anthology Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction and the VanderMeer Winter Mix StoryBundle which also includes eBooks of Anna Tambour’s Crandolin, Michael Cisco’s The Narrator, and seven other exciting works, an exciting offer which expires on Dec. 31. Also another major story reveal from Lost Signals, edited by Max Booth III, another upcoming Laird Barron novella, an update on Lovecraft eZine’s Autumn Cthulhu Kickstarter, the Ramsey Campbell tribute anthology The Children of Gla’aki. edited by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass (Dark Regions Press) and new books from Dunhams Manor Press. Plus, a clue about Stories from the Borderland #3, posting tomorrow at www.ScottNicolay.com and artist Michael Bukowski’s yogblogsoth.

This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

Next week’s guest: Laird Barron and Justin Steele join Scott for a roundtable on The State of the Weird 2016.

It’s a great drug Ultram intended for the treatment of moderate to severe pain.

More Links:

https://chizinepub.com/books/license-expired

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Brackett

https://www.strange-aeons.com/

Dwayne Olson, Fedogan & Bremer, and Fungi From Yuggoth: Less a Dream Than This We Know | The Outer Dark: Episode 16 — OCTOBER 20, 2015

October 20, 2015 / / 0 Comments

715lhhw5FiLDwayne Olson of Fedogan & Bremer discusses the authoritative new two-CD audio re-release of this legendary horror press’s first audio publication, H.P. Lovecraft‘s sonnet cycle Fungi From Yuggoth, including the back story of the bonus disk with never-before-recorded musical pieces by composer Harold S. Farnese such as “Mirage” and “The Elder Pharos“—the only musical settings of the sonnets approved by Lovecraft himself—shared roots in the discovery of Lovecraft through The Dunwich Horror in the Scholastic Press collection 11 Great Horror Stories (1969), how great Weird writers have been lost through poor estate planning or legal controversies, the early days, ongoing history, mission and camaraderie of Fedogan & Bremer, his own early involvement via publishing works by authors/brothers Howard Wandrei and Donald Wandrei (co-founder with August Derleth of Arkham House), the evolution of the sonnet cycle and Fungi from Yuggoth as an important American poetic work, other Weird Circle poets such as Clark Ashton Smith and the oft-forgotten Joseph Payne Brennan, the recurring theme of finding weird books in bookstores in weird fiction, Lovecraft’s unusual sonnet form choice, echoes of key themes and tropes from Lovecraft’s work in the sonnets, similarities between Lovecraft and Kerouac, the sublime non-horrific ending, why Fungi deserves more attention, the planet Pluto in the news, the challenges of running a specialty press, the popularity of Lovecraft today, and his reading recommendations by more obscure lost writers including Unthinkable by Francis H. Sibson, a pre-WW2 novel in which a stranded Antarctica expedition returns to a post-apocalyptic world, and The Thing from the Lake by Eleanor Ingram, which he describes as Lovecraftian fiction before Lovecraft, as well as what’s next from Fedogan & Bremer including a new John Pelan collection, an alternate Fungi from Yuggoth read by William Hart with music by Graham Plowman, an anthology based on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari edited by Joseph S Pulver Sr. and much more.

Includes: Audio clip excerpts from sonnets “The Key,” “The Window” and “Continuity,” as well as “Elegy for HP Lovecraft,” composed by Harold S. Farnese.

ALSO: Arkham Digest’s Justin Steele reviews A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay.

This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes  or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

71XkyOB77GLMore Links:

https://www.yog-sothoth.com/topic/28899-fungi-from-yuggoth-deluxe-two-disc-set/

https://www.hplovecraft.com/life/friends.aspx

https://diceofdoom.com/blog/2011/05/lovecrafts-inspiration-for-at-the-mountains-of-madness-the-paintings-of-nicholas-roerich/

https://benjaminpercy.com/

Next week’s guest: CM Muller, editor & publisher of the new Weird fiction journal Nightscript.

© 2024 Scott Nicolay

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑