Daniel Mills, author of the 2014 critically acclaimed collection The Lord Came at Twilight, discusses how his writing engages with historical voices such as Hawthorne, Chambers and others, rediscovering obscure authors of the 19th and 20th centuries who delved into weird, ghosts and the supernatural, the tendency among contemporary weird writers to be archivists/archaeologists digging into old sources for forgotten gems, his wistful yearning for past eras such as Colonial America versus confronting the spiritual corruption of American history in his stories, presenting a mannered lyrical approach to storytelling in a fresh and contemporary application, the artistry of depicting grotesque material with beautiful prose, modern cinematic writing versus language itself as “a world where you can disappear,” narrative restraint and the horror that happens offstage, courtships that reflect the intersection of deeply repressed desires and warped worldviews, clerical characters and the contradictions of America’s Christian mythos, creative misremembering, balancing presentism and historicism, discovering a shared New England sensibility with Matthew Bartlett, NecronomiCon Providence and the excitement and critical mass of today’s Weird Renaissance, the resounding influence of John Bellairs, upcoming projects including short stories, a novella and a second novel inspired by the spiritualism and theosophy movements of the late 19th century, and his current recommended reading including Reggie Oliver and Orrin Grey.
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.
More Links:
“Brickett Bottom” by Amyas Northcote: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606161h.html#s2
Next Week’s Guest: Niels Hobbs, Director of NecronomiCon Providence.
