Scott Nicolay

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Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward: Midwifing the Other: Nurturing Diversity in Weird and Speculative Lit | The Outer Dark: Episode 31 — FEBRUARY 17, 2016

February 17, 2016 / / 0 Comments

writingtheotherAuthors/editors Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward join Scott for a very special show focusing on diversity in Weird and speculative fiction. They start by recounting the story behind the origins of their Writing the Other workshop/book, its connections to Clarion West, the next set of upcoming online classes (March 13), its impact on spec-lit writers over its 25-year history, and their hopes for an updated book to reflect new language and examples. The conversation proceeds to positive directions with diverse characters, how writers need not to be afraid to write what they don’t know but they do need to research, the concept of “parallax” and W.E.B. DuBois, writing the other as a collaborative process, why treating equally or fairly doesn’t mean not seeing color, gender or other differences, rewarding examples of people who learned and gained courage from the Writing the Other program to increase Lost Trails Forgotten Tales of the Weird West Final Cover 6-26-2015their own representation of people of color as characters, teaching the “reptile brain,” the good example of Joe R Lansdale, and midwifing works by Sarah Smith and South African writer Nick Wood (Azanian Bridges. NewCon Press, Nov 2016). Cynthia and Nisi also talk about some of their own written and edited works. Cynthia discusses her edited anthology Lost Trails: Forgotten Tales of the Weird West, which features stories about non-white characters on the frontier, in the context of growing interest in the Weird Western in books, film and graphic novels, a second volume on the way, and several novels in progress, including Night Rising, the first in The Return of the Dark trilogy, an apocalyptic magic story set in Tucson which she calls a “cozy catastrophe.” Nisi reveals some of the back story about Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delaney, which she co-edited with Bill Campbell (Rosarium Publishing), which has received everfairconsiderable praise, as well as contemplating her interaction with horror and exploring a different relation to death and the status quo in the African diaspora in her 2008 James Tiptree Jr.  Award-winning collection Filter House, confronting steampunk’s embedded imperialism in her upcoming Belgian Congo set novel Everfair (Tor, Sept. 2016), encountering ghosts in her middle grade novel Speculation, and much more. The conversation concludes with their recommended writers including Bill Campbell, J. Comer (Planetary Stories), Ayize Jama-Everett ( whose works include The Liminal War and The Entropy of Bones), Australian feminist writer Sylvia Kelso (The Blackston Gold and The Amberlight series), Aqueduct Press’s L. Timmel Duchamp (The Red Rose Rages Bleeding, The Marq’ssan Cycle, and more), Nigerian writer Tade Thompson (Making Wolf and Rosewater, Sept. 2016), Matt Ruff (Lovecraft Country) and Amy Wolf (The Misses Bronte’s Establishment).

gamutNews From the Weird: Special Guest Richard Thomas gives The Outer Dark listeners an exclusive sneak peek at the exciting plans for his highly anticipated new neo-noir spec-lit fiction magazine Gamut, featuring a who’s who of writers, artists and staff, and its Kickstarter campaign.

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: Will Ludwigsen, author of In Search Of and Others (Lethe Press).

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

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

More Links:

Bert and I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPGf77t9hRA

Stagecoach Mary: https://www.blackcowboys.com/maryfields.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold%27s_Ghost

Review of Lovecraft Country by Nisi Shawl: https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/matt-ruffs-lovecraft-country-horrors-in-1950s-america/

https://www.thedarkhousepress.com/

lovecraftctryShow 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

Simon Strantzas: The World Through a Dark Lens | The Outer Dark: Episode 30 — FEBRUARY 8, 2016

February 8, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Strantzas-BBSAuthor/editor Simon Strantzas returns to discuss the reissue of his Shirley Jackson Award-nominated 2015 collection Burnt Black Suns in a leather-bound special edition by Dark Regions Press, generational shifts and rising momentum/progression in the Weird Renaissance, readers who evolve into editors and publishers such as Justin Steele and Sam Cowan (Dim Shores), theme/atmosphere and composing his earlier collections Beneath the Surface, Cold to the Touch and Nightingale Songs, scientific fieldwork as a story topic, the landmark editing of Joe Pulver and phenomenal weird/fabulist writing of Helen Marshall, the art of public reading, the True Detective bump, the dynamic between the Aickmanesque Strange and the Weird, the journal Thinking Horror which he co-edits with sj bagley, taxonomy as applied to insects and literature, reading back to understand aickman1-200x300the tapestry of the genre and how to bend/twist/add to it in a different way, writing as a puzzle, the revolutionary force of T.E.D. Klein, creating/curating the unofficial Website of Terry Lamsley, the British quiet and ghost story renaissance in late 90s/early 2000s horror, other brilliant authors who have not published much lately such as Don Tumasonis and Matt Cardin, the intersection between Weird and Horror, evolving trends and fusion in Horror, collaborating with Michael Kelly on editing Year’s Best Weird Fiction 3, the importance of and challenges to featuring lesser known and diverse writers in collections, Aickman and Ligotti as two writers who (like Lovecraft) opened new territories, Stephen King and Peter Straub, his reading recommendations including Nadia Bulkin and Lynda E. Rucker, an Italian edition of Burnt Black Suns in Edizioni Hypnos’ Modern Weird series, and the globalization of the Weird.

splittonguesNews from the Weird: Arkham Digest columnist/Strange Aeons fiction editor Justin Steele and special guest Sam Cowan, editor/publisher of Dim Shores Press, join Scott for the latest news including more about the exciting line-up for Year’s Best Weird Fiction 3, what’s next with Dim Shores, Lovecraft eZine Press, Egaeus Press, Lost Signals, Gamut Magazine and a listener contest to win a free Garrett Cook book! Plus Justin reviews Split Tongues by Kristi DeMeester, Dim Shores’ fifth and latest chapbook.

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: Authors/editors Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward of the Writing the Other workshop and book.

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

Also there wasn’t anything like this in the Levitra precautions found online, but still that’s my health, and I don’t want to end up with heart attack or anything similar.

Strantzas-NightingaleMore Links:

https://www.projectiradio.com/s-j-bagley-and-simon-strantzas-thinking-horror-in-the-21st-century-before-and-beyond-the-outer-dark-episode-10-september-8-2015/

https://necronomicon-providence.com/enter/

Robert Dunnell, Systematics in Prehistory: https://www.amazon.com/Systematics-Prehistory-Robert-C-Dunnell/dp/1930665288

https://www.jethrolentle.com/

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

Rios de la Luz: Magical Surrealism, Martian Gemstones and Guardian Abuelas | The Outer Dark: Episode 27 — JANUARY 13, 2016

January 13, 2016 / / 0 Comments

rios-pulseRios de la Luz explores the “inner workings that were happening in her brain” while writing her first collection The Pulse Between Dimensions and the Desert, and Scott’s suggestion that her stories resemble the Martian gemstones depicted within–each unique, energetic, fresh, multifaceted, and yet interconnected. Notions of magic realism, time travel, science fiction, Junot Diaz, Ray Bradbury, Lucius Shepard, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and her love of outer space and comic books, especially Los Bros Hernandez’s Love and Rockets, emerge, as well as working with her publisher Ladybox Books, a rising imprint of Broken River Books and being part of the dynamic small press community in Portland, Oregon. The discussion also explores diversity as a rising force in both authors and audience for spec-lit, including Rios’ identity as a “Latina-Chicana-Bruja” writer but “mostly just a strange brown girl,” as well as using Spanish to reset rhythm in her narratives, growing up in El Paso, discovering her favorite writer Sandra Cisneros and her passion for creating young characters like herself, including her excitement in seeing female, African and Guatemalan leads in Star Wars and a black Hispanic super-hero in Spider-Man Miles Morales. Another ever-present element in her writing is the guardian abuela, reflecting the importance of her grandmother and great grandmother to whom she says she “owes so much.” Also queer characters, the awkwardness of puberty (“Church Bush”), disappeared women, dead children (“La Reina”), her complicated feelings about borders and a short reading of her hauntingly beautiful story “Marigolds.Hey bros out there. For your own sake, don’t ever take two big Levitra Generic.” Finally, Rios talks about what’s next for her including flash fiction, zines, two horror stories, a bizarro tale and a novel, as well as recommending poet Yesika Salgado, aka Yesika Starr, fellow Ladybox Books author Meliza Bañales, aka Missy Fuego, and Vanessa Mártir.

10374457_627170827394930_3262260669077353846_nNews from the Weird: Ladybox Books Head Editor/Curator Constance Ann Fitzgerald joins Scott to talk more about this innovative women-run press/collective, how it got started, its exciting slate of “fiercely talented” authors, the rebirth of the zine and the current dynamic and label-defying small press scene.

 

Next week’s guest: Garrett Cook, author of You Might Just Make It Out of This Alive (Eraserhead Press)

11059843_737530326358979_7942642027074885308_nMore links:

Yesika’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/yesikastarr

https://www.autostraddle.com/hidden-gems-of-queer-lit-meliza-banales-life-is-wonderful-people-are-terrific-307618/

One of Meliza’s short stories: https://ladyboxbooks.com/2015/02/08/story-of-the-week-face-lift/#more-131

https://www.facebook.com/States-of-Terror-289014071299287/?fref=ts

News From the Weird:

https://ladyboxbooks.com/2014/09/27/ladybox-on-sale-october-15th/

The Punk Singer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwrXC5OXqgc

https://pioneerspress.com/

Laird Barron & Justin Steele: The State of The Weird 2015 | The Outer Dark: Episode 24 — DECEMBER 22, 2015

December 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

X's for Eyes state of the weird 1000pxLaird Barron and Justin Steele join host Scott Nicolay in the most epic episode of The Outer Dark yet. Laird updates listeners on what he’s been working on lately, including his new review columns at Dark Discoveries and Locus, Justin discusses his vision as new fiction editor, columnist and reviewer for Strange Aeons, as well as more future anthology plans with Ross Lockhart. And Scott reveals some plans as well including his next collection in 2017, editing a short story collection of works by John D. Keefauver for Lethe Press, and more. The three then dive deep into a discussion of all the “good stuff out there” released in 2015 and upcoming in 2016 in weird fiction, especially short stories and so many must-have collections and anthologies. One stand-out in late 2015 is the “wonderful” and historic Cassilda’s Song, edited by Joseph S Pulver Sr. and featuring a who’s who of not just the top women writing weird fiction today but some of the very best authors and stories of the year period. In 2016, new collections from Laird Barron, John Langan, Livia Llewellyn, Jeffrey Ford, and Brian Evenson lead the pack of highly anticipated publications, as well as collections such as Autumn Cthulhu (ed. Mike Davis/Lovecraft eZine) and Lost Signals (ed. Max Booth III/Perpetual Motion Machine Press), a major new novel by the consistently excellent Stephen Graham Jones and many more writers and editors driving the Weird Renaissance.

YBWF-2Plus the Roundtable discusses innovative takes on werewolves, different types of rejections, the small press boom and its sustainability, the economics of limited editions, advice to authors on strategies to grow careers, the loss of some titans (Joel Lane, Michael Shea, Lucius Shepard, Melanie Tem, Tanith Lee) in recent years, why writers should embrace and savor weird and horror influences, the Weird’s big move into major publishing and cinema/TV, heading into the third annual Year’s Best Weird Fiction, key editors and publishers (including Ellen Datlow, Michael Kelly, Ross Lockhart, Simon Strantzas, and more), where Bizarro and Weird meet and diverge, and much more.

My dick was up for 5 hours (last one in hospital..). If you ask me if did it work? – hell yeah! Did I enjoy it? – hell no! But to be honest, that’s only for Levitra 20mg my idiocy.

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: Henry Lien, author of “The Ladies’ Aquatic Gardening Society” (Asimov’s, June 2015) and more.

cassilda's songMore Links:

https://jonathanstrahan.podbean.com/

https://weirdfictionreview.com/2011/11/dogme-2011-for-weird-fiction-by-scott-nicolay/

https://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_scarcity.htm

https://www.lethepressbooks.com/

https://dimshores.apps-1and1.com/

https://smallbeerpress.com/

https://journalstone.com/

autumn-cthulhu-midsizehttps://dunhamsmanor.com/

https://centipedepress.com/

https://www.undertowbooks.com/

https://chizinepub.com/

https://perpetualpublishing.com/

https://www.fedoganandbremer.com/

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/

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