Wuthering Heights |

Michael Kelly and Kathe Koja talk about editing Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 2,, the overarching vision behind the Year’s Best Weird Fiction series and much more. The conversation begins with their gratification at the thoughtful reviews of the second volume, Kathe’s excitement when first asked to edit, how they collaborated on the editorial process, the decision to include not just contemporary authors but the first English translations of deceased Weird masters such as Argentinian master Julio Cortázar and Belgian fabulist Jean Muno, Kathe’s comparison of the story selection process to composing a symphony, similarities and differences working with four different guest editors (Laird Barron, Kathe, Simon Strantzas [Vol. 3] and Helen Marshall who will be editing Vol. 4), casting a wide net as an organic way to achieve gender balance and diversity, embracing an expansive view of the Weird, YBW facilitating the discovery of new authors, the fine art of judging bests/awards and looking out for the one who brings the “metaphorical chicken,” the Weird as the “closest mode of fiction to the way the brain works,” the Weird as absorbing the vital parts of New Weird/New Fabulist/slipstream/interstitial/horror, sushi-shaming, the stunning covers by artists Santiago Caruso (1), Tomasz Alen Kopera (2), Beatriz Martin Vidal (3), working with book designer Vince Haig, sourcing from single-author collections to spec-lit and mainstream lit publications not associated with the Weird, occasional frustrations in rights negotiations, the fine art of translation and international authors that can be classified as Weird, a quick anecdote about Eraserhead, their biggest takeaways of working together on Vol. 2, origins of the series, looking ahead to Vol. 3 and even Vol. 4, Kathe’s immersive performative fiction project nerve based in Detroit from her own Under the Poppy to Dracula, unreliable narrators and Wuthering Heights, a brief Doctor Faustus/Christopher Marlowe interlude, and a few of their recommended authors including Priya Sharma and Charles Wilkinson (Michael), as well as Paul Witcover and Maryse Meijer.

Send submissions (stories published for the first time in 2016) for Year’s Best Weird Fiction Vol. 4 to bestweirdfiction@gmail.com.

News From the Weird: Arkham Digest columnist/Strange Aeons fiction editor Justin “Steely J” Steele returns to review Meet Me in the Middle, the new collection by Eric Schaller, also from Undertow Publications. Also, news from Dim Shores, Shock Totem, a much anticipated new audio book, and Ellen Datlow!

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.

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

More Links:

https://weirdfictionreview.com/2014/11/the-expanding-borders-of-area-x/

Mu Xin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vipI6dGiVE and https://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/art/reviews/n_9106/

https://fairytalereview.com/

https://granta.com/

https://www.phantomdrift.org/

https://mastersreview.com/

https://interfictions.com/

Eraserhead chicken scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyB4Vx-TavQ

News From the Weird:

Undertow subscription deal: https://www.undertowbooks.com/2016-subscription/

https://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/05/interview-eric-schaller-and-weird-art/

Livia Llewellyn’s Furnace: https://wordhorde.com/books/furnace/

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

Robert Levy unveils and explores the secret origins of his novel The Glittering World from his own personal experiences in Cape Breton, Canada, or, in other words, “taking a great memory and completely destroying it,” similarities between the old lore behind fairies and alien abduction mythology, his ambivalence about but recognition of genre marketing in the publishing business, how a genre-defying and Weird first novel got placed with a major publisher, other authors like Jeff VanderMeer and Paul Tremblay who are breaking the Weird into big publishing, structural similarities in The Glittering World to two Alfred Hitchcock classics, the Weird’s transition from shorter modes into the novel, the short story and novels as different forms, how the book sheds its skin as the main characters unfold the narrative akin to a four-course meal, when the glitter fades–his exploration of transitioning from the club scene fantasy lifestyle to adulthood, the title’s unexpected relationship to the tradition of Navajo emergent/creation stories, altered states as a form of escape, insects, parallels to the iconic relationship in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, his fascination with people who are “right on the edge of oblivion or failure,” a stolen paperweight and life as a bizarre sequence of coincidences, storytelling as one way we try to give our life meaning, choice as the “anxiety of freedom,” taking his time to write a novel, fiction as a diary, future works which might have something to do with cults and found manuscripts, and his reading recommendations of other contemporary writers to watch including Livia Llewellyn, Desirina Boskovich, Dale Bailey, and Molly Tanzer.

News of the Weird Special Guest: Writer/editor Mike Allen reveals the table of contents for Clockwork Phoenix 5 in another exclusive The Outer Dark announcement.

And Justin Steele joins Scott to review The Glittering World.

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: John C. Foster, author of the Libros de Inferno trilogy (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing) which starts with Dead Men.