I was excited to see that Dan Coxon and Richard V. Hirst recently won the British Fantasy Award for “Best Non-Fiction” with last year’s important release from dead ink books, called WRITING THE UNCANNY: Essays on Crafting Strange Fiction. Coxon and Hirst’s book is an excellent anthology of mostly-UK writers sharing their strategies for writing… Continue reading Review: Writing the Uncanny: Essays on Crafting Strange Fiction (Coxon & Hirst, 2021)
Tag: writing
New Online Course: “The Uncanny & The Abject”
“The Uncanny and The Abject”: Applying Psychology to Disturb the Reader Live Saturday, May 22, 5 P.M. EST — StokerCon 2021 Online Also Available Asynchronously Following the Event! Details TBA DESCRIPTION: This two hour online workshop will unravel the psychological theories of the Uncanny and the Abject. Together, we will explore how they pertain to… Continue reading New Online Course: “The Uncanny & The Abject”
The Uncanny Mask in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Tree”
Charles Dickens is so well known for “A Christmas Carol,” that some of his other Christmas Tales are too sadly overlooked. In my favorite, the unassumingly-titled “A Christmas Tree,” the narrator muses over a tabletop Christmas Tree toy, and descends into haunted recollections about his own childhood toys and seasonal experiences in a manner that… Continue reading The Uncanny Mask in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Tree”
The Return of the Uncanny and the Rise of the Uncanny Valley
Although there is some wise debate about the reliability of Google NGrams as statistical proof, it is still interesting to see the way the term “uncanny” has come into — and gone out of — fashion over the years… Here’s how google NGram tracks the appearance of the term “uncanny” in all books between 1800… Continue reading The Return of the Uncanny and the Rise of the Uncanny Valley
Review of Pea Green Boat (Spring 2012) — Special Issue on The Uncanny
Pea Green Boat is an online magazine of curious and compelling miscellany, publishing issues that collect articles and snippets on unique themes. The current issue of PGB (Spring 2012) focuses on The Uncanny. I should say up front that one of my articles, on “Eyebombing,” is reprinted from this very site. But PGB’s Uncanny issue… Continue reading Review of Pea Green Boat (Spring 2012) — Special Issue on The Uncanny
The Uncanny in your Inbox — and a Book in your Mailbox
A brief alert to let readers of this blog and fans of all things “uncanny” know that my latest book is a large collection of micropoetry — called The Gorelets Omnibus. Aside from hundreds of twisted (and sometimes funny) horror poems, it features a collection of academic articles written about the gorelets project (by critics… Continue reading The Uncanny in your Inbox — and a Book in your Mailbox
Interview with NHRS: The Uncanny in Popular Horror Fiction
A former grad student of mine, WD Prescott, is running an interesting website bluntly called The Non-Horror Reader Survey that is studying what today’s readers think about the modern horror genre. It features interviews with various readers, writers, and scholars, along with a research questionnaire you can fill out, if you want to participate. It’s… Continue reading Interview with NHRS: The Uncanny in Popular Horror Fiction
Uncanny Beauty and Weird Tales
Weird Tales magazine (issue #356) will have “uncanny beauty” as its theme, and I’m excited to see what it has in store. The cover art is gorgeous. Even Jeff Vandermeer’s cat loves it. I highly recommend subscribing to this longstanding genre fiction magazine, which has been around since the pulp era and helped draw attention… Continue reading Uncanny Beauty and Weird Tales
The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease — A Class Review
I am currently teaching an online horror literature course in “Psychos and the Psyche” for graduate students in our MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill University. This month we are studying Freud’s article on “Das Unheimlich” and reading a fascinating new anthology of horror fiction called The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease,… Continue reading The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease — A Class Review
Book Review: Blankety-Blank by D. Harlan Wilson
Blankety Blank: A Novel of Vulgaria by D. Harlan Wilson This disturbing read is a breakthrough work of fiction that deserves a spotlight on the literary landscape as one of the best works of experimental writing of the year, if not ever. The story is quite a mess, and difficult to encapsulate in a review,… Continue reading Book Review: Blankety-Blank by D. Harlan Wilson