The Ballad of Black Tom

The Ballad of Black Tom

As a person who’s attempting to write thoughtful, modern weird fiction, I found The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle to be a pure delight to read. Go read this one, folks! It’s a fabulous novella. The narrative is very much in a dialog with (and functions...
Scary Out There and Rot & Ruin

Scary Out There and Rot & Ruin

This week, Simon & Schuster released Scary Out There, a new YA horror anthology edited by Jonathan Maberry. It features three new poems from me and stories by writers such as RL Stine, Kendare Blake, Zac Brewer, Ellen Hopkins, Nancy Holder, Cherie Priest, Tim...
New (and Old) Lovecraftian Fiction

New (and Old) Lovecraftian Fiction

Dark Regions Press is running an Indiegogo campaign to publish three new books, and I’m in two of them. My story “The Gentleman Caller” is in Return of the Old Ones edited by Brian M. Sammons and my story “Executive Functions” is in You,...
Existential Terrors

Existential Terrors

My book While the Black Stars Burn won a Bram Stoker Award last month, and I also interviewed Joe Hill and will be a panelist at the Origins convention in Columbus. My column this month is a discussion of Lovecraft’s classic tale “The Call of Cthulhu”.

Alabaster: Wolves

Alabaster: Wolves

First, personal news: my Stoker-nominated first novel Spellbent is on sale for just 99 cents at Amazon, B&N, and iTunes. If you’ve been wanting to try my fiction, here’s your chance!

And now, here’s my column on Caitlín R. Kiernan’s Alabaster: Wolves. It is the first volume in her graphic novel series about teenaged albino monster hunter Dancy Flammarion, who is a recurring character in Kiernan’s short stories and novels. Dancy is haunted by a terrifying figure she believes to be an angel and who directs her to kill the monsters she encounters in her travels through the Deep South. In this narrative, Dancy encounters a werewolf named Maisie in an abandoned South Carolina town. After Dancy kills Maisie, the angel abandons her, forcing Dancy to face the Lovecraftian horrors in the town all by herself.