Coming soon to an ICFA near you…

Happy March, y’all. I hope you’re well. My recovery from covid moved more slowly than expected, though things have gotten better week by week. I’m deep into the “muddle in the middle” of the novel-in-progress, navigating through the bogs and trees with the help of my trusty outline.

Are you going to be in Orlando next week for the 45th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts? I’ll be there, chairing a session and later giving a paper as part of my ongoing “what if horror, but not only scary” research agenda. At 10:30 a.m. on Saturday (3/16), I’ll give “Only The Old Dark House Again: The Use and Comfort of a Familiar Skeleton,” along with some great-looking papers from my fellow presenters in the session “She Herself Is a Haunted House”: Gothic Spaces and Places.

What have I been reading lately? Along with my slow progress through Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio (a 2024 project that may stretch into 2025), some of my usual biz:

Media Horror in Orlando

Sitting in Atlanta between flights, waiting to board for Orlando, I’m thinking about long times:

• 5 years since I last attended the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
• 4 years (?) since I was on a plane
• 10 years since I seriously started into scholarship of horror and the fantastic
• 86 years to the day since H. P. Lovecraft died
• 17 years since I started working publishing fiction

Lots of years, successes, missed opportunities, and unexpected joys. Speaking of joys, another long time: writing for more years than I can remember.

And that was much more rumination than necessary to say I’m off to ICFA 44! I’m presenting “Always Already Nostalgic: Dead Tech, Obsolescence, and Retro Affects in Media Horror” this year. Not purely focused on horror fiction, as I often am, and I’m looking forward to all the panels, presents, and conversations.

ICFA 39, I Liked the Cut of Your Jib

This year’s ICFA was a delight to attend, and on many counts! As always, I met many interesting scholars, writers, editors, and good folks of various fields, as well as connecting with old friends and laying devious plans. My academic paper was well received, the panel involved  a productive and wide-ranging take on Weird Tales and weird fiction, and my reading seemed to go over well.

I’m not going to say much more about the conference here, as I’m writing up the event for another publication (more about that down the road). James McGlothin captured his experience nicely, if you want to take a look, over at Black Gate. Here are a few pictures…

Early a.m. panel on WEIRD TALES, featuring (L to R) Sean Moreland, moi, Jeffrey Shanks, Tracy (May) Stone, and GoH Nike Sulway. Photo by Dierk Gunther

 

Words & Worlds Prose Reading, with Doug Ford reading his “Pig Feast.” Readers included Derek Newman-Stille (out of frame), Regina Hansen, Gina Wisker, Doug Ford, and moi. Photo by Jenna Jarvis

And finally, I got an awfully nice response from no less than Michael Arnzen on the story I read. I don’t think the conference could have had a better end:

John: really enjoyed your creepy, depressing story reading at the very last conference session at #ICFA39 … a perfect way to end the con for those of us in the horror squad. Safe travels and keep writing the weirdness! https://t.co/cKGAis9zW9

— Michael Arnzen (@MikeArnzen) March 18, 2018

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ICFA 39 & The Very Horrible, Totally Terrible Spreadsheets

ICFA 39 is almost here! I meant to post about this weeks ago, but the days ran away from me. Really looking forward to seeing friends and colleagues old and new. I’m doing a few things this go-round…

Thursday, March 15, 2018 8:30-10:00 a.m., Oak
(HL) Panel: Weird Tales and the Evolution of Weird Fiction
Moderator : Sean Moreland
[I’ll be a panelist at 8:30 in the morning! The horror, the horror!]

Thursday, March 15, 2018 10:30-12:00 p.m., Maple
(HL/FL/SF) The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovecraft
Chair: Andrew P. Williams
[I’ll be giving a paper during this session — “Lies, Damned Lies, and Eldritch Statistics: Toward a Quantitative Analysis of Lovecraft’s Literary Reputation.” Warning: there will be charts.]

Saturday, March 4:00-5:30 p.m., Vista B
Words & Worlds Prose
Host: P. Andrew Miller
[Long-running ICFA group reading series, in which I’m delighted to be included.]

 

Story Selected for Best New Horror #28

My “En Plein Air,” a short story that first appeared in Nightscript 2, will appear in Best New Horror #28. I’m gratified that Stephen Jones liked the story enough to include it in his anthology, and I look forward to it finding new readers. My thanks to C.M. Muller for first publishing it in his fine and darksome anthology, and to the readers who’ve been pleased to encounter it, both in print and when I read it last year at ICFA.

This is probably my favorite story I’ve written about Richmond, with scenes set on Cherokee Road, at the VMFA, etc. While I won’t say too much more about that, I will say that this forthcoming appearance is a validation, not least that the approach I took to the story was fruitful, from the background work to the way I went about the writing. It has resulted in the first instance of any work of mine making it to an annual anthologies, let alone one of such long standing as the Best New Horror series. I couldn’t be happier.