So, I'm jumping the gun a bit on this, as we've still got a couple weeks of 2014 left, but there's pretty good odds that I won't see any movies or read any books or publish anything that I don't already know about or anything else of note between now and then, and if I do, I'll put up an addendum to this entry. So, looking back at 2014, what's the ( Read more... )

Immediately following Crypticon KC I came down with a bad case of the ol' con crud which put me out of commission for the better part of two weeks. Shortly after that, I raised up my head and it was suddenly a week into September. The best part about September, besides its close proximity to October, is that it means I can finally put up my Pusheen ( Read more... )

I read around 40 books all the way through in 2013, not counting skimming individual short stories out of collections and anthologies, or re-reading graphic novels that I had just read (I tend to read any Mike Mignola stuff through two or three times in rapid succession shortly after getting them). Here's a quick top ten, though putting them in any ( Read more... )

Lots of people have favorite books that they re-read every year at about the same time. Perennial October classics include Something Wicked This Way Comes and--with a very special place in my heart--Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October. Last year, I contributed a story to the Lovecraft eZine's Night in the Lonesome October tribute issue ( Read more... )

James Whale's 1932 film The Old Dark House is one of my favorite movies of all time, full stop. It's definitely my favorite of the great Universal films of the 30s, where it's nestled amongst some very stiff competition. I can't remember under what circumstances I first saw it, but I fell in love immediately. I bought the Kino DVD of the film, ( Read more... )

So, it's now been 2013 for a little over twelve hours here. I slept most of those, and spent the others watching Castle, though we did ring in the new year last night with a handful of friends from college, all of whom are now paired up, even though at least one pair didn't get together until years after we'd all graduated. That was very pleasant, ( Read more... )

Yesterday, on my bus ride home, I finished Ian Rogers' debut collection Every House is Haunted. I'd read it over the last three days, and I couldn't have asked for better material to close out the Halloween season ( Read more... )

Tomorrow is my birthday. In spite of the subject line up there, I'm actually turning 31. But it seemed appropriate anyway, not only because tomorrow is the 30th, but because tomorrow is the end of my being 30. In some ways, it was a pretty big year for me. Probably bigger than I've yet realized, since I still feel kind of in the midst of it. It ( Read more... )

The latest issue of the Lovecraft eZine is a tribute to Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October, and it features my story "The Blackbird Whistling, or Just After."


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There's been a lot of stuff happening that relates in some way to books that I've been meaning to mention but, frankly, just haven't had the time. Still don't, really, but I'm going to try to wedge as much of it as I can conveniently remember in here. Bear with me ( Read more... )