Prior to this post, you’ll notice a proliferation of double posts that were simultaneously shared on both the Mythic Delirium site and this one. That’s because my home blog here had a functional “simulpost to Twitter” feature, which doesn’t work anymore because of Elon Musk-driven changes to Twitter. Alas, so it goes.

(You’ll notice a lot of the graphics I produce now are square. That’s to make them compatible with my new-ish Instagram account, which maybe some year I will get the hang of using….)

But another reason for this has been because 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of the existence of Mythic Delirium, and I’ve spend the first half of the year focused most on the three projects I took on that were intended to coincide with the anniversary celebration: The Twice-Drowned Saint by C. S. E. Cooney, The Collected Enchantments by Theodora Goss, and Like Smoke, Like Light by Yukimi Ogawa. I still have a lot to do to promote these projects, but the labor involved in making them exist — executed in the time left over from starting a whole new career — has largely been completed. It seems to have become the norm that we no longer assume an understanding on the part of the reader that creators automatically, implicitly, enthusiastically endorse their own projects just by talking about them, SO, let me make an explicit endorsement: all three of this books are absolutely amazing and you need to buy copies ASAP.

That’s what I’ve been up to as a publisher. As a writer, I have also been up to things, lots of things, and as has become my standard, devoting time to doing the things keeps me from documenting them here, until a window opens up, as it has today.

Therefore, a whirlwind of roundups:

StokerCon

Anita and I will make our first ever appearances at a StokerCon this month. My simple but elegant schedule includes a short reading, participation in a mass signing, and speaking on a high-powered panel about the horror industry, which Anita will moderate! Find details in the graphic below.

Worth noting: Claire Cooney will also be present at StokerCon, a first for her as well. Mythic Delirium will not bring our full dog-and-pony show to this new turf, but our friends at Raw Dog Screaming Press have graciously agreed to carry The Twice-Drowned Saint and Yukimi’s Like Smoke, Like Light at their dealers room table, so we’ll at least have a (severed) toehold.

At the signing, I expect to have copies of Unseaming, Aftermath of an Industrial Accident — the first time these Shirley Jackson Award-nominated books of mine have ever appeared at a horror convention*, if you can believe it — my novel The Black Fire Concerto, and perhaps some surprises.

For the reading, I plan to read two flash pieces: first, the story/poem/essay that opens Aftermath of an Industrial Accident, “Six Waking Nightmares Poe Gave Me in Third Grade”; second, Anita and I together will recite “Good to the Last Drop” (see below for what that is).

*Unseaming has been sold at the Outer Dark Symposium, but they eschew the label “horror.”

New fiction

My newest published stories turn out to be a couple of motion picture homages, who would have thought?

Good to the Last Drop

Not long after the release of Hulu’s Hellraiser, a movie Anita and I enjoyed a lot despite its flaws, she suggested a hilarious idea for a tribute/parody that captured my imagination. The result was “Good to the Last Drop.” Anita and I have worked on many creative projects together, including anthologies and poems, but in my 31 years of writing and our 31 years of marriage, this is our first short story composed as a couple.

And now you can listen to it, in a delightful reading by R.B. Wood on his Sudden Fictions Podcast. Click the graphic to go there.

The Green Silence

Scott Dwyer’s Plutonian Press has certainly earned my gratitude; this intriguing, edgy micropress has proven to be a major supporter of my short fiction in recent years; I have a story in every anthology Plutonian has published, including the latest, The Pinworm Factory, assembled as a tribute to David Lynch’s near-unclassifiable debut Eraserhead.

My story, “The Green Silence,” riffs on some of that film’s visual themes; it’s as surreal and nasty as the anthology’s title. (Rather on the opposite end of the spectrum from the gentle (by comparison) story Anita and I wrote together.)

Slow Burn

Since this story came out in March, I suppose I can’t quite call it new, but I haven’t yet shared my delightfully warped contributor copy of Cosmic Horror Monthly in this space, so here is that:

Slow Burn could be a really cool name for a collection of horror tales, doncha think?
 

Posted in 25th anniversary Mythic Delirium, Aftermath of an Industrial Accident, Appearances, Mythic Delirium, Short stories, The Black Fire Concerto, Unseaming, Writing