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  *Research in progress.   Lately I’ve been having–or, rather, subjecting other people to–conversations about how to make stories that are better than well-crafted.  I’m at this weird point where I acknowledge that becoming better at my craft is going to be a lifelong project…but there’s something more out there to writing than just craft. […]

I worked out a program for learning how to write this morning, in the broadest (and most general) possible steps. 1) Read. 2) Write. 3) Study by typing stuff in and analyzing it as much as desired, in a way that satisfies curiosity. 4) Research and practice building understanding on the following concepts:  clarity of

I wake up and start to comb my fingers through my hair. It’s falling out, you see, faster than it grows back in, and every morning I take a perverse pleasure in eradicating the loose strands with my fingers.  Here, says my fingers, lies your “crowning beauty.”  Your hair.  It’s long and thick, thicker than any

tl;dr:  a) buy book and/or ask for free copy, b) review someplace, c) tell a friend, d) give me hugs. Today is the official release day for A Murder of Crows: Seventeen Tales of Monsters and the Macabre. I am, of course, in panic mode, because I have a release-day checklist in which I do more than

Disclosures: A) I used to slush for Apex Magazine, of which Jason is the publisher, and B) I got a review copy. I’m reading (as I’m sure you’ve heard me go off about by now) Nightmare Magazine Top 100 Horror Books.  What I’m seeing, as I work through the Bs of Barker, Barron, Blatty, Bloch, and

I was screwing around with genres while journaling this morning:   Horror: We are all trolls. With a splash of terror: Everyone is a troll but me, and now they’re after me! Urban Fantasy: It’s the job of all right-thinking citizens to make a stand against trolls.  Especially, you know, if we’re getting paid for

  Preorders are now open for my collection of short horror, ghost, and dark fantasy stories for adults, A Murder of Crows.  If you are so inclined to make a preorder, many thanks!  The current price is $2.99 US; it’ll go up after the release to $4.99. The print edition is not quite ready for preorders

by Laird Barron. Spoilers. Reading this book, a collection of short “the horrors of that which is beyond our comprehension” horror stories, was quite the experience. The first two stories, “Old Virginia” and “Shiva, Open Your Eye,” bored me.  I’m reading Nightmare Magazine’s Top 100 Horror Books, so I’m expecting this stuff to be over-the-top good. 

First draft of a best-of SF/F/H pulp list coming right up. Note:  I’m not an expert, and I haven’t read most of this stuff.  However, I want to become well-read in the area, and there aren’t a lot of resources giving any kind of organization.  “Pulps are bigger than you can imagine and way more