The excellent @birminghamdispatch.bsky.social (which has done such great reporting on the flag epidemic over the last few months) delivers the goods again today with this deep dive into the Midlands mythology of Penda's Fen.

Really pleased to have an essay in the new issue of Gothic Studies -- it's a special edition on Algernon Blackwood. It's also OPEN ACCESS so free for anyone to enter its region of singular loneliness and desolation. Many thanks to Henry Bartholomew for inviting me on board and putting it together.

22% off ILLUSIONS OF PRESENCE over on that globalist shopping website.

TOC:

Publication day! My special issue on Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic is officially out: www.euppublishing.com/toc/gothic/c... My heartfelt thanks to all the contributors. So much in here - will cover in future posts. The issue positions B as a major force in C20th British Gothic.

Frankenstein (2025) open.substack.com/pub/jamesmac...

This Thursday evening will be discussing Conan Doyle's Tales of the Supernatural with the estimable Edward Parnell -- details in link ... thelasttuesdaysociety.org/event/arthur...

Learnt recently that AI "tells" now include em dashes. As a long-term em dash enthusiast and advocate, this feels weirdly personal and cannot stand.

Today's $2.99 Kindle deal is not to be missed! Karl Edward Wagner's IN A LONELY PLACE (1983) is one of the best modern horror collections, featuring some of this master storyteller's best work. Grab it at a bargain price today online on Kindle worldwide! www.amazon.com/Lonely-Place...

Happy birthday John Buchan, writer of famous spy-thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps and lesser known stories of weird fiction... The Strange Stories of John Buchan is a collection of his most intriguing and obscure spooky tales 👻. shop.bl.uk/products/the-strange-stories-of-john-buchan

John Buchan Fact of the Day (261/365) The story 'The Shut Door' was first published in The Boys' All-Round Book of Stories, Sports and Hobbies in 1926. It is included in The Strange Stories of John Buchan, ed. by James Machin [The British Library, 2025] #JBFactOfTheDay #JohnBuchan #books #booksky 💙📚

ILLUSIONS OF PRESENCE has a cover!! Really happy with how this one has turned out, it's going to be *THE* book to get this Christmas!! Links to order below! Please share this one far and wide! #christmasghoststories #santasshinyshiny

Journey through forbidden mountain paths, ancient woodlands and collapsing coastlines at the far edges of Britain's wilderness with The Wayfarer's Weird: Wild Tales of Uncanny Rambles... shop.bl.uk/products/the-wayfarers-weird-wild-tales-of-uncanny-rambles

pls RT, modernists - CFP now out for 'Weird Modernisms', the collaborative conference between @modernistudies.bsky.social and @moderniststudies.bsky.social ! July 2026, Loughborough University. www.moderniststudies.org/conference/M...

Please help me share the CFP for this Literature Compass Special Issue dedicated to the work of Simon J James and covering key Victorian and Edwardian writers like H. G. Wells, George Gissing, Dickens, Wilde, George Du Maurier, and Conan-Doyle on behalf of Hadas Elber-Aviram.

The fantastic @bbcworldbookclub.bsky.social is recording a show on Arthur Conan Doyle on 20 August with Harriet Gilbert, @valmcdermid.bsky.social and our very own @drmjones.bsky.social. Tickets are required but free! Come along if you can!

Always a thrill to get a story into Supernatural Tales & especially cool to be in there with @theprofrog.bsky.social ... suptales.blogspot.com?m=1

This Friday 8pm Archive of Dread month begins on the Nunkie YouTube Channel. Tune in here at 8pm (UK) and experience "The Temple" by H P Lovecraft. youtube.com/live/DRQsB1t... free to view, but if you'd like to support this kind of thing then you can become a patron here patreon.com/RobertLloydParry

This has arrived this weekend and is up there as one of the most gorgeous things on my bookshelves Wonderful holographic cover art, an excellent collection of spooky and strange stories by John Buchan - an underrated master of the art of the weird - selected by the brilliant @jfmachin.bsky.social

Just received my contributor copies of Supernatural Tales issue 59. Proud to have a story here alongside work from James Machin, Sarah LeFanu, and others, all under a typically eerie cover image from Sam Dawson. Out soon for general purchase.

You can pre-order ShoreZone now, the first and only collection of supernatural fiction by David Rudkin, author of Penda's Fen. This anthology includes 9 enigmatic, chilling and transporting short tales rich in atmosphere and uncanniness. Designed and illustrated by Zoë Taylor. Photo by SF Said.

Always great to talk to @jfmachin.bsky.social, this time about 'Stark Munro'. A very entertaining novel, but definitely something of a curate's egg. Looking forward to digging into his new anthology of Buchan's Strange Stories for @blpublishing.bsky.social which arrived yesterday.

NOW ON YOUTUBE: The Stark Munro Letters (1895), with James Machin, editor of the new Edinburgh University Press edition. www.youtube.com/watch?v=izwq...

IT'S FUCKING HERE!!!!!! UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FKH9GMF8 US: www.amazon.com/dp/B0FKH9GMF8 I know that Amazon might put some folks off, at the end of the day, it was the cheapest to print it as a hardback, and one where we'll see the biggest return (still piddling, mind!)

NEW EPISODE: The Stark Munro Letters (1895), with @jfmachin.bsky.social, editor of the new Edinburgh University Press edition. Chat about: reading the book for the first time, Cullingworth-Budd, controversy and the original ending. Plus Buchan's weird tales. www.doingsofdoyle.com/2025/07/65-s...

My copies have arrived and they are beautiful! Holographic foil! Thistle motif endpapers! Not to mention crammed with Buchan's superbly unsettling tales.

🌕 Delve into a world of quiet terror, featuring undying pagan and elemental forces that defy modern civilisation from the isles of Scotland to the plains of South Africa with the The Strange Stories of John Buchan edited by James Machin🌕 Find out more: shop.bl.uk/products/the...

Attending #GothicCrossroads today? Checkout these #Gothic goodies on our stand, including these beauties 👇 Not in Manchester? Explore our reading list for new #GothicStudies #books, series info and discounts 👇https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/blog/2025/06/18/gothic-studies-reading-list-2025

Out on July 17th from British Library Publishing. This is an absolute must for me. Love Buchan’s weird fiction. The Strange Stories of John Buchan - British Library Gilded Nightmares edited by James Machin.

I only met Simon James a few times, through the Edinburgh Conan Doyle project, but he always made me feel like an old friend. A wonderful man who will be sorely missed. edinburgh-conan-doyle.org

Currently freed from my TBR pile is this book on maritime folklore by @karlbell.bsky.social which is published next month by @reaktionbooks.bsky.social Partway in, this is an extensive and accessible collection which I’m really enjoying. There will be a full review and feature later

Tourists admiring a half-skinned, half-skeletal Megatherium on display in the Festival of Britain's Dome of Discovery, 1951. There also appears to be a mannequin of a Victorian palaeontologist to its left, perhaps identified in the Festival literature #FossilFriday

For U.S. readers, @princetonupress.bsky.social has put up this pre-order page for my new book, due out in October!

I read this beauty a few months back + loved it. Thanks @jfmachin.bsky.social & @edinburghup.bsky.social for another top level, fascinating Conan Doyle book in this magnificent series. Excuse the scruffy haphazard note-taking I did whilst reading it, everyone else does this sort of thing, right? 🤓🫣

All three volumes of the new FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN set. You can see them here in front of Æon House when they first arrived, and of course all the sifting and sorting these past days. swanriverpress.ie/srp-title/co...

And on Cook's birthday - Douglas A. Anderson has posted a short piece about HIS BEAUTIFUL HANDS over on Wormwoodiana. wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2025/03/his-...

Weird John Buchan! -- online talk this Tuesday 11 March: thelasttuesdaysociety.org/event/weird-...

The cover for THE DEAD OF SUMMER is live and it's also being used the for the new BL catalogue!!

I'm doing another online talk for the Viktor Wynd Museum on March 11th -- this time on John Buchan's weird fiction ... thelasttuesdaysociety.org/event/weird-...

Strange rumours abroad in the cold twilight: www.waterstones.com/book/the-str...

Weird John Buchan 11 March, online – tickets £6.76 @jfmachin.bsky.social discusses why John Buchan, author of THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS (1915), should be considered alongside M.R. James, Arthur Machen, & Algernon Blackwood as a master of “golden age” weird fiction www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/weird-john...

In four days the Grand Closing Down sale for Handheld Press has sold, packed and posted over 400 books. We're running low on office stock: this is the page to check for the bookish bargain of your dreams. Sale ends on Saturday 18th. 💙📚 www.handheldpress.co.uk/our-catalogue/

I'll be giving an online talk on the enigmatic Count Stenbock next Wednesday evening: 'scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men', as W. B. Yeats described him. thelasttuesdaysociety.org/event/count-...

I'll be giving an online talk on the enigmatic Count Stenbock next Wednesday evening: 'scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men', as W. B. Yeats described him. thelasttuesdaysociety.org/event/count-...

Oh! And I spy another online event in late January: Count Stenbock: Decadent Master of the Macabre given by our good friend James Machin. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/count-sten...

Wonderful list of short stories to check out here. Great to get a mention alongside lots of friends (including @jfmachin.bsky.social and @sarahkat.bsky.social)!

Just got my two comp copies of this -- years of my life (on and off!). I can't open it in case the first thing I see is a mistake. Anyway, it's only £100 if anyone needs a last-minute stocking filler.

My new edition of Conan Doyle's excellent autobiographical novel The Stark Munro Letters is out (nearly): edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-sta... -- priced for university libraries but 30% discount with the code NEW30.

Our first new album since forever and it took a while to put together but I'm very happy with the results and don't mind saying so. open.spotify.com/track/6dXf5Q...

I received my contrib copies of Supernatural Tales 57 today, incl my new Xmas ghost story "The Night Visitor." If you like ghost stories you should be reading this magazine. suptales.blogspot.com/2024/11/issu...