#BookWormSat From a Train Window (1934) by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Text is from Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay (1990).

Official release date is October 14. The weird must flow... ( Now taking pre-orders at tinyurl.com/5xdz5emb )

#PhantomsFriday One Night of the Year (1980) by Tanith Lee, who was born on this day in 1947. Cyrion is a sword-and-sorcery character, private detective, and master of disguise. In this story, a family of ghosts lures him into a sepulchre. To survive, he must solve a 1200-year-old mystery.

#WyrdWednesday The Lord of Cities by Lord Dunsany (1908). Collected in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories. A rarely mentioned little story with some great passages. Here a spider speaks about the transient nature of humans and all of our works, which it will inherit.

#BookWormSat Lean Times in Lankhmar (1959) by Fritz Leiber. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser clash when Fafhrd becomes deeply devoted to the obscure god Issek of the Jug, while the Mouser works for a thug extorting priests. A night of drinking and kidnapping ends with an accidental ascension to divinity.

#WyrdWednesday The Death of Malygris (1934) by Clark Ashton Smith. A cabal of sorcerers believes that Malygris is dead and seeks to usurp his position. But even in his current state, he demonstrates why he was the most feared sorcerer in Poseidonis.

#WyrdWednesday Necromancy in Naat (1936) by Clark Ashton Smith. Zombies, a vampiric demon-weasel, patricide, a wild sword fight, and an operatic finale, all wrapped in beautiful prose. Night Shade restored much of the original text removed by Weird Tales editors.

#WyrdWednesday The Empire of the Necromancers (1932) by Clark Ashton Smith. The opening paragraph establishes the setting for this first story of Zothique. In their hubris, two necromancers raise an empire of the dead from the distant past. But the newly arisen have their own prophesy to fulfill.

#BookWormSat Beyond the Black River (1935) by Robert E. Howard. Frontier story reimagined as sword-and-sorcery in the (fictionalized) Pictish wilderness. Main character is Aquilonian, but the Picts' viewpoint is clearly explained. Dark, gloomy, and thought-provoking, with top-notch action.

I am honored to be on a guest panel at the first-ever Smith Circle, a one-day conference celebrating the life and work of Clark Ashton Smith, who has always been one of my favorite writers. Saturday, Jan 10, in Smith's hometown of Auburn, CA. More info, guest list, and tix at: www.thesmithcircle.net

#PhantomsFriday Opening Door (1959?) by Winifred Adams Burr. Text is from Fire and Sleet and Candlelight (1961). I like the analogy between a poltergeist opening a house door and Burr's imagination opening her mind to new ideas for creative works. She was also a painter.

Here’s a piece of video game history up for auction: Minotaur head sculpted for the 3DO version of "Doom" Would look great on the wall over your bed. Current bid is only $120, a steal. bid.rlspear.com/Public/Aucti...

#PhantomsFriday The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995) by Darrell Schweitzer. An outstanding dark fantasy novel with a setting loosely based on ancient Egypt. In an early scene, the main character travels up the River of the Dead, where the substantial and the ghostly worlds are reversed.

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Got this excellent album ~30 years ago after hearing this song on radio. Skip Gorman - Old Paint's a Pony www.youtube.com/watch?v=or0I... Original song was written by former slave Charley Willis, who was a cowboy in late 1800s. Title and lyrics have varied.

#WyrdWednesday Art by François Baranger for the 2023 Design Studio Press illustrated version of The Dunwich Horror (1929). The Call of Cthulhu and At the Mountains of Madness have also been published with full-page illustrations throughout. The Shadow Over Innsmouth out in French; English out soon.

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry The Carter Family - When the Roses Come Again One of my favorites. I really like the rhyming pattern and word choices in the lyrics. And also the sentiments. Song-writing credits are in my reply below. www.youtube.com/watch?v=osnJ...

#BookWormSat An excerpt from The Wanderer by Australian poet Christopher Brennan. Collected in Poems:1913 (1914). Text below is from The Verse of Christopher Brennan (Angus & Robertson, 1960).

#PhantomsFriday Le Revenant/The Phantom by Charles Baudelaire, as translated by Clark Ashton Smith in Weird Tales, May 1929. CAS translated most of Baudelaire's poems as prose, but only versified some. Much invention is needed to make the rhythm/rhyming work while keeping the feel of the original.

#WyrdWednesday Fascinating villain Londo Mollari in Babylon 5, at the start of the series. He and G'Kar, their story arcs, and interactions with each other are some of my favorite TV ever. Peter Jurasik and the late Andreas Katsulas did a phenomenal job playing these characters.

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Willie Nelson - Sister's Coming Home/Down at the Corner Beer Joint www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV2p... My favorite song from this album. I don't think anyone has posted it yet.

In 1939 you could take one of many electric streetcar lines downtown to one of two main railway stations and be in downtown Chicago in 6-1/2 hours, under steam power. A remarkable achievement in its day, not just faster than our current trains, but faster than you can DRIVE it now.

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Blaze Foley (Michael David Fuller) - Clay Pigeons www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVZx... If interested in his life story, the documentary Duct Tape Messiah is very good.

Snake priests of Y'ha-nthlei. A back cover detail from @johnlangan.bsky.social ‘Children of the Fang’. I wore my Frazetta/Jeffrey Catherine Jones influence proudly on my sleeve painting this one.

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Reeb Willms (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Nadine Landry (vocals, bass) - When I Loved You www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdBh... They perform together and separately in various other bands and musical arrangements outside of Foghorn Stringband.

#PhantomsFriday I posted this poem six months ago for another hash tag, but I like it quite a lot, so reposting for today. The Ghost Kings (Weird Tales, Dec 1938) by Robert E. Howard. Published posthumously. No draft from REH exists, so the degree of editing in the published version is unknown.

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Eilen Jewell - Someone's Arms www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Ky...

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Laura Benitez and the Heartache - Good Love www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OgN...

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Rachel Brooke - Only For You www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVL... This album also has great tracks like Serpentine Blues that are a bit less country. Her 2008 debut and 2011 country folk albums are outstanding too and can be heard on her own web site (not YouTube).

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Esther Rose - This Time Last Night A beautifully sung and played song! If I listen while moving around doing apartment chores, I always gotta do my own made-up version of a two-step to this one🕺😄 www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZic...

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Secret Emchy Society - Two Feet and a Dream A fun music video for this song from the album The Stars Fall Shooting Into Twangsville: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfem...

This fall Jackanapes Press will release my “big weird fantasy” A FEW ODD SOULS. [Cover by Dan Sauer]

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Melissa Carper and Rebecca Patek - Old Sweet Home This whole album is so good! www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-PP...

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Emmylou Harris - Lonely Street Hard to choose just one song off this album! www.youtube.com/watch?v=fit8...

#PhantomsFriday The Superstitious Ghost (1918) by Arthur Guiterman.

#MusicChallenge #GetBackToTheCountry Dolly Parton/Linda Ronstadt/Emmylou Harris - Wildflowers The autoharp opening sounds like a nice tribute to The Carter Family - Wildwood Flower. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HMw...

#WyrdWednesday Dystopia The Lottery (1948) by Shirley Jackson. This short story is much different from the high tech visions of many futuristic dystopias, but I think it fits the broadest definitions. A folksy, bucolic town carries out a very dark, society-wide tradition.

One week until my thriller THE UNDERSTUDY is out in the world! Please consider pre-ordering it. Booklist calls it "tense, taut, and compulsively readable." www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/731133...

#BookWormSat The Salamander (1967) by Mercè Rodoreda, a Spanish author who wrote in Catalan and became a war refugee. A moving story of betrayal, survival, and transformation, where protagonist feels trapped between two worlds, not fully belonging to either. Reprinted in 2011 anthology The Weird.

#PhantomsFriday The Sands of Dee (1849) by Charles Kingsley, from his novel Alton Locke. Read by Vincent Price on A Hornbook for Witches (1976). This album was inspired by Leah Bodine Drake's 1950 Arkham House collection. Cover art by Leo and Diane Dillon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_I...

#WyrdWednesday Movies, music, art Painting by Frank Kelly Freas. A color variant was used as cover art for Weird Tales, November 1950. He later repainted it for Weird Tales, Fall 1990. The original is my favorite cover from the magazine.

#LookAndSee (Day 153) #MusicChallenge From a 1977 album loosely based on The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany. "Music From the wind and trees,
 And breezes through the moss and grass,
 At last the dance should soon begin in Elfland." www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHV0...

#BookWormSat Idle Days on the Yann (1910) by Lord Dunsany. One of my favorite stories by him. Art credit in alt text.

"Miskatonic University Alumni Ceremony, Yuletide 1913." Digital photo-montage with my sculptures as usual. No big deal, I know... Just playing with some well-known Weird faces from that era. #cthulhu #weird

#PhantomsFriday In the short novel Kill the Dead (1980) by Tanith Lee, the paths of a ghost killer, a wandering musician who plays a strange instrument, and a newly enghosted woman are intertwined on a journey to the legendary city of Ghyste Mortua. Art credit in alt text.

#WyrdWednesday A Vintage From Atlantis (Weird Tales, September 1933) by Clark Ashton Smith. A pirate crew burying treasure on their secret Caribbean island retrieves an ancient urn of liquor from the sea. Drinking it has unexpected consequences...

#PhantomsFriday A Pirate Remembers by Robert E. Howard. Titled draft, unpublished in his lifetime. This text is from Collected Poetry V1 (REH Foundation Press, 2008).

#WyrdWednesday Strange buildings In The Sorcerer Evoragdou (1993) by Darrell Schweitzer, a sorcerer's manse is the setting for a time-looping tale of transformation. Reprinted in his excellent two-volume 2020 collection of short stories.

#PhantomsFriday The Dark Chateau by Clark Ashton Smith. First published in The Dark Chateau and Other Poems (1951) by Arkham House. This text is from Complete Poetry and Translations V2 (2012). One collection of his poetry has its own glossary in the back, which is quite useful! 🙂

📅 15 years ago today, ‪@grickle.bsky.social‬'s Puzzle Agent was released! 💾 Puzzle Agent was released on June 30th, 2010!

#PhantomsFriday The Moor Ghost (Weird Tales, Sep 1929) by Robert E. Howard. The older word "haled" was changed to "hauled" in some recent reprints. When I first read this poem, I learned that "dour" can be pronounced more like "doer" than "dower", which makes the rhyme work.