joe koch isn't just one of the finest writers of weird and transgressive literature working, today, but truly is one of the best to ever do it. if you ain't reading joe koch, are you even really reading?

lol. AI is so dumb. I feel like Neo. (Previous review was blocked, this review got posted).

somnolent

ICYMI - still on sale right now!

ex-cop pop duo fka pigs

I know all eyes were on Mamdani and NYC last night, but 11 DSA-endorsed candidates have won so far across the country. It’s bigger than NYC. It’s bigger than electoral politics.

If you are outside the New York metropolitan area this morning, please watch where you step. There are reports of an increase of small, six-legged creatures scuttling out of the city. Unlike normal cockroaches, billionaires smell like bad cologne and emit a histrionic squeal when frightened.

In honor of the day, I'm posting scary stories: Here's "A Memory" in @ergot.bsky.social, loosely inspired by the "Einstein room" in Paganini Horror (1989) "In the new house there was a tunnel...one could pass through and find on reaching the far end that one had returned to the tunnel’s entrance."

He is the reason for the season media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2l...

So, T-giving has that big dog show. Halloween should have a cat show, but it's only black cats competing to see which can do the best 'scary kitty' pose (by letting them take a nap then stretching when they wake up). But all the cats win (because black cats rule) and all the people get candy.

Someone has put together a VERY thorough list of resources for people in the Portland area who need food. For those who have enough to share, please consider putting your time and/or money somewhere. For those who need help, here are places to get it. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Some things we’ll be looking for: - Eco-Horror - Eco-Gothic/Anti-Gothic - Haunted & Unhaunted Landscapes - Eco-Surrealism - Eco-Weird - Metaficton - Unreliable Narrators More details here 👇

If you live around Houston and like new classical music compositions and new poems, I was commissioned to write three poems to precede three new wind compositions and that will all be happening at MATCH in Midtown this Saturday, Nov. 1st. Come listen!

Maybe it's time for a good old 'Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes' style literary debate: - 10 years - Realists vs. Surrealist - Vitriol exchanged in the leading literary periodicals and salons - Catholics on one side, everyone else on the other - To be judged by the King of France

Candy alternatives to hand out on Halloween: - moss balls - imp eggs - banned books - unknown bones - forest gravy - slightly cursed nickels

This year I'm going as Dracula for Christmas. Seems much more likely to scare the shit out of people than if I had done it at Halloween when everybody's doing it.

How about we try a different kind of "LLM" that i can get behind Lower ELigibility age for Medicare to 0

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in ’s own house.

A very good description of us all watching a slasher movie.

Out Now: Some Essays by Heinrich von Kleist (trans. @unpaginated.bsky.social) Published in rapid succession during the last year of Kleist's life, these brief but challenging essays present the finest distillation of his philosophical thought: paradiseeditions.net/products/som...

"We are watching a slasher movie. The windows are all boarded up. It’s been dusk for a couple days now. We check the time but the kitchen clock is smashed to shit and our phones all just read twelve midnight forever." Today on ergot.: 'Slasher' by Samantha Barrett www.ergot.press/authors/Sama...

Tomorrow on ergot.: watching some new slasher flicks with Samantha Barrett.

Fellow Houstonians, join me, Glenn Shaheen, Tracy Jo Barnwell, and Kelly Moore for the Fourth Annual Halloween Reading at Basket Books & Art, this Saturday, October 25th at 7 pm! Costumes are encouraged!

Been quiet round here lately cos I (Jonny, Editor-In-Chief) have been crazy busy with work. But! We've got some cool stuff coming soon, including: STP Issue #13, and it's a bumper edition An interview with Lyndsey Croal The revival of the newsletter Me actually catching up with the submissions pile

beeswax redolent of honey

Local legislator displays the importance of kerning

aws outage bricked my neuralink implant so now I can't speak or control my toes. This really sucks

13 lumens in autumnal dark

Some thoughts on Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House': www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Just finished this phenomenal new novel from @perfidiousscript.bsky.social of @ergot.bsky.social. One of the most enjoyable reading experiences I’ve had in a long time. A jigsaw puzzle of a book that poked and prodded at my brain in the best ways. asterismbooks.com/product/the-...

EXCLUSIVE: One Saturday afternoon in October, my phone lit up with a notification. I glanced down at the message. “Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” it began. So began my text exchange with the woman who is prosecuting the president's perceived political enemies. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/anna...

How strange it is, to be standing leaning against the current of time. W.G. Sebald, Vertigo; tr. Michael Hulse

“The purpose of my project, is to analyze the text of Reading Shaver’s Creek and combine this analysis with my own site visits, my own written reflections, and some photography to gain a contextual understanding of space, place, and nature in the forest.” 🌎🏡🌐 www.briefecology.com/p/reading-th...

Thoughts on horror novels that slow burn their way to the fucking weirdness?

Just got ANOTHER complaint from an author with Lori Perkins's Riverdale Avenue Books about royalties not paid for over a year. I wrote about this problem in 2021 and it appears to still be ongoing--just amazing how pubs like this stay in business. writerbeware.blog/2021/03/02/p...

Iro Agoratsiou, 2022

I use Orwellian to refer to things that remind me of Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Kafkaesque is when there's a longwinded monologue by someone who may or may not be a mouse

tired: seeing the world in black and white wired: seeing the world in shades of gray inspired: seeing the world in full color on fire: seeing the world through a mantis shrimp's eyes

Very excited to be in conversation about SQUIMBOP with the great @specktor.bsky.social in LA this coming Tues -- we started the conversation several years ago, w/r/t DODGE CITY 2: @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social @southwestreview.bsky.social @1111press.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

Thanks to Ben Lockwood for some kind words on 'The Veldt Institute' in Brief Ecology!

A new Eco-Update is live! Stories about capitalist wind-grabbing, a new study on desert ecology, and an eco-fiction review of @perfidiousscript.bsky.social’s The Veldt Institute 🏡🌐🌎🧪 www.briefecology.com/p/the-eco-up...

Early on I realized that a 'Harry Potter enemies-to-friends fanfic romance' subplot would be 'The Veldt Institute's ticket to the bestseller list. Hindsight is 20/20, and perhaps Dobby/Filch wasn't the right choice. If you want emotional depth instead of just pretty faces, this is your book.

For whom does the nothing noth?

The pines make a music like no other, rising and falling like a distant surf at night that calms the darkness before first light. “Soughing” we call it, from Old English, no less. How weightless words are when nothing will do. Philip Levine, Breath