Our festive & wintry short-fiction anthology Soot & Boots lands later this month. Hardback + paperback. Sharp stories for dark nights. More soon. #SootAndBoots

Mood...

Episode 182 - GATHERINGS Listen free on your podcast app or at www.thefolklorepodcast.com/episode-182.... Watch a video enhanced version with footage from the TV series at youtu.be/zqFZ58lSMKA I chat with director Dave Brewis about his new 6-part TV series Gatherings, looking at seasonal events.

Los is totally expressing my mood today!

In case you missed it: last week, we released two new episodes of our podcast, Absolute Units! Learn about tracing queer rural history in our archives with @timjerrome.bsky.social. And/or explore the history of Halloween with @folklorepod.bsky.social. merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

I had the awesome experience and life long dream of being interviewed for this NatGeo article on supernatural Appalachia: urldefense.com/v3/__https:/... In the spirit of Halloween, here are some of my Haints, Boogers, and Witches

Last night, for the first time in a long time, I got to take off my department head hat, put on my whimsical folklore T-shirt & trade spreadsheets for folktales. Great Halloween fun with RMU's WLMP. (Once again, thanks to @bereaarchives.bsky.social for the Leonard Roberts material!)

We me way look at folklore as a thing separate, artefact of imaginative response to the world, or we may look through folklore to see the truths of an enchanted world. I’ve learnt late that it’s often better to look through to the universal rather than look at shadows cast. – #CLNolan #Folklore

We saved @meaganlucas.bsky.social’s incredibly epic story as the closer to On Fire and Under Water for a reason. Buy your copy and find out why.

To be chosen by Steph Cha and Don Winslow and to be among some of my favourite people and writers is an overwhelming honor. Huge thanks to Starlite Pulp for its first home. Please get yourself a copy, if not for my dirty little spite story, than for one of the other 19 amazing ones.

I want to live inside it. The best.

Admittedly, *Spooky Girl* books are always my favourite, but especially in October.

I'm giving an online talk for Warner Library in the US (the library that serves Sleepy Hollow) for Halloween this year. It's on Monday 28 October at 7pm their time (midnight in the UK) and it is FREE! You can book a place here: warnerlibrary.org/2025/09/29/z... #scoobydoo #libraries #folklore

Sunday in Sterling, Va.! Details and tickets at www.ticketleap.events/tickets/prof... . @washingtonian.com @folklorepod.bsky.social @folkhorrorrevival.bsky.social @folkhorrormagpie.bsky.social @loudounnow.org @northernvirginiamag.com.web.brid.gy @wtopnews.bsky.social

In today's American Archives Month Lunch Talk, Dr. Steve Gowler discussed his recently-published biography of abolitionist William Goodell (1792-1878). The book, Thoughts That Burned, was based in part on the Goodell family papers, shown here lined up in the reading room. @bereacollege.bsky.social

For Halloween season, nothing like hearing Christopher Lee talk about “witchcraft, magic, sorcery… ancient supernatural ways to explain the unknown we now call the occult…” www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGy5...

New creative nonfiction at Reckon today from Cindy Sams. Come see!

This is virtual now. You can come in your jammies and BYOB! www.crowdcast.io/c/archersull...

The end of midterms means a little breathing room. I'm over on the stack tonight: open.substack.com/pub/meaganlu...

New Nitty Gritty today! Our Charlotte Hamrick interviews author Ronita Chattopadhyay. Head over to Reckon to read.

My family and I survived Hurricane Helene last year. I wrote this story to process my anger, grief, and confusion. I'm grateful to @rhppress.bsky.social and @curtisippolito.bsky.social for giving it a home. I'd love you to buy this Antho, but even more I want you to vote.

Well, shit.

“On Fire and Under Water is one of the few books that’s a necessary read, something very little published work manages to accomplish.” You heard the man. Publishing in two days.

It’s the weekend & we’re reading submissions in between cook-outs & zoo visits. Do we have your CNF or Fiction? 🤓 reckonreview.com/submissions/

@rhppress.bsky.social will be open for submissions from Saturday, November 1st, until Saturday November 22nd! www.rockandahardplacemag.com/submissions

I have waited all summer for these morning glories to bloom. That they decided to pop on the anniversary of Helene and so near my dear friend @theandrewkclark.bsky.social 's book launch means something, I think?

I've been a big fan of Archer since we published her short story, "Somewhere, Something, Something" over at @reckonreview. Super excited to get to talk about her novel THE WITCH'S ORCHARD @malapropsbookstore on 10/14 at 6pm!! malaprops.com/event/2025-1...

On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology, edited by Anthony Award-Winning-Curtis Ippolito, published by Rock and a Hard Place Press ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This stellar anthology burns in the best way. Link to my Goodreads review attached. www.goodreads.com/book/show/24...

New Wind and Root from columnist Susan Schirl Smith up at Reckon for your Monday pleasure.

Happy Monday! 🖤

Thank you for all your support!

Two months since pub day! I still love seeing all the WHATEVER KILLS THE PAIN #bookmail shots. Thanks for sharing!

"By the end of the year, we aim to have 200 percent more dipshits writing columns for us. As long as you are a Ben Shapiro knockoff who can string together the words 'the intolerant left' and occasionally criticize Trump, you have a home here on our opinion pages."

Assume less. Never give a fascist an inch. Always give a Wood Sprite his due.

Not that Hookland is predominantly about advice for better living, but READ MORE! LEAEN MORE! is proper ghost wisdom.

@meaganlucas.bsky.social on the Cold Caller Magazine open.substack.com/pub/coldcall...

Look at the cover for On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology from @rhppress.bsky.social and guest-edited by yours truly! In 2 weeks, this timely book exploring how climate change punishes those least responsible for its cause will be published. Don’t miss it!

Thirty-eight years ago this week, Toni Morrison's incredible novel, 'Beloved' was published. I was already a fangurl of Morrison, but I remember how completely awed and moved I was by 'Beloved.' If you haven't read it, now is a good time to go get you a copy from your local bookseller or library.

THOUGH FOR THE WEEK: Happy is he who wins for himself fair fame and kindly words; but uneasy is that which a man doth own while it lies in another's breast. -Hávamál, Stanza 8

Don’t think I will ever read a better writer genesis story than this one from Ray Bradbury. Pure magic. Live forever, Ray. You inspired me as well when I was 12.

Things are really heating up on this baby. Cool things coming in the next few weeks. Cannot wait for Sept. 30.

Saturday is a day to let your mind and body wander. A day to let your bones saunter through the old forest, your spirit to find old friends in the shadows, and your atoms to drift up and away and back into the dim light of stars.

Can confirm it does have a foreword by me and that the words: 'I regard The Latchless Door as a book of magic' are used.

Somebody on LinkedIn said what we're all thinking.

This is going to be so good!!!

I will be asking to remove 'Queer As Folklore' from the long list for the Polari Prize 2025.

Congratulations and the very best luck to you (you'll be the dean of UD Law...I'm convinced!)