Sunday, September 2, 2018

Thus Autumn Begins!

It's always weird for me to talk about so-called real life, but I do have some updates I've forgotten about. Been too busy ranting about Marvel movies -- believe me, I spared you some deep thoughts on arguments that I decided to walk away from -- plus reading a bunch of Star Wars novels for the first time, and listening to podcasts again, thanks to some adjustments at my day job that enable me to do that. Yay, day job!

So what's new with me?

This is available for purchase at all the usual online sources, from McFarland Press:  Giant Creatures in Our World: Essays on Kaiju and American Popular Culture. I'm sure you'll enjoy it, especially “We are eating Gamera”: Mystery Science Theater 3000 Consumes the Kaiju." I did one panel at a local sci-fi convention as a kaiju expert, so that's something that would be on the bucket list, if I knew it was a thing that might happen. If you want more thoughts on either Gamera or MST3K, I've got 'em, so just let me know.

A poem sequence called "Masque: Chicago" appeared in the 2017 issue of Moveable Type, on the theme of "Metropolis." I wrote them some years ago, and always hoped they'd find someone to appreciate them, so that was nice!

In June, I went to Cross Plains, Texas, for Howard Days, and was thrilled to tie for the Cimmerian Award for Best Online Essay with the esteemed Bobby Derie in the Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards. The essay, "Queen by Fire and Steel and Slaughter: Bêlit’s Hymn," appeared as a guest post on the blog On an Underwood No. 5. Since Howard Days, two more of my essays have been published there: "By the Phoenix on This Sword I Rule!" (about the revisions that turned Kull into Conan) and "Swanson of Dakota," which contains as much information as I could find about Carl Swanson, a North Dakota bookseller who corresponded with Howard, Lovecraft, and others in an attempt to set up his own fantasy magazine.

Upcoming are an essay on hoodoo in the work of Ishmael Reed for a McFarland anthology (title TBA), and a local presentation on Arthur Machen and the legend of the Angel of Mons.

So that't that. Whew! Next up I will talk about people OTHER than me, swear to Rishi.

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