Excavating Horror

This is a terrific online conference

Maybe it does! I need to find someone to ask, I guess lol

I remain obsessed with some of the titles by the prolific author Mrs. Meekes bsky.app/profile/romg...

The early Gothic has so much to show us about the social conditions which inspired tremendous numbers of women to read & write about moldering ruins, cursed heirlooms, predatory men manipulating & stealing inheritances & property rights & autonomy. This talk was inspiring.

This month on Fabulous Folklore Presents, I'm chatting to @odavies9.bsky.social
& @cerihoulbrook.bsky.social about their new book Folklore: A Journey through the Past and Present. There's even a mention of ice cream van folklore!

youtu.be/xuX87Hcp53U?...

Marvelous new @helleborezine.bsky.social! Looking forward to digging in to this article to find out what’s going on here & if there’s any chance I’m ever going to get my lipstick just right ever again

5 book covers: Shadows & Tall Trees, Vol. 8 (Michael Kelly, ed.) - Finalist for the World Fantasy; Shirley Jackson; and British Fantasy Awards. Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Featuring Kay Chronister, Krisit DeMeester; Brian Evenson, M. Rickert, and more. Aickman's Heirs (Simon Strantzas, ed.) - Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. Finalist for the World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. Reprints in 5 'Best Ofs'. Featuring Nadia Bulkin, Brian Evenson, John Langan, Lynda E. Rucker, and more. The Ghost Sequences, by A.C. Wise - Finalist for the World Fantasy; Locus; Bram Stoker; and British Fantasy Awards. To Drown in Dark Water, by Steve Toase - Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Praise from Booklist, and Rue Morgue. I Would Haunt You if I Could, by Seán Padraic Birnie - Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Praise from The Toronto Star, and Library Journal.

It's October! Hurrah!

I've specially curated 5 of our spookier titles, and discounted the eBooks to just $2. Grab a couple, or all 5 for $10. It's your choice.

@seanbirnie.bsky.social @acwise.bsky.social @stevetoase.bsky.social

undertowpublications.com/ebooks

Literature Compass Click on the title to browse this journal

My periodic call for pitches to the 19th-Century Networks section of ✨Literature Compass✨:

Do you have a state-of-the-field essay to propose on #Romantic or #Victorian topics? a little-known or understudied author to spotlight?

Please get in touch!

compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1741...

Breaking News (over a picture of Indiana Jones): Archaeologist blunders his way through yet another discovery without any actual archaeology. Dozens dead. "He really is quite bad at this" says every other archaeologist.

YouTube video by Community The Dean's Super Hero Elevator Scene | Community

In “Modern Espionage” the ineffectual Dean’s ineffectual efforts to stop a high stakes underground paintball game results in this delightful elevator fight homage, complete with some of the same stuntmen.

YouTube video by Marvel Entertainment Elevator Fight Scene | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | Official Clip

I probably should have just included this in the original post. Captain America: the First Avenger includes the obligatory “Nazis hunting for occult artifacts” trope. The Winter Soldier has something cooler: this glass elevator fight scene.

D&D actually received an early 1980s sales bump thanks to the Satanic Panic. The free advertising from Christian organizations allowed teenagers to feel like total, edgy rebels for buying D&D.

Also just realized I’m in the wrong account. Tho tbh I’m sort of letting what gets posted in which sort itself out & pretending that somehow is a process that comes from somewhere other than me 🤣

I think you were sending me your bonkers dreams. I woke up sitting bolt upright in bed but I have no idea why 😂😂😂

Who’s going to sort out the issues with all the edited collections of non-fiction essays? Sigh.

How have I Britta’d this so badly? Back to Remedial Hashtags for me.
#6SeasonsAndAMovie

Looking below the surface of Community (2009-2015) I love the NBC sitcom Community (2009-2015). I try not to suck out the joy by overthinking, but the copious references to Indiana Jones and an Anthropology course that quickly goes off the rails ar…

In which I expand on my obsession with the idea that Greendale Community College sits on top of a secret military installation, which is not strange at all no matter what @fishinnards.bsky.social says.

'This archaeology is often a dramatic, action-packed endeavor in which the fate of the world rests in the hands of a plucky group of scholars who can’t remember where they parked their car but can translate a dead language and navigate a series of complex traps and devious puzzles.' 🤣

Yes, they’re gorgeous! And ridiculously clever.

Haven’t give this a listen yet but I’m a big @baladria.bsky.social fan & you better believe I snapped up a deck of her ancient Egyptian-inspired OFMD tarot cards!

Love these photos 🖤

#PunkArchaeology

Oooooh yes.

I did a thing

Plumbing the Depths: Archaeology in Horror Fiction - Nightmare Magazine Archaeology is a method and practice which resurfaces the past. It can help us reconstruct the history and culture of ancient (or not so ancient) people, and give us insight into what it means to be h...

Thanks to @meanlouise.bsky.social from @excavatinghorror.com for the shout out for Dirt Upon My Skin in this great article on archaeological horror at @nightmare-magazine.com www.nightmare-magazine.com/nonfiction/p...

Gothic America Keeping up with The Scholarly Literature is a wild academic fantasy, even for those with a neatly bounded subject area. When I was a kid I thought the expression “trying to shovel a waterfall…

Just informed the phrase “hold on to your butts” isn’t scholarly. Which is delightful! Not bc I’m gonna change my blogging style, but bc it’s always nice to know someone read the footnotes. Anyway, here’s a bit of chatter about the Gothic mode & a book recommendation, if you like that sort of thing.

A joke here, not during the performance. Which should be obvious, but around this place you can never be too careful it seems.

So good I was able to resist a joke about how this is a chilling tale about the consequences of digging without a permit.

Almost.

The end of day 1 of the #WarningToTheCurious conference and what a day!

A great keynote from Darryl Jones! 13 fascinating papers! A workshop on haunted objects that has me writing a VERY weird little story and, of course, the cocktail/mocktail hour!

Love that for us!

As you may have guessed, I’m looking forward to this conference!