I’ve mentioned the upcoming Joseph S Pulver Sr. edited anthology The Madness of Dr. Caligari quite a few times here, and even recently included links to preorder directly from the publisher, Fedogan & Bremer.
Now the hardcover is available for preorder from Amazon, HERE.
I can’t wait to see this book! Such a great table of contents, and of course Joe Pulver and Fedogan & Bremer can always be counted upon for quality work.
Paul StJohn Mackintosh has just posted an in-depth review of The Lure of Devouring Light on Teleread.
If you want the tl;dr version, here’s how it was distilled down to its minimum essence by my publisher:
“Griffin is a craftsman of the highest order… Highly recommended.”
But really, you should read the whole thing. I enjoyed seeing a reviewer mention one of the less-discussed stories in the book, “The Jewel in the Eye,” which is also one of my own favorites. It also pleases me to see yet another reviewer call out “The Black Vein Runs Deep” as a highlight.
My thanks to Paul StJohn Mackintosh and Telereads for the REVIEW.
Check out this amazing book trailer for The Madness of Dr. Caligari, created by Brendan Petersen and with music by my wife, Lena Griffin. This really sets the mood for this can’t-miss book. I’m excited!
After watching this, you may be inspired to preorder the book. If so:
The latest Lovecraft eZine chat is another good one. The usual crew (Mike Davis, S.P. Miskowski, Rick Lai, Peter Rawlik, Matthew Carpenter and Kelly Young) interview Sam Cowan of Dim Shores.
After you watch or listen, you’ll probably want to head over to DIMSHORES.COM to check out some books or the Dim Shores ONLINE STORE to buy ’em. Because the books are all limited editions, most are sold out, but the next one, Grass by Anya Martin, is up for pre-order. Check out this cover art by Jeanne D’Angelo.
Also, these three earlier releases are still available:
Stag in Flight by S.P. Miskowski (only a few left)
The Knife Dance by Michael Cisco (trade paperback only, hardcover sold out)
The Free School by Cody Goodfellow (only a few left)
I love everything Dim Shores puts out, and I’m very pleased and excited that my own novella An Ideal Retreat will be coming from Dim Shores later this year, with art by Mikio Murakami. I’ll share news on that as soon as I know more.
The Kickstarter for this year’s Portland H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival ends tonight, so now’s your chance. I’ll be a guest at the festival again, and taking part in the VIP Party at Lan Su Chinese Gardens, and the Shanghai Tunnels tour. I’m also one of the contributors to the Challenge From Beyond 2016 book, which includes a round robin story as well as another story by Peter Rawlik.
This is the cover of the book, illustrated by Shelby Denham.
And here are the event details:
The 21st Annual H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival® will feature independent short and feature films, plus featured guests Stuart Gordon (director of Re-Animator and From Beyond), author John Shirley, and many more!
Deluxe and VIP Ticket packages available now in our Kickstarter at http://kickcthulhu.com/ Regular tickets will go on sale around September 10th.
http://hplfilmfestival.com/hplfilmfestival-portland-or#top
Thursday, Oct 6 8-11pm VIP Party
Friday, Oct 7 4-6pm Guest Meet and Greet
Friday, Oct 7 6-11pm Films and other programming
Saturday, Oct 8 Noon-11pm Films and other programming
Sunday, Oct 9 Noon-11pm Films and other programming
The Lovecraft Film Fest is a lot of fun every year, so if you’ve never attended before and you’re considering it for the first time, I really think you should. Even if you’re not the world’s biggest Lovecraft fan, and care more about horror or weird fiction in general, you’ll find a lot to enjoy here. Films, panels, readings and more. Hope to see you there!
On The Microphones of Madness podcast, Rodney Turner, Kim Smeltzer and Steve Rosenstein discuss the upcoming anthology The Madness of Dr. Caligari, edited by Joseph S Pulver Sr. and published by Fedogan & Bremer. They split the discussion into two halves, covering each story in order.
Part 1 covers the following stories:
Ramsey Campbell – The Words Between
Damien Angelica Walters – Take a Walk in the Night, My Love
Rhys Hughes – Confessions of a Medicated Lurker
Robert Levy – Conversion
Maura McHugh – A Rebellious House
David Nickle – The Long Dream
Janice Lee – Eyes Looking
Richard Gavin – Breathing Black Angles
S.P. Miskowski – Somnambule
Nathan Carson – The Projection Booth
Jeffrey Thomas – The Mayor of Elementa
Part 1
Part 2 covers these stories:
Nadia Bulkin – Et Spiritus Sancti
Orrin Grey – Blackstone: A Hollywood Gothic
Reggie Oliver – The Ballet of Dr. Caligari
Cody Goodfellow – Bellmer’s Bride, or The Game of the Doll
Michael Griffin – The Insomniac Who Slept Forever
Paul Tremblay – Further Questions for the Somnambulist
Michael Cisco – The Righteousness of Conical Men
Molly Tanzer – That Nature Which Peers Out in Sleep
Daniel Mills – A Sleeping Life
John Langan – To See, To Be Seen
Gemma Files – Caligarism
Part 2
Preorder The Madness of Dr. Caligari here:
Shane Douglas Keene, who just gave a wonderful rave review of The Lure of Devouring Light HERE, also recently interviewed me. That lengthy interview now appears on Ginger Nuts of Horror.
Maybe unsurprisingly, we talk a lot about the new book, but also spend a fair amount of time discussing ambient music and my record label Hypnos Recordings, the importance of setting and in particular the Pacific NW, upcoming projects, what it’s like to be published by Word Horde, and more. My thanks to Shane Douglas Keene for taking the time to put together the interview, and to Jim Mcleod for hosting it at Ginger Nuts of Horror.
A wonderful new review of The Lure of Devouring Light just appeared, this one by Shane Douglas Keane and posted on his Shotgun Logic blog. It begins:
“With stories published in a diverse array of publications such as Apex and Black Static and anthologies like The Grimscribe’s Puppets and The Children of Old Leech, plus a cornucopia of work forthcoming, Michael Griffin has been garnering some impressive accolades from such high profile voices as S. P. Miskowski, Michael Cisco, and the reigning king of literary weird fiction, Laird Barron. So it’s no surprise to see that his debut collection, The Lure of Devouring Light serves as a showcase of some of the finest short horror fiction to be published in recent years.”
Follow the link to read the rest.
https://shotgunlogic.com/2016/08/26/book-review-the-lure-of-devouring-light-by-michael-griffin/
My sincere thanks to Shane for the detailed and perceptive review. Shane and I also recently completed a lengthy interview, which should be posted soon, though my understanding is that the interview will be posted not at Shane’s own blog but at another prominent horror-focused web site. I should be able to share a link to that soon.
One of my favorite events every year is the Portland H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, the next installment of which happens October 7-9, 2016. This year I also visited the San Pedro, California version for the occasion of my book release, and they’re also doing a Providence, Rhode Island version which just happened this past weekend. The Portland event is the biggest of the three, and the original.
While I was busy with other things this weekend, I neglected to post about the new Kickstarter for the Portland HPLFF. It looks like it won’t have a lot of trouble meeting its goal… in fact, literally as I type this sentence, it just watched it click over the $15k mark in another browser window. Congratulations, Gwen and Brian Callahan – funded!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hplffpdx/cthulhu-and-shanghai-tunnels-21st-hp-lovecraft-fil
Now, just because they’ve reached their goal doesn’t mean you won’t want to pledge. This is the best way to get your package of tickets, t-shirts, art and other goodies related to the event. I’ll be a guest again this year, and for the first time I’m participating in a fiction round robin, a collaborative story written along with John Shirley, S.P. Miskowski, Nikki Guerlain, Andrew S. Fuller, Wendy Wagner and Aaron Besson. If you want to read that story in the souvenir book, it’s a $10 add-on to any other pledge level.
Even if you won’t be able to attend, you can support the event and get some cool stuff. There are several packages available for non-attendees, allowing you to obtain various souvenirs just as if you were going to attend.
I assume there will be some cool stretch goals, as there have been in the past. Who knows what kind of interesting special guests might be on the horizon?
I enjoyed myself on yesterday’s Lovecraft eZine chat. We talked a lot about The Lure of Devouring Light, spent some time discussing individual stories and also talked more generally about my approach to characters, relationships, and themes in my work such as nature.
If you missed seeing it live, you can now view it on YouTube HERE
It should be available in audio format soon, and I’ll post a link at that time.
My thanks to host Mike Davis and panelists Joe Pulver, Pete Rawlik, Rick Lai, S.P. Miskowski, Kelly Young, Matt Carpenter and Philip Fracassi.
GriffinWords 