Saturday was release day for The Lure of Devouring Light. Because that weekend I was in San Pedro for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, as was my publisher Ross E. Lockhart of Word Horde, we posted this interview (conducted a few days earlier) with Sean Thompson to the Word Horde site while the convention fun was in full swing.
An Interview with Michael Griffin on Wordhorde.com
I’ll have much more to say about the convention later, but for now, check out the interview.
I wrote a previous post HERE in which I began discussing each piece in my upcoming collection, The Lure of Devouring Light. Here’s part two, which covers the second half of the book, the bold items in this Table of Contents:
Introduction by John Langan: Scored, Scoured, Shining: Mike Griffin’s Surreal Inscapes
The Lure of Devouring Light
Dreaming Awake in the Tree of the World
Far From Streets
The Book of Shattered Mornings
Arches and Pillars
Diamond Dust
The Accident of Survival
No Mask to Conceal Her Voice
The Jewel in the Eye
The Need to Desire
The Black Vein Runs Deep
Diamond Dust
“Diamond Dust” was written for The Grimscribe’s Puppets, the Thomas Ligotti tribute anthology edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr. I wrote and submitted it without being part of the editor’s official invitations list, a “spec” submission with absolutely no promises made. I was a fan of Ligotti’s work and had a specific idea for a take on his “corporate horror.” After I submitted, a long time passed while the editor waited for other submissions, something like a year. Finally I received neither an acceptance nor a rejection, but a note along the lines of, “This is surprisingly good, but needs something extra. If you can breathe more life into it, I might be able to take it.”
I studied my story, tried to view it as objectively as possible, and talked back and forth with Pulver trying to get a sense of what he felt it was lacking. In the time since the initial submission, I had improved and developed as a writer, so I thought I had my own sense of what it needed. The story went through two more significant revisions, and ended up quite different from what I had originally submitted. More visceral, more personal, with a clearer sense of pain and trouble. The changes were enough to get me in the book, which I consider one of the best weird/horror anthologies of the decade, and which won Pulver the Shirley Jackson Award. “Diamond Dust” was well received by readers and reviewers.
I believe developing writers sometimes have “turning point” stories. For me, this was one. Some lessons I took:
1) If the book had come together by the original deadline, had the Table of Contents been set earlier, “Diamond Dust” probably would not have reached its final, improved version and would not have been in the book. Sometimes events outside your control will affect outcomes, sometimes for worse, other times for better. Be prepared either way. In this case, delays that had nothing to do with me offered time for me to “level up” as a writer, and develop a story of which I wouldn’t have been capable at first submission.
2) The period of reflection and self-analysis directed at this draft were a breakthrough for me. Nudges provided by Joe Pulver were instrumental in my discovery of certain aspects lacking in the earlier version of the story. The analysis, that the story needed a more vital and visceral emotional core, that its lifeblood was too thin, has stuck with me. Pulver often repeats the adage “bleed on the page.” This is something I continue to think about, every time I write.
The Accident of Survival
Another previously unpublished story, a kind of psychological or existential mystery. Sometimes the way we perceive the world is fairly clear and unambiguous. Other times, the mind disconnects. We might get into difficulty, traction might slip. We may even lose hold of our last tether. I’m very interested in these mental states, these times of slippage or distortion. The only way we know the world is through our perceptions, which are very prone to error and malfunction.
No Mask to Conceal Her Voice
This was my second story for Joseph S. Pulver Sr., for the special King in Yellow issue of Lovecraft eZine he guest edited. I love the King in Yellow stories of Robert W. Chambers, in particular the druggy, distorted craziness of the characters’ perceptions and psyches, and the sense of longing and loss that prevails. I wanted to update that feeling to the modern day, while retaining the decadence and perversity.
“No Mask to Conceal Her Voice” was strongly influenced by the film Berberian Sound Studio, not so much the story but the setting of the voiceover studio full of weird old half-decayed film-making and recording equipment. Though in the film, the point is only to record voiceover tracks intended to be dubbed over film already shot, in my story this disconnection between voice and image comes as a surprise, and adds to the feeling of wrongness and disintegration. The main character Lily Vaun is one of my favorites among my own creations.
The Jewel in the Eye
This previously unpublished story was one of the two that I crafted especially for this book. “The Jewel in the Eye” was an idea I had worked on for a long time, but I had struggled to make it come across as something adequately surreal or magical. Even a good idea, if not executed correctly, will fail. By playing up aspects of the book club to make the book more central to the story, and changing interactions between the main couple, the story shifted balance entirely. It finally managed to become what I’d originally intended.
Many of my stories contain elements of mystery, things less than fully explained. Sometimes I find the mysterious aspects work better when they are made clearer, and other times they work best when they are made less definite. One trick with this story was finding he right balance between vagueness and clarity, and allowing the “weird” aspect to hit the right note. The other trick was shifting the power balance in the central relationship.
The Need to Desire
This story appeared briefly in the online incarnation of Phantasmagorium. It’s the shortest piece in the book, and because it can be read in less than ten minutes, it’s something I’ve often selected when giving public readings. While the story employs a fantastic or “impossible” aspect front and center, it is also one of my stories most founded in real life. I used to go with a large group of college friends to Diamond Lake every year, at the end of finals week, just before Winter break. In fact, “The Need to Desire” is a drastic reworking of a much longer “realistic” story written more than twenty-five years ago. This version feels more real to me now.
The Black Vein Runs Deep
“The Black Vein Runs Deep” is the longest thing in the book (almost 40,000 words, the official cut-off where novella becomes novel), but for now I’ll hold back from saying much about it. The story is extremely personal, in feeling if not in detail. It’s a love letter to one of my favorite places. My wife Lena and I have spent a lot of time on Mt. Hood in the vicinity of Government Camp. Kinosha is not exactly Government Camp, but all the slopes and trails, lakes and trees, are just as I encountered them.
I will probably have more to say about these tales, and for some of them already imagine ways of telling connected stories, or visiting different aspects. For now, this is the background to The Lure of Devouring Light, which will be officially released this weekend.
The first place to get a copy of The Lure of Devouring Light was, of course, direct from the publisher Word Horde. If you ordered there, you got your book a few days early, and also got a free copy of the ebook, and your package probably included WH bookmarks and sticker or other goodies. You can still get a direct copy — go HERE.
It’s nice to support small businesses like Word Horde directly, but of course people want to be able to buy things from all kinds of different sources. For one, in today’s market, it’s pretty difficult to sell a book without making it available on Amazon.com, and we’ve go the book listed there in Paperback and Kindle formats (separate purchases).
Paperback version at Amazon
Kindle version at Amazon
And of course, some people hate Amazon or simply want other options. Here are these options, then!
Powell’s (this is their online store – I’m not sure they’ll be stocking the book in their physical stores)
Book Depository (free shipping worldwide!)
Barnes & Noble (again, online sales link, not sure if their physical stores will stock the book)
IndieBound (not actually selling the book themselves, but linking to indie booksellers where you can get it)
I’ve often seen publishers and writers say, “I don’t mind where you get a copy… if you buy my book at all, you’re making me happy,” and that really is true.
Of course, the BEST of all places to obtain a copy of The Lure of Devouring Light will be at the official release this weekend in San Pedro, California at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival at Warner Grand Theater. I will gladly sign your copy, pose for you with pictures, arm wrestle, sing karaoke, take part in beer chugging contests… whatever! I’ll also be reading from the book on Saturday. If you’re there, make sure to say hi.
By now I’ve shown the cover of The Lure of Devouring Light, I’ve given the table of contents, bragged about my blurbs from Laird Barron, S.P. Miskowski, Jeffrey Thomas and Michael Cisco, and most recently mentioned the flattering review in Publishers Weekly.
But maybe you’re wondering what these stories are all about. The majority of the book by word count (though not a majority of the stories by number) is previously unpublished. Also, some stories were previously published, but never widely seen. Most of the pages in The Lure of Devouring Light will be unfamiliar, except for those few readers who made a s serious effort to track down all my work along the way.
For this reason, I’d like to go through the table of contents and say something about each story. There will be no spoilers, no excerpts from the text, only a bit about where it came from, and where (if) it was previously published.
Note: As I began working on this post, I quickly realized that it was going to end up too long if I did the entire book all at once. So this will be part one of two, covering the book’s first half, the items in bold in this Table of Contents:
Introduction by John Langan
The Lure of Devouring Light
Dreaming Awake in the Tree of the World
Far From Streets
The Book of Shattered Mornings
Arches and Pillars
Diamond Dust
The Accident of Survival
No Mask to Conceal Her Voice
The Jewel in the Eye
The Need to Desire
The Black Vein Runs Deep
~~~
Introduction by John Langan: Scored, Scoured, Shining: Mike Griffin’s Surreal Inscapes
It’s customary that story collections, especially those from newer writers, include an introduction by a more established writer. The reason for this may be to let an author with greater clout or credibility offer a sort of endorsement, or provide insight in the form of analysis, a sort of map or guide to what should be made of the texts that follow.
I feel very fortunate to have an intro by John Langan. It’s my opinion that John’s last book, The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies, might have been the best collection of 2013, which is really saying something, considering what else came out that year, including Laird Barron’s The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. John is far from unknown, but I feel most readers have not yet come to adequately appreciate a powerful, talented and impressive writer he is. But they will come to understand, I have no doubt. John is just too damn good a writer.
I won’t spoil anything John says in the intro, but I will say John Langan was my first choice to fill this slot. I’m flattered and delighted to have an introduction for my first book from someone whose work stands at the pinnacle of present day Horror and Weird Fiction.
The Lure of Devouring Light
The title story was my first professional publication. It came out in Apex Magazine, issue 47 in April, 2013, when Lynne Thomas was editor of Apex. Of course, I was very pleased to have a story in such a notably excellent and high-profile magazine. That year, Apex was up for the Hugo Award in the Best Semi-Pro Zine category, so of course I was hoping they would win so I could take all the credit. Alas, Apex came 2nd for that prize.
My story did receive a bit of notice. Many people sent me comments about it, which was my first experience with that. I even heard from a New York agent, expressing admiration for my prose and asking if I had a novel to submit.
One notable thing about “The Lure of Devouring Light” is that this story was originally written on spec for a themed anthology, but ended up being rejected. Of course rejection is never enjoyable, but in this case I was especially disappointed because I had created the story especially for this theme, this book. My anecdote may sound like sour grapes, but its point is not “how dare that editor reject me?” but something else. If the story had been accepted for that anthology, it could not have been accepted by Apex Magazine, where I received my first professional sale, and where the story received more notice than it might have otherwise. I believe that says a little something about the experience of emerging writers. Be patient. If the work is good, a rejection doesn’t matter.
Dreaming Awake in the Tree of the World
This story may be my favorite among the previously unpublished stories here, not counting the giant novella “The Black Vein Runs Deep,” specially crafted to give extra heft to the end of the collection. Most of my stories are about strange places, and some are inspired by actual locales encountered in the real world. This is one of those.
My wife Lena and I hike a lot, in all kinds of settings within 2-3 hours drive of Portland, where we live. For a while we were very fond of one of the state parks, because in addition to setting in the bend of a beautiful river, and a slope up through the trees a high overlook, it was also very near home, and had good parking and clean bathrooms. In one of our hikes there, early in the Spring after frequent and steady rains had given way to a blast of heat, we encountered trails bogged down with mud, and overgrown with certain plant life that had overreacted to a couple weeks of sunlight. Even some of the elements in the story that may sound as if they could not possibly exist in a public park were in fact found to exist… at least if a little imagination could be used to explain certain things which appeared to lay beyond fenced boundaries.
Far From Streets
For many, “Far From Streets” is the most anticipated inclusion in this book. The novella was previously published in a very small edition, and achieved a fair amount of enthusiastic word of mouth, but because it went out of print before publication, a lot of people who had heard good things about it were unable to find copies.
It came about at NecronomiCon 2013. I was invited by Jordan Krall to write something for Dunhams Manor Press. I believe Jordan had been talked into this by Scott Nicolay, with whom Jordan had driven to Providence from New Jersey.
Because this was to be a stand-alone book, I saw this as an opportunity to write longer than was usually allowed by magazines or anthologies. I decided to rework an old story idea I really loved, but which had stalled, into a length that would allow me to do it justice. This problem had occurred several times in my earlier years as a writer — I would come up with something like a novel-sized idea and try to squeeze it into the 5,000 words usually allowed. So I ended up with folders full of ideas I had tried to write, stories I really wanted to tell, but which I had never been capable of pulling off, given the constraints of short story length. Having permission to write longer gave me the opportunity to revisit and flesh out such a very personal story idea, and work it out in depth. It was a difficult but wonderful and enlightening process.
I believed it was by far the best thing I’d yet written, but I was unsure how people would receive it. The story seemed very strange, and I wondered how it would come across. Because of publishing lead times, nobody ended up reading what I had written for quite a while after I was finished, so I had plenty of time to worry I had made it too strange, too philosophical or too perversely dark.
When the book came out, the reception was strongly and uniformly positive. This was a great experience, hearing from people who had ordered the book, or friends to whom I’d given copies. “Far From Streets” will always be an important milestone in my development, both from my inward perspective as a writer, and in terms of how other people began to recognize me as someone they wanted to read.
The Book of Shattered Mornings
Another previously unpublished piece. Some stories which include a lot of “drawn from life” influence bring it all from one place, one experience or one person. Others stitch together varied parts from different times and locations to create a strange brew, unpredictable because of the disparity of the ingredients. This story is of the latter type.
Arches and Pillars
This story’s background is much like “The Lure of Devouring Light” above, written on spec for a themed anthology for which it didn’t make the cut. Disappointment at that “failure” was quickly replaced by elation at the home my story found with the next place I sent it. “Arches and Pillars” was my first acceptance by the highly regarded Horror magazine, Black Static. I appeared in issue 35, July 2013, along with Daniel Mills, who has turned out to be the writer with whom I’ve shared a Table of Contents more often than any other, so far.
“Arches and Pillars” has its origins in a story I wrote in my twenties, when I was trying to write “straight” character-driven fiction, whether you want to call that literary or mainstream or something else. The aspects of the story I wanted to keep, primarily the delicate balancing act between two characters, really came to life once I imagined, “What if something strange…”
~~~
Stay tuned for the sequel to this post, in which I’ll discuss the six stories in the second half of the book.
More and more people are showing their copies of THE LURE OF DEVOURING LIGHT splashing down!
Kevin Wilson:
Sam Cowan:
Kristi Demeester:
John Claude Smith:
Thanks, everybody! It’s so great to see the book making its way out into the world. The first step is creating a book, but the greater thing is to get the book into the hands of people who might want to read it. Most gratifying!
The countdown begins… ten days until the official release date of THE LURE OF DEVOURING LIGHT. I guess if there’s anything more I need to do in advance of the book actually being out in the world, I’d make it happen soon.
So, what else remains?
This coming week, I’ll post a couple of blog entries, brief notes about each story in the book. Don’t worry, no spoilers are included, so it’s entirely safe to read before the stories.
I also intend to step up my efforts to promote the book. Ross Lockhart of Word Horde is doing an excellent job of spreading the word, getting review copies into the right hands (you saw the review in Publishers Weekly, right?), as well as submitting the collection to the editors of the various “year’s best” books. So on top of Ross’s efforts, I’ll be doing my own outreach.
I’ve been writing and publishing for a while, but this will be the first time I’ve had to make an organized effort to get people to pay attention to a book with my name on the cover.
People are reporting the arrival of their preordered copies of The Lure of Devouring Light.
Here, Bill Merrill shows Cory the newly-landed book. Cory seems disinterested.
And here, Nick Gucker displays his new copy in an appropriately green natural setting.
The official release day remains April 30, so I think the only people who are getting their books early are those who preordered directly from Word Horde. If you want to get a piece of the action, go HERE. And if you’ve already received your copy, let’s see it!
Today I received early copies of my collection THE LURE OF DEVOURING LIGHT, coming from Word Horde later this month. I had seen the cover layout images, so of course I had a good idea what to expect, but I was still very pleasantly surprised with how great the books ended up looking in print.
I want to thanks Word Horde Editor & Publisher Ross E. Lockhart, and Scott R Jones who did the layout, for their excellent work. In addition, I’d like to direct attention toward the artist Jarek Kubicki, whose wonderful imagery seems such a perfect match with the feel of my stories. You can see more of his work on his Facebook art page HERE.
After having assembled a batch of stories, made a connection with a publisher anyone would be thrilled to work with, and found an image that fits so well, it’s my great pleasure and relief to hold in my hands a book that fully expresses all I had hoped to accomplish with my first collection.
If I looked less than fully enthused here, it’s because I’m distracted by passers-by in the post office, where I took this photo immediately after opening the box, looking at me like only an insane person would take selfies holding up a book. Well, they didn’t know the whole story. It’s my first real book, and I love it.
“This book is a solid outing from a rising star in horror and dark fantasy.”
So says Publishers Weekly on the subject of my upcoming collection, The Lure of Devouring Light. There’s more, of course. Read the rest HERE.
I consider this review a really great sign of how the book might be received. PW is a very solid, mainstream-oriented periodical, so it’s encouraging that they clearly understood the focus and intent of my work.
If this makes you think maybe you ought to buy this book after all, well then…
The Lure of Devouring Light direct preorder (paperback + ebook) from Word Horde
The Lure of Devouring Light from Amazon in Kindle format or trade paperback. Official release date is April 30, 2016.
Elinor Phantom, Editorial Assistant at Word Horde, poses with the proof copy of THE LURE OF DEVOURING LIGHT. Looks good!
Photo by Ross E. Lockhart
Should you wish to preorder the book, you have some options:
The Lure of Devouring Light direct preorder (paperback + ebook) from Word Horde
The Lure of Devouring Light from Amazon in Kindle format or trade paperback. Official release date is April 30, 2016.
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