Pretty Scary, the women-in-horror webzine, has posted a wide-ranging interview with WT fiction editor Ann VanderMeer. Read her thoughts on genre trends, the meaning of weird, and the spectrum of fantastic woman authors on bookshelves today.
Ann VanderMeer: Pretty Scary
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Spam Fiction: “Mexico Delivered At Your Door”
Monday, August 18th, 2008
The third place winner in the Weird Tales Spam Fiction Contest!
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MEXICO DELIVERED AT YOUR DOOR
by Kristine Duffey
copyright © 2008 / May not be reproduced without permission
I love Mexican food. Tacos, enchiladas, and guacamole are my favorites. So, the email offered to deliver Mexico to my door, and I was hooked. I should have read the fine print. I know better than to jump at something like this — but it was so cheap, and since the accident, I don’t get out very often. Actually, never. It’s amazing the things you can have delivered to your home. Groceries, clothes, books, and just about anything else you can imagine. The email said to allow four to six weeks for delivery. A week or so in, I actually forgot about my order. I felt depressed and had to stay in bed for two weeks. That order was the last thing on my mind. (more…)
Spam Fiction: “Let Yourself Look Spiny”
Monday, August 18th, 2008
Finally! It took a few extra days for us to contact all the winners, but Weird Tales is now proud to present: the first place winner in the Weird Tales Spam Fiction Contest!
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LET YOURSELF LOOK SPINY
by Richard Howard
copyright © 2008 / May not be reproduced without permission
“Bone Exposure is sort of like paleontology,” said Connie, pulling her jumper down and turning around. “Your bones are fossils waiting to be revealed. The process takes about eight hours and involves picking away the flesh covering the desired bones with scalpels and chemicals. So far we’ve been one hundred percent successful. Not one single person has come back to complain about re-growth.”
She’d just shown me the option I’d selected: a total exposure of the vertebrae of the spine. It looked incredible. (more…)
Weird Tales at Horrorfind Weekend
Friday, August 15th, 2008
Maryland- and D.C.-area Weird Tales fans have the opportunity this weekend to meet contributing artist Steven Archer, who’ll be showcasing his “365 Days of Blasphemous Horrors” series of Lovecraft-inspired mixed-media paintings at the Horrorfind Weekend at the University of Maryland. Archer’s wife and creative partner Donna Lynch, the other half of the musical duo Ego Likeness, will also be in attendance, reading from her new horror novel Isabel Burning tonight at 7 pm.
The 85 Weirdest, Day 84: Warren Zevon
Thursday, August 14th, 2008
The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!
Never even mind his biggest radio hit, the classic lycanthropic dance tune “Werewolves of London” — the songwriting oeuvre of WARREN ZEVON (1947-2003) conjures a twisted universe where upwardly mobile zoo gorillas steal the lives of urban yuppies, the ghosts of murdered mercenaries stalk their old battlefields, and Earth itself fades to the entropic assault of chemical pollution while love blooms in the mall. Unsettling, surreal, and wickedly funny, Zevon died too soon, but his specter haunts rock & roll forever.
The 85 Weirdest, Day 83: Alice Bradley Sheldon, a.k.a. James Tiptree Jr.
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!
Imagine if Hemingway, master explorer of the male psyche, was really a woman writing under a pseudonym. Behind the name of James Tiptree, Jr., the muscular, intellectual science fiction of ALICE BRADLEY SHELDON (1915-1987) turned gender in genre on its head in the late ’60s, exploring taboo themes fearlessly. Tiptree’s relentless and unforgiving worldview were famously considered quintessential masculine writing. When the hoax was exposed, the author carried on under the byline of Raccoona Sheldon, and the fiction was no less dazzlingly dark.
And the Spammy goes to…
Sunday, August 10th, 2008
Werewolves! Blasphemous horrors! A steampunk soundtrack! A ballroom full of weirdoes enjoyed all of the above at the Weird Tales 85th anniversary reception Friday night at the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver. The photos will be uploaded soon — but first, it’s time to announce online, as we did at the party, the identities of our Spam Fiction contest winners! (more…)
The 85 Weirdest, Day 78: Joel & Ethan Coen
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!
Like the two genres to which so many of their films pay homage, it’s the dialogue — snappy, rapid-fire, off-kilter — that strings together the dark screwball comedy noirs of the COEN BROTHERS. From Gabriel Byrne’s smart talk in Miller’s Crossing to the yah-sure-yer-darn-tootin of Fargo, the words take center stage. Well, words and White Russians and wood chippers and hair jelly and hula hoops and extortion and blackmail and kidnapping. Always with the kidnapping.
Thank you…
Monday, August 4th, 2008
…to all those who submitted entries in our Spam Fiction Contest! We received some 150 spamalicious short stories by this morning’s deadline, and have now begun the judging process. Winners will be announced Friday evening at our Weird Tales reception during the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, and will be posted online Saturday. Stay tuned!
The 85 Weirdest, Day 76: Alice Walker
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!
An unexpected name to see on this list? Perhaps — but here’s the thing: While ALICE WALKER (1944- ) is renowned for her realistic fictin (The Color Purple, Meridian), an examination of her career’s trajectory shows that her earthly stories set the stage and built the audience for the author to deliver her later, weirder ones. The Temple of My Familiar, which uses myth and fable to weave together the world’s dark realities; the children’s fantasia Finding the Green Stone — these works fired the imaginations of readers who’d never heard the phrase “speculative literature,” but subsequently went on to discover more of it.
