Congratulations to Clint Smith for The Skeleton Melodies, which is now available for pre-order. The book has already garnered praise from Laird Barron and Adam Golaski (who provided the introduction), so my two-cents is irrelevant. Suffice it to say it’s a brilliant collection of the macabre, and Smith is at the head of the pack when it comes to contemporary horror. I wish the world for Clint who is not only an accomplished writer, but also a wonderful and generous person. I can’t thank him enough for allowing me to read The Skeleton Melodies a few months back, and I look forward to seeing his work attract a lot more deserved attention.

“…The Skeleton Melodies… nicely ups the game from his 2014 debut, Ghouljaw and Other Stories. A resident of the U.S., Smith nonetheless has a gift for language and story that reminds me of my favorite weird fiction authors across the pond, namely Conrad Williams, Frank Duffy, and Joel Lane. The Skeleton Melodies is good work in its own right, however I admit to a trace of nostalgia. Smith’s affable and easy tone changes on a dime; monsters lurk in the shadows. He writes pulp of a literary sensibility that I relished in 1980s anthologies by editors such as David Hartwell and Karl Edward Wagner.”
—Laird Barron

Lately, I’ve been busy attending protests, donating what I can to Black Lives Matter as well as several movements I respect, and volunteering for various causes. Other personal challenges have reared their ugly heads over the last couple of months, so it feels like I’m fighting an amorphous unrelenting Hydra-headed fog of obstacles. Despite this, we try to assist 24/7 as best we can here in S. California; I haven’t seen the potential for positive changes this meaningful and consequential since the ’94 protests in Los Angeles. My wife is Guatemalan, and we’ve long had discussions with our kids, each other, and friends about racism, police brutality, and the white supremacist foundations of this country. This all dovetails with conversations about LGBQT oppression, basic income, health care rights, feminism, environmentalism—my kids are 3, 9, and 13, and they fill me with hope that they’ll be contributing to and experiencing a better world. Call it secular faith, wishful thinking, or this old Marxist’s optimism, but I hope for great things to proceed.

Having said that, the geography of racism is mapped out in detail, and the first step in plotting one’s way is acknowledging that these deep divides are socio-culturally and historically etched into the landscape. I’m no scholar, and suggesting two books in a blog post maybe two or three people might read if I’m lucky is not particularly relevant when it comes to such important subjects. I’ll go ahead and suggest the following two books as an introduction to these issues anyway: Medical Apartheid and Buried in the Bitter Waters.

Harriet A. Washington’s Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present is meticulously researched, and expertly exposes the racist pseudoscience that saw medical bodies torturing and maiming slaves and freedmen, as well as the continuing abusive atrocities overwhelmingly inflicted against Black communities today. The beginning and end of malicious racist experiments did not happen with Tuskegee, but have deep roots in the medical sciences that continues in 2020. It’s an astonishingly well written book, and devastating in its clarity.

Elliott Jaspin’s Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America is a good place to start as well. The idea that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 magically leveled the playing field after centuries of brutality is offensive at best, and usually presented as a default argument to perpetuate white supremacist domination. Centuries of kidnapping, murder, and slavery continue to have profound social, economic, and psychological impacts on Black folks today. Contemporary struggles are a direct consequence of colonialism, and Jaspin’s book gives a detailed account of how ethnic cleansing committed by whites has created the racist structures that underpin the American edifice.

Philip Fracassi is organizing this fundraiser on behalf of Naacp Legal Defense & Educational Fund Inc (Ldf).  Donations are 100% tax deductible.

The sun burns and the sun is as orange as the face of an angry preacher and the sun moves imperceptibly. The planet turns slowly beneath us all. The planet shifts beneath the dead. The planet moves. The oceans churn. The sky moves above us all. Deep below, 6,000 kilometers inside the Earth, something the size of the Moon opens its mouth to sing.

I can’t thank you enough for everything, Joe.

Goodbye.

If anyone would like to purchase a signed edition of The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature in trade paperback, I have a few left. Please contact me at cslatsky@gmail.com. I’m asking a flat $20.00 via Paypal, which will cover shipping and handling as well. Unsigned copies are available through Grimscribe Press or Amazon, of course, as are e-editions. There are also some of the second printings of the limited hardback remaining at Grimscribe Press.

My second collection, The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature, is now available at Amazon and Grimscribe Press (free s&h if ordering directly from the publisher).

The latest issue of Rue Morgue (Jan/Feb 2020, issue #192) is on the stands now, which includes a “Dante’s Pick” review from Dejan Ognjanović for The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature.

As the current administration continues to stamp its despotic bootprints across the world, I’ve only a handful of positives to remember from 2019. It has been a sparse year on the writing front, but I’m grateful for the following opportunities: many thanks to Justin A. Burnett for inviting me to write the introduction to his creepy anthology, Mannequin: Tales of Wood Made Flesh. More thanks to C.M. Muller who reprinted my story “Phantom Airfields” in issue #3 of his excellent dark science fiction publication, SYNTH. And a final thank you to Robert S. Wilson for including my story “The Figurine” in the charitable anthology Horror for RAICES.

Here’s hoping the opposition offers some respite in 2020 after the struggles of the last 3 years.

Art by Simon Stålenhag

I don’t have any hard and fast rules for writing; I don’t pay attention to word counts, I write when I have time, and don’t stress over having not written anything for long periods. I also don’t often listen to music when writing, but will if I feel the need. No rules or regulations here. Having said that, I decided to write up a partial list of artists I listened to while working on the stories for The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature. Here’s a tiny sampling of songs that reflect the mood and tone I was aiming for in my collection.

I’m quite pleased to announce that Dilatando Mentes Editorial will be publishing the Spanish edition of my upcoming collection The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature in 2021. Very much looking forward to the project.