This month I started writing a new column for SF Signal, the massively popular blog about fantasy, horror, and science fiction. The title is Stained Glass Gothic, and the column is devoted to exploring the mutual meanings and implications of fantasy, horror, science fiction, religion, philosophy, and spirituality. I think it’ll be of considerable interest…
Author: Matt Cardin
Teeming Brain founder and editor Matt Cardin is the author of DARK AWAKENINGS, DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP, A COURSE IN DEMONIC CREATIVITY: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO THE INNER GENIUS, and TO ROUSE LEVIATHAN. He is also the editor of BORN TO FEAR: INTERVIEWS WITH THOMAS LIGOTTI and the academic encyclopedias MUMMIES AROUND THE WORLD; GHOSTS, SPIRITS, AND PSYCHICS: THE PARANORMAL FROM ALCHEMY TO ZOMBIES; and HORROR LITERATURE THROUGH HISTORY.
Economic doom redux: REALMS OF FANTASY and DREAMS OF DECADENCE shutting down
It’s official: Realms of Fantasy magazine is now history, as announced by publisher Warren Lapine at the magazine’s website today (“A Farewell Note from the Publisher“) and repeated by Locus (“Realms of Fantasy Folds“). We’ll all recall that ROF previously announced they were folding early last year. Some of you will also recall that I…
Is truly great cinematic science fiction really rare?
In a column at the Guardian today (“Why Hollywood can’t get the hang of science fiction“), Damien Walter, always an astute observer of trends in the speculative genres, claims there are only two truly great SF films, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner, because these are the only ones that avoid the Hollywoodistic reduction…
You and Your Need for a Muse
Lateral Action, the very popular and influential (and excellent) creativity-and-productivity website run by writer and career/creativity coach Mark McGuinness, has published an article by me about the role of the muse in creative work. Yes, this complements the work I’m doing at my other blog, Demon Muse. Here’s the upshot, from the article’s conclusion: We’ve…
Jimmy Webb says Ray Bradbury and SF taught him how to write beautiful lyrics
How very unexpected, and how absolutely fascinating: songwriter Jimmy Webb, who’s responsible for a boatload of modern pop classics (and much more; he hates being branded as a “middle-of-the-road pop-music writer”), is a deep-thinking science fiction fan who says he learned a lot of his lyric-writing panache from Ray Bradbury. I’ve long felt like I…
Richard Gavin on Dark Awakenings
My friend Richard Gavin, the talented author of Omens (which I praised in a review for Dead Reckonings) and The Darkly Splendid Realm (which is drawing praise from all quarters), has written an enthusuastic review of my Dark Awakenings. A couple of pertinent excerpts: To be genuinely inspired by a work of Horror is a…
Praise for the music
I’ve just received some excellent praise for my “Curse of the Daimon” album from Sanford Allen. In addition to being a cool-cat Texas author of horror and dark fantasy, Sanford is a long-time guitarist/vocalist for Boxcar Satan, the “three-piece band from San Antonio, Texas, that deconstructs American roots music and pours a particularly venomous brand…
Report: ArmadilloCon 32
Well, I’m back from ArmadilloCon 32, having spent the entire weekend down in Austin at the lovely Renaissance Hotel (which was home to the World Fantasy Convention in 2006). This was my third time to attend ArmadilloCon, and it was, as expected, an excellent event all around. Two themes dominated the weekend for me. The…
Reviews of my stories in ‘Cthulhu’s Reign’ and ‘Dark Faith’
Here’s some new Internet chatter about my recently published stories. ABOUT “THE NEW PAULINE CORPUS” IN CTHULHU’S REIGN [The anthology’s premise] leaves the contributors with a fairly broad territory to explore, which they do to greater or lesser effect, and sometimes with stunning originality. . . . Matt Cardin’s “The New Pauline Corpus” plays with…
It’s the Most Tentacled Time of the Year: Happy 120th Birthday, H.P. Lovecraft
Nobody would have been more surprised than Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself at his posthumous ascent to the twin positions of international entertainment culture icon and canonical American literary figure. Today is his 120th birthday. He was born on August 20, 1890 (only four days (plus 80 years) before my own birthday, I gleefully note). He…