Here’s a treat for fans of classic occult horror in the vein of Dennis Wheatley (author of the iconic/legendary novel The Devil Rides Out): Teeming Brain columnist Stuart Young has edited a volume of five stories in this vein for Hersham Horror Books. Here’s the publisher’s description: Hersham Horror Books presents five original stories from…
Author: The Teeming Brain
The Teeming Brain is a blog magazine exploring the intersection of religion, horror, the paranormal, creativity, consciousness, and culture. It also tracks apocalyptic and dystopian trends in technology, politics, ecology, economics, the arts, education, and society at large.
A special note to Teeming Brain email subscribers
Be advised that as of this Sunday our email subscription service will be changing. We’ll be switching to a new service (MailChimp) that will send you a weekly digest of all new Teeming Brain content from the previous week. That’s as opposed to the current system, which sends you a separate notification for each new…
Recommended Reading 35
This week, a more America-centric set of recommendations than usual, covering: the gargantuan crisis of America’s “health-care-industrial” complex, which is literally killing the nation with galactically inflated prices and substandard healthcare; the Alice-in-Wonderland nature of America’s “sequestration” debacle; how the “personalized” Internet experience created by user profiling and content filtering actually delivers up two different…
Recommended Reading 34
The Teeming Brain’s “Recommended Reading” series has been on hiatus since last November. And now it’s back, with a slightly altered/streamlined format (read: no graphics, just links and text) that’s more sustainable in the context of your trusty editor’s various other claims on time, energy, and attention. * * * Madrid: Dignity and Indignation Aaron…
Publishers Weekly praises Richard Gavin’s ‘At Fear’s Altar’
We’re very pleased to see that At Fear’s Altar, the numinous horror collection by our own Richard Gavin, has received an excellent review from Publishers Weekly. A couple of months ago we passed along some strong praise from other reviewers. Now PW has this to say about the book: Literate horror fans who have yet…
Win a copy of Stuart Young’s ‘The Mask Behind the Face’
The Mask Behind the Face, the collection of metaphysical horror fiction by Teeming Brain contributor Stuart Young (see his column Sparking Neurones), was short-listed for the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection in 2006, and the title story — about brain disease, psychedelics, and the far outer and deep inner reaches of consciousness — ended…
Welcome to the Teem: Ryan Hurd
We’re extremely pleased to announce the addition of Ryan Hurd to our writing teem. He will contribute a recurring column titled “Visions, Dreams, and Visitations.” As indicated by such a title, Ryan is an expert on dreams and consciousness. He is founder of DreamStudies.org, a website dedicated to sleep, dreams, and consciousness research. He is…
Books, solitude, and finding your own reality amid a cultural cacophony
From a lecture titled “Solitude and Leadership,” which William Deresiewicz delivered to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009: Thinking for yourself means finding yourself, finding your own reality. Here’s the other problem with Facebook and Twitter and even The New York Times. When you expose yourself…
Benjamin Britten: “Many of the great things in the world have come from the outsider”
The most influential composer ever to draw English breath, Benjamin Britten did more for music in three active decades than all of London’s musicians in three centuries. … “So many of the great things in the world have come from the outsider,” he reflected, “and that lone dog isn’t always attractive.” Like J.K. Rowling (and…
The power of a memorized poem
Here are some wise and lovely thoughts on the deep value of memorizing poetry from NYU English professor Catherine Robson, author of Heart Beats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem. It may be tempting to lament the passing of an era when one and all were seemingly united by a joint stock of poetic knowledge…