Weird Fiction Review

Editorial doppelganger in a moment of quiet contemplation, as photographed by Alexander Binder, who has a portfolio in Weird Fiction Review, vol. 2.

Welcome to the Third Week of Weirdfictionreview.com!

We’re very grateful for the immensely positive and energizing responses thus far, and we plan to build on that good will going forward. This week you’ll find an emphasis on the kind of “weird” that might be called dreamlike, in a dark, disturbing, or strange way, with most of our focus on continental European authors. In addition to two features on the great Alfred Kubin–one of which previews our 101 Weird Writers project – we are running fiction from  Finnish icon Leena Krohn, fiction and an interview with the great Czech writer Michal Ajvaz, and a wonderful essay on Franz Kafka. Given that there is an element of weird ritual embodied in some of these writers’ works, we’re also running, late this week or early next, an interview with Margo Lanagan, whose classic “Singing My Sister Down” epitomizes weird ritual in our The Weird compendium. And don’t forget to check out Leah Thomas’s third installment of “Reading the Weird.” Come back every day for new content, and if you like what you read, consider a donation to the site. We’re a labor of love, devoted to bringing you the best on weird fiction.

Sample pages from WFR#2

Print Journal WFR#2 Debuts

In addition, this week marks the debut of the print journal Weird Fiction Review, volume 2, edited by S.T. Joshi. We previewed an essay from volume 2 a week ago, and now you can order the journal for yourself. They are running fiction by Caitlin R. Kiernan, a wonderful essay by Michael Cisco, and much more. You can check out the table of contents and sample pages here — go forth and order! The journal is limited to 500 copies and is yet another sumptuous Centipede Press project. (Although Weirdfictionreview.com does not share staff with the print journal, we support each other.)

Weirdfictionreview.com Now Has a Book Reviewer

I would also like to introduce our book reviewer, Maureen Kincaid Speller, whose contact information we have added to the site. We’re very much looking forward to her first column, scheduled for January.  Per her bio note, “Maureen Kincaid Speller has been a fantasy and SF critic for over 25 years, contributing reviews to Interzone, Strange Horizons, Foundation, Vector (the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association) and The Zone, among others. She also has her own blog, called Paper Knife. In 2011 the British Science Fiction Association produced a chapbook of her critical writings, And Another Thing: A Collection of Reviews and Criticism, edited by Jonathan McCalmont. She earns a living as a copy editor and proofreader, and is partway through a Ph.D on Native North American literature and ethical approaches to critical theory. She lives in Folkestone, Kent, UK, with her husband, Paul Kincaid, and spends what’s left of her spare time growing vegetables.” Yes, but are they weird vegetables?

Real-Time Reviews of The Weird

Both Des Lewis and Maureen Speller Kincaid (who started before we extended the reviewer offer to her) have been doing real-time reviews of stories from our 750,000-word The Weird compendium, with Kincaid posting, by coincidence, a review of Lord Dunsany’s famous gnoles story just as Leah Thomas’s webcomic this week takes its inspiration from that story and Margaret St. Clair’s riff off of that story (also in The Weird). It’s rather fascinating to watch it unfold, and we’re sure they’d appreciate your encouragement. (This link reveals Maureen’s older reviews of stories from the anthology.)

Gio Clairval

As we indicate in the acknowledgments to The Weird compendium, the anthology was much enriched by writer Gio Clairval’s efforts in translating fiction for us (six stories, ranging from Bernanos to Cortazar, Heym to Buzzati) and helping negotiate permissions with agents and estates. We’ll be featuring an interview with her soon, along with her posts about translating the stories in question and other topics. Anyone looking for a translator to English from Spanish, Italian, German, or French should definitely hire her. She’s posted an entry on her personal blog about her participation in this project, too.

Contest Winner

As you may have noticed, we’ve been running a little what-fictional-school-would-you-go-to contest…and the winner is…Next Friday, for breaking all the rules and entertaining us into the bargain. This lucky winner receives our Lambshead Cabinet anthology with a ton of weird things tossed into the box we send it in…“First of all, the founder of [Hunter College], Thomas Hunter was indeed an immigrant, but not from Ireland as the official history says, but from the 28^th century.”

The Future

Next week, due to it being a holiday in the U.S. for Thanksgiving, we’ll post a number of exciting pieces on November 21 to tide you over for the week, including an essay on Michel Bernanos by Edward Gauvin, an essay on Jean Ray by António Monteiro, Scott Nicolay’s Dogma 2011 for Weird Fiction, classic reprints, and an exciting surprise. Going forward, you can expect the following and much more: an interview with Amos Tutuola’s estate (and excerpt of his fiction), a report from Rochita Loenen-Ruiz on Filipino Weird, our 101 Weird Writer feature, and fiction from Tanith Lee, Kathe Koja, Ramsey Campbell, among others. In addition, Edward Gauvin and Nancy Hightower are joining us as semi-regular columnists, Gauvin on the subject of translations and Hightower on the Grotesque. Larry Nolen and Paul Charles Smith will also be joining us. We’ll turn the spotlight more fully on them in future weeks.

We have other exciting developments to share, but they’ll have to wait for a future post. In the meantime, check out our great content this week, pick up a copy of Weird Fiction Review, vol. #2, and keep the feedback coming.  Thanks!