You opened the box, we came.
Last month I saw a post on the SFWA website calling for papers and presentations for GIFCON, the Glasgow International Fantasy Convention, and decided to submit a presentation on my Rats in the Walls project. Now, I found out I’ve been accepted–I’m going to Scotland to be a speaker at the con (March 29th-30th)! “The …
Continue reading “I’m Going to Be a Speaker at Glasgow International Fantasy Convention!”
Three big pieces of news! First, I’m taking on the temporary title of Interim Managing Editor for Outer Places, the sci-fi/science site where I work! My official title is Staff Editor, but until a new managing editor is found, I’ll be taking on that role and managing OP’s output and marketing. I’ll probably be heading out to …
Continue reading “Outer Places, GIFCON, and Clarkesworld Magazine!”
After sending in a pitch to Open Road Media’s new sci-fi/fantasy site The Portalist back in November, I wrote up a listicle on the 5 Most Elaborate Sci-fi Alternate History Books, including H.P. Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness, PKD’s Man in the High Castle, and William Gibson’s Difference Engine. Now it’s live on the Portalist site! Huzzah! Today I also sent in my third …
Continue reading “I Just Published a New Piece in The Portalist!”
So I swung by the Spoonbill & Sugartown Bookstore in Brooklyn today while running errands and some cool books. The bookstore itself was fascinating and had a lot of cool, eclectic titles, including the Atlas Obscura and the new Non-Stop Metropolitan. There was a surprising amount of stuff on magic and mysticism, which caught my …
Continue reading “New Books! Wabi-Sabi and Tibetan Buddhism”
This is Vol. 4 of the Occult Reading List, where I collect all the interesting stories and strange pieces of trivia I’ve picked up over the past week from books, articles, and webpages. Also included are the songs that have been on repeat for me this week. Guaranteed to make you more interesting at parties. …
Continue reading “The Occult Triangle Lab Reading List Vol 4: The Mind of a Psychopath”
I love this book. I picked it up from Poetic Earth’s booth at New York Comic-Con this year, and it’s got a hand-tooled leather cover. Last night, I made the first entry in it on the title page (see above). The triangle-tesseract design is the same one that came to me in a dream several …
This is Vol. 3 of the Occult Reading list, where I collect all the interesting stories and strange pieces of trivia I’ve picked up over the past week from books, articles, and webpages. Also included are the songs that have been on repeat for me this week. Guaranteed to make you more interesting at parties. Disclaimer: There’s …
I have a bad habit of reading, listening, and watching too many things at once, and at the end of every week I end up with a new list of fascinating things to check out. I thought it would be fun to share some of the stuff I’ve read and listened to in the past week, including …
Continue reading “The Occult Reading List: Zen, Martial Arts, Annie Lennox, and Tickets to the Moon”
9 months after its inception, my new short story, Hypnotica, is out for submission to fantasy magazines! If you want to learn more about the inspiration behind it and how I fleshed out the magic system in the story, you should check out the posts DREAMWAVE: FANTASY WRITING, QUANTUM THEORY, AND DAFT PUNK and NARCOMANCY: MORPHINE, LUCID DREAMING, AND …
Continue reading “Hypnotica: New Short Story and Sketches from Joel Clapp”
Mapping out a world has got to be one of the toughest parts of worldbuilding. Geography shapes narratives and spawns its own. Anyone who’s played TES: III Morrowind can explain how the lay of the land turned the experience of travelling into an adventure: travelling lava canyons, climbing over mountain ridges and squinting through the ash …