"Irrationality has a great role in American life"
— Peter Straub
Need we say more? As far as I can tell, irrationality has the primary role in American life. America seems possessed by magical thinking, and our understanding of how that affects our literary life is only now beginning to catch up. For almost a century, we were convinced that serious literature must by definition exclude our dreams and nightmares.
Need we say more? As far as I can tell, irrationality has the primary role in American life. America seems possessed by magical thinking, and our understanding of how that affects our literary life is only now beginning to catch up. For almost a century, we were convinced that serious literature must by definition exclude our dreams and nightmares.
Peter Straub has managed to do something about that, something very concrete. As editor of the Library of America's 'American Fantastic Tales,' and their edition Lovecraft, he has lead the way in the effort to canonize the fantastic. Yes, we can blame the pulps for this. Before the pulps, there was no genre divide. After the pulps, there were stories for boys and stories for men and women. I talked to Straub at the recent World Fantasy Convention in San Jose about his work for the Library of America and his two recent books, 'The Skylark' and 'A Dark Matter,' as well as his work on some new graphic novels. (And, I never knew this, his occasional role in the soap opera, One Life to Live.) Straub's one of America's great writers; obviously somewhere down the road, some lucky kid who is now geeking out while reading Straub's work in junior high, will have the honor of assembling his Library of America volumes. Here's a link to the MP3 audio file of our conversation.
Scott "SG" Browne
11-24-09: Scott "SG" Browne Interviewed at SF in SF
"It gives me the opportunity to meet some of my influences"
— Scott "SG" Browne
Here's the deal; I saw Scott Browne a lot at the World Fantasy Convention, and it struck me, when I was talking to him at SF in SF, that he might have been kind of new to the scene. But I should have remembered that he'd written and published horror fiction in the 90's. In fact, I probably saw him, without know who he was, at the last World Horror Convention in San Francisco. That said, we did have a nice chat at SF in SF, and you can hear what he has to say about conventions and the current short-fiction publishing landscape by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
05-16-12: Commentary : Mark Sundeen Pays Out 'The Man Who Quit Money' : Over the Edges
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Interview with Mark Sundeen and Daniel Suelo : "What would happen if we actually practiced this stuff?"-Daniel Suelo
05-15-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War' : Impure Life
05-08-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat' : Reading in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Mark Sundeen : "...over the years, I had heard through my friends that he had stopped using money and was living in a cave..."
04-30-12: Commentary : Christopher Moore Follows 'Sacré Bleu' : A Story in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Christopher Moore : "...it often isn't efficient to tell a story in chronological order..."
04-27-12: Commentary : Lisa Lutz on 'Trail of the Spellmans' : Meta-Fiction is Fun
Agony Column Podcast News Report: SF in SF from February 11, 2012 : Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
04-23-12: Commentary : T. M. Luhrman Listens 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God' : Science and the Supernaturaly
04-18-12: Commentary : Gregg Jones Stirs Through 'Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dreams' : A Dream Of Today From Yesterday
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Gregg Jones : "The Philippinos would welcome us with open arms and greet us as liberators."
04-17-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Caleb Carr 'The Alienist' : Subterranean History
04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Richard Zacks : "Roosevelt and Riis were out looking, and if they did find a cop, he was talking to a streetwalker."
