J. Ichabod Whateley

Beginning the week of Samhain correct with @carsonwinter.bsky.social ‘s ‘A Spectre is Haunting Greentree’ (published by the fine folk @tenebrouspress.bsky.social ). Isn’t it time you started preparing your mind for the horrors to come?

Very excited for this! - even if they didn’t accept my story. (Honestly, the work I submitted was the most insane thing I’ve written thus far. It would have been deeply irresponsible of @cateyepress.bsky.social to publish it. Lot of fun writing it though.) Pre-order a copy now!

Tonight’s post shift reading is the VERY recently released ‘This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want’ by @haileypiperfights.bsky.social . I’m only about four pages in (started tonight), but the prose is excellent, and it fits into one of my obsessively favorite sub genres - fiction about cursed film!

Today’s break from biking around town is Mark Jaskowski’s ‘Beneath the Swimming Pools, the Teeth!’ (courtesy of the fine editors of @weirdpunkbooks.bsky.social ). Will this be the body horror that drives me to give up mood altering substances? No. But my flesh has been a mutant menace for years.

Today’s Labor Day reading is the growingly appropriate’Dehiscent’ by Ashley Deng (via @tenebrouspress.bsky.social ). A story about acknowledging privilege in a broken world, and the cost that accompanies that knowledge. Excited to see how it ends.

Today’s reading when I should be writing is Jacy Morris’ novella ‘It’s Under the Deck’. A character study in aging curmudgeonly, the lonely horror of the suburbs, and the worst case scenario for the newest PNW Saint: Jimothy. (Look, as the self-proclaimed Bishop of Cathedral Park I can pick saints.)

Tonight’s post shift reading is ‘The Adventures of Horus & Motherfucker’ by e rathke. While technically Sword & Sorcery, watching the character of Motherfucker self-radicalize herself into a prophet/martyr for a god they invented has been fascinating reading.

Tonight’s post shift reading is ‘Cuckoo’ by the delightfully perverse @scumbelievable.bsky.social . A truly terrible premise (conversion therapy camps are a form of torture, and the people who operate them should be put to death in horrible fashion) handled with beautifully crafted prose.

Tonight’s (early!) post shift reading is @joshrountree.bsky.social ‘The Unkillable Frank Lightning’. I’m a sucker for both weird westerns and a Frankenstein retelling, but have been delighted by the narrative choices made within both tropes.

The much anticipated (and not at all late) summer cocktail menu is live! Thanks to Tom Spanbauer, @casskhaw.bsky.social , @kellylink.bsky.social , Thomas Pynchon, Brian Francis Slattery, & @steveaylett.bsky.social for the wonderful words to conjure these enlightened spirits.

Tonight’s post shift weirdness is ‘Olyoke’ by @endwellian.bsky.social (and the fine folk @tenebrouspress.bsky.social ). Fragmented storytelling anchored by slow (candle) burning high strangeness - AND it has a cursed theme park. Fuck yeah!

Finally pulled @keithrosson.bsky.social ‘s ‘Coffin Moon’ off the TBR bookcase, and fuck did I do myself a disservice by waiting this long. While Rosson can write messy, complex characters well, he fucking slays at writing monstrous dirtbags - quite literally in this case.

Today’s high weirdness is brought to us by the dashing @jacymorris.bsky.social . Glad I could finally pay for one of your books.

Tonight’s post shift escapism comes to us from Edwin Callihan’s ‘Baculum’. A reliable source for weird occult fuckery. Much thanks to @weirdpunkbooks.bsky.social for continuing to release strange ass shit.

Just finished a short story for submission (they’d be absolutely insane to actually buy it) for the first time since COVID, and am celebrating by reading significantly better short fiction courtesy of @tenebrouspress.bsky.social

Tonight’s after shift reading is brought to us by @carsonwinter.bsky.social ‘The Corpse Priest’. Have only read short fiction by Winter, so excited to see what he does with an extended format. So far: a guard puking up the entirety of his organs, and giant feline mounts. Coming out swinging.

Tonight’s post shift reading is the ever entertaining @texascthulhu.bsky.social splatter western ‘For a Few Souls More’. Was told it’s better than its preceding volume - which was pretty fucking great. So far we are not disappointed.

This evening’s escape from reality brought to us by Edwin Callihan and @filthyloot.bsky.social . Small town dirt bags, over-the-top violence, and pervasive entropic decay by cosmic forces beyond mortal ken are absolutely my jam!

Post shift reading is @cstross.bsky.social ‘The Regicide Report’. Would have gotten here sooner, but spent the last month rereading the previous 9 novels and 2 novellas in the Laundry Files. Also appreciate the Portland, OR shoutout; but, alas, the 24 Hour Church of Elvis is no longer with us.

Spending St. Patrick’s Day in America, proper like: re-reading Irish horror literature in verse, set in a post Fenian uprising in Ulster. Thanks as always to the fine folk at @tenebrouspress.bsky.social and the ever talented @goresorcerer.bsky.social

Tonight’s post shift reading is @alexwoodroe.com ‘The Night Ship’, in anticipation of her gracing Portland with her presence. Strong, strange start. Looking forward to where it goes.

Tonight’s post shift reading provided by the ever enlightening* @nmamatas.bsky.social and his most recent work ‘Kalivas! Or, Another Tempest’. *Enlightening in that every damned piece of his work sends me down a rabbit hole of reading up on weird heresies, forgotten philosophies, or Greek history.

Tonight’s post shift bar read is @tvayyyy.bsky.social ‘The El’. Sadly, I’ve never seen an Old Style for sale in Oregon, so I settled for a local lager that embraces its trash roots. And Larceny. Obviously.

Finally cracking open the latest by Thomas Pynchon - an author whose body of work consumed most of my collegiate education. Still spend more time than is probably healthy thinking about bad jokes and dumb song lyrics after all these years…

Tonight’s break from reality is brought to us by @wnwagner.bsky.social ‘Girl In the Creek’. Sorry to take so long to get to this one Wendy, the TBR pile is an ever growing monster of awesome.

Released later than I would have liked, but today I can unveil our Fall/Winter cocktail menu! Inspired by such fine authors as @ericlarocca.bsky.social , @horrorsong.blog , @haileypiperfights.bsky.social , @goresorcerer.bsky.social , @scumbelievable.bsky.social , and Poppy Z. Brite! Read more horror

Just finished ‘King of Ashes’ by @blacktopkid.bsky.social and what a beautifully perfect “moral” noir tale. ‘Breaking Bad’ tried to be this, but was soft enough to let familial characters live. Cosby gives us a brilliant man, who lets all that he wanted to save, die or run away, to become himself.

Jan Potocki and Thomas Pynchon are two (of probably many) names for the same author. Potocki was unsuccessful in killing the immortal wolf inside, and resigned himself to writing hyper convoluted fictional narratives. Then the 20th century came round and he had to hide from press and film as Pynchon

Many thanks to Broadway Books for hosting @wnwagner.bsky.social & @keithrosson.bsky.social in discussion. It is always a pleasure to hear authors discuss their craft. Also: fantastically curated collection of books in a tiny space. Support your local independent bookstore.

Doing it proper outside T. C. O’Leary’s with @keithrosson.bsky.social ‘The Devil By Name’. While ‘Fever House’ was gritty crime leaning into horror, this feels like old school King character development and world building. Bloody great.

Tonight ‘s post shift reading is brought to us by @apocalypseparty.bsky.social and @horrorsong.blog . Only two stories deep into ‘Convulsive’, but gods the bloody prose! From fever dream faerie tale to suburban bereavement and back again. Outstanding fiction.

Presenting the ‘We Like It Cherry’ cocktail. Bacon fat washed Clear Creek kirschwasser, Luxardo liqueur, Luxardo syrup, Angostura orange bitters. Served on a large ice cube with suggestively placed Luxardo cherry. Many thanks to @jacymorris.bsky.social for the inspiration!

Tonight’s post shift reading is Frederic S. Durbin’s ‘The Country Under Heaven’. Lush colloquial prose of nature and nurture, regaling us with high strange mythic western weirdness. So far it is a fucking delight.

Tonight’s post shift reading brought to us by our friendly neighborhood art collective @helioscopepdx.bsky.social - in particular @stevelieberart.bsky.social and @nathanfairbairn.bsky.social (and I guess @mattfraction.bsky.social even if he’s writing some silly bat book now). Jimmy Olsen is the best

Today’s necessary distraction is brought to us by @goresorcerer.bsky.social (and @tenebrouspress.bsky.social who foolishly gifted me a copy). ‘Puppet’s Banquet’ thus far is a demented little mind fuck, with absolutely gorgeous descriptions of the Irish countryside. And gore. Truly beautiful gore.

Today’s reading weirdness is brought to us by @dangerslater.bsky.social ‘s ‘Moonfellows’. So far it is funny as fuck, which makes the anticipation for the terrible that much more delectable.

Not only is this a brilliant collection of deeply fucked up regional horror with pitch perfect voice, it is also really funny. Like, really, really funny in places. Go get’ chu some.

Afternoon reading by @casskhaw.bsky.social . Not only is the physical book of ‘The Library at Hellebore’ a gorgeous work of art (those endpapers, those glorious indigo sprayed edges), but it is chock full of one of my favorite prose stylists words. No one writes more beautiful scenes of cannibalism.

Midway through @goresorcerer.bsky.social ‘Decrepit Ritual’ from @ghoulish.bsky.social , and fuck me but it is a twisted delight. A framed narrative in second person slowly bleeding into an ultra-violent technicolor euroshlock gorefest of exquisite prose. My crit-lit-nerd/genre-fuckery heart is full.

Post shift prose courtesy of the prolific scribe @sgj.bsky.social . Paired with a Buffalo Trace Single Barrel Select, obviously.