TOD A24: The State of the Weird 2015, A Roundtable Discussion featuring Laird Barron, Justin Steele and Scott Nicolay

In this archival podcast Laird Barron and Justin Steele join Scott Nicolay for a roundtable discussion of the State of the Weird at the end of 2015. It originally aired on December 22, 2015.

Show Notes

Laird Barron and Justin Steele join host Scott Nicolay in the most epic episode of The Outer Dark yet. Laird updates listeners on what he’s been working on lately in fiction and nonfiction, and Justin discusses his vision as fiction editor, columnist, and reviewer for Strange Aeons, as well as anthology plans with Ross Lockhart. Scott reveals some plans as well including his next collection in 2017, editing a short story collection of works by John D. Keefauver for Lethe Press, and more. The three then dive deep into a discussion of all the “good stuff out there” released in 2015 and upcoming in 2016 in weird fiction, especially short stories and so many must-have collections and anthologies. One stand-out in late 2015 is the “wonderful” and historic Cassilda’s Song, edited by Joseph S Pulver Sr. and featuring a who’s who of not just the top women writing weird fiction today but some of the very best authors and stories of the year period. In 2016, new collections from Laird Barron, John Langan, Livia Llewellyn, Jeffrey Ford, and Brian Evenson led the pack of highly anticipated publications, as well as collections such as Autumn Cthulhu (ed. Mike Davis/Lovecraft eZine) and Lost Signals (ed. Max Booth III/Perpetual Motion Machine Press), and many more writers and editors driving the Weird Renaissance.

Plus the Roundtable discusses innovative takes on werewolves including Stephen Graham Jones’s then-upcoming novel Mongrels, different types of rejections, the small press boom and its sustainability, the economics of limited editions, advice to authors on strategies to grow careers, the loss of some titans (Joel Lane, Michael Shea, Lucius Shepard, Melanie Tem, Tanith Lee) in recent years, why writers should embrace and savor weird and horror influences, the Weird’s big move into major publishing and cinema/TV, heading into the third annual Year’s Best Weird Fiction, key editors and publishers (including Ellen Datlow, Michael Kelly, Ross Lockhart, Simon Strantzas, and more), where Bizarro and Weird meet and diverge, and much more.