A Forest With Its Mouth Open Wide, a collection from Personnel Press (CA, USA)

Personnel Press published my collection of weird fiction A Forest With Its Mouth Open Wide & Other Stories in November 2022. It is a jacketed hardcover printed in an edition of 200. Artwork is by Nao Ikuma. 

These pieces are mostly taken from various previously published collections, literary tributes or themed anthologies, written between 2015 and 2021. Also included is my short novel Orphans On Granite Tides, published by Ex Occidente/Les Editions de l'Oubli in 2013 as a limited hardcover. 

Contents:   

    Orphans on Granite Tides

    Black Chroma 

    The Chamber in the Universe 

    The European Monster Part II 

    Torso In Shadow 

    The Bow, The Arm, The Arrow 

    A Forest With Its Mouth Open Wide

    Vod The Wrecker 

    The Oligomancer

    The Hag, The Cutthroat, The Amputee

URX-QUONOX

My short book Urx-Quonox was published by Mount Abraxas Press (Bucharest) in 2021. It’s a work of literary weird fiction/sword & sorcery that engages the thought of Robert E. Howard, Georges Bataille, and others

Weird Fiction in Mount Abraxas' Frostsigils

I contributed to Mount Abraxas' Frostsigils, a book of art and text dedicated to the music and atmospheres of Paysage d'Hiver. My piece borrowed its title from Werner Herzog: "A Forest With Its Mouth Open Wide."

Fiction in Cioran volume "Wound of Wounds"

Wound of Wounds was Ex Occidente/Mount Abraxas' book in tribute to Emil Cioran, published in 2017.

 My piece in the book is titled "The European Monster Part II," it's a despairing meta-fiction. 

Great work in this one: 

Misanthropos by Eugene Thacker

The Infinite Error by Jon Padgett

The Aristocracy of Weak Nerves by Justin Isis

Obsolete Systems by Adam Golaski

Bach’s Marionettes by Douglas Thompson

This Disquiet Demiurge by Alcebiades Diniz Miguel

The Translator of God's Silences by Thomas Stromsholt

Saint Severina's Fire by Damian Murphy

He is Heading Your Way Already by Rhys Hughes

Decade by D.P. Watt

The Genealogy of Night by Andrew Condous

Horrill Hill by Karim Ghahwagi

Dead Engrained Skin by Jonathan Wood

The Treasons of the Rue de L'Odeon by Colin Insole

The Funeral Cry by Stephan Friedman

The European Monster Part II by Adam S. Cantwell

Untitled by Charles Schneider

Original fiction in "All is Full of Hell," a book for William Blake

"All is Full of Hell" was Ex Occidente/Mount Abraxas' book for William Blake, published in 2017. 

My piece "The Torso in Shadow" was included. 

New fiction in "The Gift of the Kos'mos Cometh!" (Ex Occidente/L’Homme Récent)

I have a short piece entitled "Black Chroma" in the anthology The Gift of the Kos'mos Cometh! A Homage to Night and Kosmos, a literary tribute to Night from Ex Occidente Press and editors Geticus Polus and Damian Murphy. 

Gorgeous book. John Gale is in this one. 

New fiction in "And the Whore is This Temple" (Ex Occidente Press)

 

I had a piece in Ex Occidente's 2015 collection "And the Whore is This Temple" - a themed anthology around temples and worship. 

Another big fine book filled with very good writers. My piece was entitled "The Chamber in the Universe."

http://www.i-m.mx/Thessarether1941/proba2/the-whore-is-this-temple.html

http://golgonoozamancy.blogspot.com/2016/08/and-whore-is-this-temple_11.html

Contents:

John Howard: Another Sea

Alcebiades Diniz Miguel: Tidal Wave of Virginal Blood

Thomas Strømsholt: The Waning of the Light

Avalon Brantley: Corpus: A Mandala of Anathomy and Metaphysiology

Leopold Nacht: The Savants of the House of Exile

Stephen Friedman: The Ophidian Revelation

Thomas Phillips: Picture at an Exhibition

Colin Insole: The Abdication of the Serpent

Rhys Hughes: The Nine Impossible Temples of Chaud-Mellé

Andrew Condous: Saints of a Cataphysical Syncretism

Charles Schneider: The Panopticon Virus

Jonathan Wood: Anima OV Animus

Adam S. Cantwell: The Chamber in the Universe

D.P. Watt: Imperium Sine Fine

New fiction in Huysmans tribute "Transactions of the Flesh"

A short fiction of mine entitled "Martyr's Fuligin" will appear in Ex Occidente / Zagava's forthcoming tribute to J.K. Huysmans, Transactions of the Flesh.

Ordering information and details about the two editions offered are here. It appears the book may be available before the end of 2013.

Here's a table of contents that may or may not be final:
Pray to the God of Flux, Jonathan Wood
Ziegler against the World, John Howard
Towards Nature, Douglas Thompson
In Our Deep Vaulted Cell, Derek John
Summer Dusk, Winter Moon, Berit Ellingsen
Ash Sun, Raspberry Sky, Adam Golaski 
Angel Head, Harold Billings
Starless Mornings Find Me Older, Peter Holman
An Expiatory Pessimism, Eugene Thacker
The Red Seed, Louis Marvick 
Indescribable, M.O.N.
The Key to Jerusalem, Mark Valentine
Endgame Aesthete, Jeremy Reed
The Sulphur Remedy, Oliver Smith 
Salammbô and the Zaïmph of Tanit, Colin Insole 
Again, the Granite, or A 21st Century Secret Experiment in Devastating Ennui, Charles Schneider
A Hive of Pain, D.P. Watt
Martyr’s Fuligin, Adam S. Cantwell 
Pierrot the sceptic (1881), Léon Hennique & J.-K. Huysmans 

Another really interesting project that I'm very happy to be a part of. A few new faces in addition to the usual gang--needless to say I'm thrilled that my work will appear in the same volume with the filthy smut of M.O.N. (check out gnOme if you haven't already.)

"Orphans on Granite Tides" available now!

My latest book Orphans on Granite Tides is available to order now! US customers are encouraged to order from the wonderful Ziesings.com of Shingletown, California. It's also available directly from the publisher Ex Occidente Press (the site does not currently show Orphans but you are encouraged to send inquiries directly to exoccidente@gmail.com .)

Please click here for a brief summary and cover image. 

Customers who buy from Ex Occidente or from Ziesings will receive as a bonus the wonderful portfolio of drawings that Charles Schneider created to accompany the text. The portfolio is still at the printers but is expected soon; if you order now, the book will ship now with the portfolio to follow.

I'm really proud of the text, Charles' amazing and macabre drawings, and the lovely quality of the book's design, printing, and binding. I hope readers enjoy it.

Reviews can be found on D.F. Lewis' site and on The Stars at Noonday.


*There's an unfortunate error on the copyright page that I must note and take responsibility for: Charles' name was left off of the copyright page. He created the image used on the endpapers, as well as the capital at the beginning of the text. I can't thank Charles enough for his work on my book and I regret the blunder.

Preview of new book "Orphans on Granite Tides" available now

My next book Orphans on Granite Tides will be published in the coming months by Ex Occidente Press/les Éditions de l’Oubli. There is now a preview available to download here.

Thanks to Dan of EO and to Charles Schneider, who provided the custom capitals as well as a sheaf of spectacular drawings which will accompany the book as a portfolio.

A brief description of the book follows:

ORPHANS ON GRANITE TIDES
A Metaphysical Grotesque by Adam S. Cantwell

The German watches the door. White faces rush by like bubbles.

The Russian emerges with the parcel under his arm. Raindrops darken the brown paper.

Inside the parcel, a silk-lined box; inside that, the ragged, stained pages of the Miwok’s manuscript. The cryptic memoir recounts the life and dreams of an obscure mystic—a childhood on the wild coast of America, at the edge of the earth; servitude on the Continent; flights to worlds within the world… It illuminates everything and nothing, it prefigures and obscures the new world forming beneath the fissured crust of 1939.

The German and the Russian have been sent after the manuscript and will judge whether it is authentic, or a late forgery, a hateful slander, or an epochal testament of planetary history. They will chase the dead savage’s words through Paris, to the edge of the precipice, and beyond.

The Miwok’s words would help them, would warn them, if the gulf separating them all could be bridged…

The Core of an Enormous Black Rose

It has arrived: Dan Ghetu and D.P. Watt's homage anthology for the immortal Bruno Schulz, This Hermetic Legislature. My story "The Notched Sword" appears herein.

To buy, go to its page on the Ex Occidente site, or check one of the retailers to the right.

Cisco, Watt, Schneider, Lane, Insole--another titanic emanation from Bucharest.

Full contents are as follows:

1. Fugue for Black Thursday by George Berguno
2. Great Ruins of Tomorrow by Stephen J. Clark
3. The Fall of a City Planner by Karim Ghahwagi
4. The Messiah of the Mannequins by Rhys Hughes
5. Letters in Black Wood by Joel Lane
6. The Original Light by Mark Valentine
7. With Shadow All the Marble Steps by Oliver Smith
8. Manual of Quiet Destruction by Charles Schneider
9. Silver on Green by John Howard
10. The Subjugation of Eros by D.P. Watt
11. All in a Hot and Copper Sky by Dominy Clements
12. My Ruined Father by Douglas Thompson
13. The Notched Sword by Adam S. Cantwell
14. A Calendar of Cherries by Colin Insole
15. The Vile Game of Gunter and Landau by Michael Cisco
16. A Posthumous Messiah by Reggie Oliver
17. The Restaurant Saint Martin by R.B. Russell
18. My Heretical Existence by Mark Samuels

Review Compendium for "A Pallid Wave..."

Here are links for all the reviews (that I know of) of my book A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night.
-On The Stars at Noonday 
-a D.F. Lewis real-time review 
-On Goodreads 
Anyone interested in reviewing the book please contact me in the Comments, thanks.

My latest story will appear in Ex Occidente Press' Bruno Schulz tribute This Hermetic Legislature

I'm honored to once again contribute to an exquisite Ex Occidente Press anthology- this time paying tribute to the great Polish author Bruno Schulz.

This Hermetic Legislature will feature my story "The Notched Sword." Some excellent writers in this one, as usual. Look for it this Fall or Winter.

Table of Contents:
1. Fugue for Black Thursday by George Berguno
2. Great Ruins of Tomorrow by Stephen J. Clark
3. The Fall of a City Planner by Karim Ghahwagi
4. The Messiah of the Mannequins by Rhys Hughes
5. Letters in Black Wood by Joel Lane
6. The Original Light by Mark Valentine
7. With Shadow All the Marble Steps by Oliver Smith
8. Manual of Quiet Destruction by Charles Schneider
9. Silver on Green by John Howard
10. The Subjugation of Eros by D.P. Watt
11. All in a Hot and Copper Sky by Dominy Clements
12. My Ruined Father by Douglas Thompson
13. The Notched Sword by Adam S. Cantwell
14. A Calendar of Cherries by Colin Insole
15. The Vile Game of Gunter and Landau by Michael Cisco
16. A Posthumous Messiah by Reggie Oliver
17. The Restaurant Saint Martin by R.B. Russell
18. My Heretical Existence by Mark Samuels

Another review of A Pallid Wave..."

A positive review of A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night on Goodreads.

Incidentally, the reviewer attests to the real-life horror of witnessing (both as an audience member and a player) a symphony conductor lose his place or otherwise royally screw up on the podium. I based an episode like this in A Pallid Wave... on a real event in the life of Jean Sibelius, when the maestro was so drunk he mistook a performance for a rehearsal, and berated the first cello from the podium in front of a stunned hometown audience.

I hope I never personally experience anything worse than losing my place onstage while playing bass in a rock band (which I've gotten used to, by now, anyway...)

The Master in Café Morphine lands in the Empire State!

My contributor's copy of Ex Occidente's mighty The Master in Café Morphine has arrived at last! More Romanian stamps than usual were required to get this tome of over 360 pages safely to the United States. Publisher Dan Ghetu, his unnamed designers and printers, and artists Santiago Caruso, C.C. Askew, and Sanya Glisic have produced a book of outstanding beauty. The stories within pay tribute to Mikhail Bulgakov, author of the classic The Master and Margarita.

My contribution is entitled "Only for the Crossed-Out." In it you will find miserable Soviet censors, dire secret police, discarded, forgotten and forbidden books by the roomful, strange dreams, and just deserts. The title comes from Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's story The Bookmark.

The Master in Café Morphine, a limited edition of just 100 copies, is available to order directly from the publisher, and should be in stock soon at the usual dealers.

Read another review of A Pallid Wave on "The Stars at Noonday" blog

Another review of A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night, this time over at the very interesting weblog "The Stars at Noonday."

The reviewer includes a few interesting quotes from the book, and the review is generally very favorable:

"... A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night is, like The Mascarons of the Late Empire & Other Studies from the same publisher, a slim collection that nonetheless offers a rich feast of diverse yet thematically linked stories for connoisseurs of the fantastic, of classical music, and of European history."

A Pallid Wave... now in stock at Ziesing, Fantastic Literature

Ziesing Books (US) and Fantastic Literature (UK) have received their copies of my book A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night and are now shipping! You may still order directly from the publisher, Ex Occidente Press.

Here we see an image of the cloth cover, which is adorned with the gold-embossed words of the pioneering composer (and subject of one of the book's tales) Anton von Webern.

As mentioned elsewhere, the edition is limited to 100, so act!

A Pallid Wave... now shipping

My book A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night is now shipping from the publisher. I have my copies and they look magnificent! Order here.
I will update if/when US distributors get their copies, if you prefer to order domestically.

Thanks.

Read a review of A Pallid Wave...

A patented D.F. Lewis "real-time review" of my first book A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night can be read here.

Mr. Lewis is a noted author, original thinker, anthologist and synchronist who has posted many fascinating real-time reviews on his site, including several of Ex Occidente/Passport Levant titles.

And he's a Webern enthusiast who claims "I need my ‘fix’ of Webern each day in order to exist."

My Collection A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night coming soon from Passport Levant

Please allow me to draw your attention to my forthcoming book: A Pallid Wave on Shores of Night (Passport Levant, Bucharest 2011), now available for pre-order from the publisher:

http://exoccidente.com/pallid.html

This slim volume consists of three stories of musicians and composers whose lives and work are beleaguered by the disasters of 20th-century European history and by the unappeased spirits of Antiquity who hover just behind that history.

I was inspired, perhaps foolishly, by my love of the Western music tradition to loosely base my protagonists on actual composers: Anton von Webern, Jean Sibelius, and Alexander Mosolov.

Passport Levant is an imprint of Ex Occidente Press. All Passport Levant titles, mine included, are landscape-format, gold-foil-stamped, clothbound hardcovers with dustjacket. Edition is limited to 100 hand-numbered copies.

(Here we see, for illustration, a sneak-preview snapshot of the dustjacket.)