COMING SOON: THE UNDERDOGS RISE VOL. 2

My latest short story, "Roratorio" (8,200 words), will be included in THE UNDERDOGS RISE VOL. 2, an all-new anthology of underdog-centric tales coming this September and available for pre-order right now!!!

GUT & GHOST

I recommend buying a copy of Jason Schoonover's debut comic book, GUT & GHOST #1! Get in on the ground floor of a very weird thing! What do you have to lose? It's only half a sawbuck! Here's Schoonover talking about the comic in his own words:

"I have a new comic out about a pile of guts and a ghost who embark on a perilous journey to change their burnt out light bulb in their apartment. A gross out comedy about the mind-body connection--or disconnection--where our heroes encounter road blocks and non-solutions in their quest to turn the light back on. If you'd like a copy, I have them available for $5 in my shopify."

Click HERE to order your copy of GUT & GHOST today!!!

 

JADOO 2024

During the past few weeks, I've been revisiting the works of John A. Keel. I first read Keel's debut nonfiction book, JADOO (1957), in 1996 or 1997. I recently purchased the 2013 Anomalist Books edition of JADOO. If you've already read the first edition, I recommend picking up this later version, as it restores valuable material unwisely excised by the original publisher back in the 1950s. Over the years, I had forgotten about this passage in Chapter Three (p. 36) when the "Wizard of Cairo" makes a dire prediction regarding 2024...

 

The United States of Agony: A Review of Wrath James White's THE ECSTASY OF AGONY

Earlier this morning, PUNK NOIR MAGAZINE published my review of Wrath James White's latest short story collection, THE ECSTASY OF AGONY (Clash Books, 2023).  The first paragraph follows:

Wrath James White’s The Ecstasy of Agony is a dark and valuable reflection of the ugly realities and paradoxical hypocrisies that have become so much a part of American life during the past eight years. Filtered through the violent phantasmagoria of ten brutal short stories and seven epic poems, we see average (and not-so average) people attempting to survive the unrelenting vagaries of life in the face of unstoppable pandemics, random apocalypses, drug-induced riots, and religious-fueled crimes of violence....

To read the entire book review, click HERE. 

DEAD MONKEY RUM IN FORTEAN TIMES!

My latest novel, DEAD MONKEY RUM, just received a very positive review from FORTEAN TIMES (the May 2024 issue), which has been one of my favorite magazines since I was a teenager. I've posted the review so you can read it for yourself. Coincidentally, right above the review of DEAD MONKEY RUM, you'll also see a review of Geoff Ryman's latest novel, HIM. Geoff was one of my writing instructors at the Clarion Writers Workshop in Seattle way back in the dim dark past of 1996.

BUSINESS INSIDER on Rewriting Ancient Human History

From Jenny McGrath's 5-29-24 BUSINESS INSIDER article entitled "22,000-year-old Artifacts Could Rewrite Ancient Human History in North America":

North and South America were the last inhabited continents that modern humans settled thousands of years ago, but when and how they reached the Americas remains a mystery.

"We don't know who these first peoples were," Todd Braje, executive director of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History, told Business Insider. We don't know "where they came from, when they arrived, the technologies that they had available," he added.

For many years, archaeologists thought the first humans to set foot in the Americas did so around 13,000 years ago. But more recently, new findings have challenged that theory, pushing the timeline back even further.

Now, a recent series of discoveries on Parsons Island, Maryland, could wind back the clock yet again. And it raises some difficult questions about early human migration across North America...

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Pro-Trump Extremists React to Verdict

From Tim Dickinson's 5-30-24 ROLLING STONE article entitled "Extremists Fantasize of Violence After Trump Guilty Verdict":

EXTREMISTS ARE REACTING to Donald Trump’s guilty verdicts in the New York hush-money trial with calls to violence — both overt and covert.

The news that the former president was found guilty on 34 different felony counts did not sit well with Stew Peters, a far-right shock jock who has frequently called for executing government officials, Biden family members, and journalists.

Reacting to Trump’s conviction Thursday on Telegram, Peters claimed that the judicial system has been “weaponized against the American people,” adding: “We are left with NO other option but to take matters into our own hands [...].” Peters soon posted a picture of a noose overlaid with the words “Extreme Accountability.” He added the text: “It’s Time.”

The Columbus, Ohio, chapter of the Proud Boys also responded on Telegram to the news of the Trump verdicts with a single word: “War.” That post was shared by the state chapter of the Proud Boys, which also posted an image that read: “PB Standing By” — a reference to Trump’s call on the group to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 election debate.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

From Ryan J. Reilly's 5-31-24 NBC NEWS report entitled "Trump Supporters Try to Doxx Jurors and Post Violent Threats After His Conviction":

The 34 felony guilty verdicts returned Thursday against former President Donald Trump spurred a wave of violent rhetoric aimed at the prosecutors who secured his conviction, the judge who oversaw the case and the ordinary jurors who unanimously agreed there was no reasonable doubt that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee falsified business records related to hush money payments to a porn star to benefit his 2016 campaign.

Advance Democracy, a non-profit that conducts public interest research, said there has been a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting New York Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, including a post with Bragg’s purported home address. The group also found posts of the purported addresses of jurors on a fringe internet message board known for pro-Trump content and harassing and violent posts, although it is unclear if any actual jurors had been correctly identified [...].

“Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote after Trump’s conviction on a website formerly known as “The Donald,” which was popular among participants in the Capitol attack. (That post appears to have been quickly removed by moderators.)

“We need to identify each juror. Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal,” wrote another user on the same forum. “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to washington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution,” wrote another user. “This s--- is out of control” [...].

The threats fit into an ongoing pattern. An NBC News analysis of Trump’s Truth Social posts earlier this year showed that he frequently uses the platform as a megaphone to attack people involved in his legal cases — and some of his supporters have responded. When the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022, a Trump supporter who had been at the Capitol on Jan. 6 sent angry posts about the search and then attacked an FBI field office. When Trump made a social media post last June that included former President Barack Obama’s home address, a Jan. 6 rioter re-posted it and then showed up at the residence. When Trump was indicted in Georgia in August, his supporters posted the purported names and addresses of members of the grand jury.

To read the entire article, click HERE.