"The Cosmicomicon" opens the doors to The Orphan Palace

Ted Grau has posted a very wonderful feature on my upcoming novel, The Orphan Palace, on his blog. I hope you'll pop over and see what madness Pulver and Chomu Press are about to release on OCT 19th.

The Orphan Palace has been praised by some of weird fiction's finest writers - Gary McMahon, Simon Strantzas, and Robin Spriggs . . . And none other than, Michael Cisco, wrote the foreward to TOP.

http://cosmicomicon.blogspot.com/2011/09/coming-in-october-ophan-palace-by.html

Robin Spriggs on TOP......................... .!

One of weird fiction's VERY BEST -- the ultimate diabolist! !!, Robin Spriggs, has the following to say about TOP --

"Mad, malevolent, and incantatory, The Orphan Palace reads like the hagridden fever dream of one who has not only stared the Abyss in Its black and fathomless face, but welcomed Its gaze in return . . . and become Its living embodiment. It is a journey to be taken by none but the bravest of readers, and by souls with an ardent desire to savor their own damnation." --Robin Spriggs, author of Diary of a Gentleman Diabolist

You can find Robin here:

http://www.houseofnine.com/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Spriggs


http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ARobin+Spriggs&keywords=Robin+Spriggs&ie=UTF8&qid=1314398414&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B001KCA8PY

The Book - The Writer . . . Soon to be in a book with This Writer

Review from http://grimreviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/robin-spriggs-diary-of-gentleman.html

I'm overjoyed and humbled to be one half of an upcoming book with a Magican this powerful. Robin Spriggs is a master wordsmith; startling imagination, capable of endlessly defying a reader's expectations, style, charm, a wizard of form and literature! !! He is all that and so much more . . .



Robin Spriggs' new collection of prose poems, Diary of a Gentleman Diabolist, whirls toward the indefinable. Prose poetry itself seems like an odd and engaging anachronism, and the effect is doubled when it is used as a genre-bending skeleton for Spriggs' strange and macabre content. This ambiguity and ethereal charm marks him as a flexible practitioner of the truly unknown and truly fearful, and his latest book collects his workings, somewhere deep in the hinterlands inundated with the weird, the fantastic, and the occult.

The selections inside Diary of a Gentleman Diabolist range from a few short sentences to story length passages. With few exceptions, Spriggs manages to christen his well written pieces with the symbolic depth of poetry in few words. Some stories read as occultic rites, while others make painfully truthful observations about existence. Yet, most of these prose poems are self-contained tales that resonate deeply with the inexplicable imagery and otherworldly vistas common to weird fiction's best. Added to this is the sense of interconnectedness between these stories, which really makes one feel as though they are reading some forgotten diary uncovered in an old chest. But whose? A madman's, a sorcerer's, or a demented poet's? The best answer is all of the above.

Pieces like "Liber I," "Liber Ba," and "The House of Nine" draw on a seemingly rich knowledge of real occultism by Spriggs. But within these rituals are other currents, parallel meanings that are forced to cohabit an incredibly limited space. Readers will uncover philosophical musings on the temporal and the imaginary, as well as a sense that they are eavesdropping on the author's most private concerns and self-reflections. Direct ties between this occultic wordsmithing and the book's pure fiction is not always obvious, but these intermittent passages bridge the gap between fiction and spiritualism, giving the whole of Diary a mystical potency.

Spriggs' fables, this collection's real center, are nearly as diverse as the project as a whole. "The Yordhla" chronicles the onset of strange entities seeking their lord, wrapped in curious and unsettling language very much at home in the weird genre. "Withershin," on the other hand, seems like the bastard offspring of magical realism and dark folklore in describing the leg altering curse that befalls a town's inhabitants. "The Brides," which gives readers a minuscule peak at ghosts from another world, is just as horror inducing in its rich imagery and melancholy mood. On another level, "Practical Magic" and "Through a Doll, Darkly" are nasty and hilarious prose poems very reminiscent of the late Thomas Wiloch's work.

Whether he is doing humor, thought exercises, horror, or magic, Spriggs hits the target about 98% of the time. A tiny handful of pieces fall short in their effect and purpose, however. "Lagomorpha" and "Charge of the Dung Beetle" are too short, and come dangerously near to breaking the spell woven by Spriggs' many excellent offerings. Fortunately, these weaker prose poems are exceptionally rare and mercifully short, and barely even figure into one's reflections on the overall journey--one worthy enough to be taken time and time again.

In an era where technology is abundant and attention spans are short (guess the correlation), prose poetry may well be due for a comeback. It is not impossible, however unlikely, to imagine the Stephenie Meyer readers of today becoming the weird fiction aficionados and creators of tomorrow. Writers like Robin Spriggs may be just the ticket to lead them there. Those who have never experienced the truly magical, frightening, and surreal before Spriggs may not come back after venturing through Diary of a Gentleman Diabolist, and those who have tread the strange many times will have one more uneasy stroll to take when Anomalous Books releases this collection in September, 2010.

-Grim Blogger

Double Feature Press

I'm over the moon to split the 1st release by DFP with Robin Spriggs. His work is amazing! !! Everyone from Laird Barron on praises him and for good reason!

Robin's half of the tome will be --


The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom

The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom, according to arcane legend, is a collection of stories and poems about a collection of stories and poems by (if titles can be trusted) a certain Ozman Droom. But who is Ozman Droom? Or what is Ozman Droom? And when, where, why, and how is Ozman Droom? The answers to these and countless other questions of equally perilous rank await the curious seeker within the collection itself . . . provided such a book does indeed exist. And perhaps even if not. Caveat lector.


Mine, maybe something like this:

Night Begets
Night burns and burrows, vast as any idea it declares its bottomless truth -- Terminus. The players and observers come, absorb and discard atoms, fill moments with ripples they call magic, or love, or chance, heartache, and fate. For knowledge and pleasure they steal editions, wait for, or take, more. Night loves nothing . . . and, finally, it takes all.

Joe Pulver’s, Night Begets, is a collection of tales and poetic texts about lovelorn ghouls and other night-bound creatures as they discover sin and ashes bloom and echo in the noir labyrinths and pitch black, dungeon skirts of Night. It is a work that provokes and will leave an indelible mark on anyone who picks it up and comes through on the other side, painting a world that is as much brutal as it is beautiful and imploring readers to reconcile these seemingly antagonistic aspects of existence.

more info can be found here:

http://doublefeaturepress.com/home.html

and here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/505398600/double-feature-press?ref=search

HPLFF . . .

the fest is cooking . . . Alanna Quinn and others are beaming info and pics to FB and sites like SheNeverSlept.com . . . for those of us, the broken-hearted, who are not there these are a gift.

Sarah L. Covert, Robin Spriggs, & I are hours away from the big news . . .

I'm working on 3 tales [in 3 different voices] at the same time -- It's noisy in here! !! But it's fun! The 4th tale is coming to a boil too . . .

I've forgotten something . . .

[current soundtrack: Marvin, Black Sabbath, OM]

SOMETHING wicked is coming SOON! !!

Red Magic . Elegy of Rain . eye of newt . SIN & ashes . PAIN . . . This weekend Robin Spriggs, Sarah L. Covert, and yer bEastie are going to do a very bloody and diabolical thing . . . STAY TUNED! !!

A Gentleman Diabolist gets Bloody

Of Blood Will Have Its Season, [Damn near genius poet! &] Gentleman Diabolist, Robin Spriggs, says, "If you like your prose (and poetry) haunting, hallucinatory, and full of heart, read Joe Pulver."

Every lover of The Weird and poetry, ***NEEDS*** his collection, Diary of a Gentleman Diabolist! !!

http://www.amazon.com/Diary-Gentleman-Diabolist-Robin-Spriggs/dp/0963429671/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1