ODYSSEY

What a time it’s been. Yes, well over a year since a post, and actually well beyond that since a post with real content. So going back 16 months… I lost my father in October of 2024. Grief. We deal how we deal. I wrote the obituary. Then the absence. The first absence. There was no writing done. Nothing. In July of 2025 there was another death… the death of DEAD RECKONINGS Literary Magazine, that has been a forefront for much of my work.

I also entered a series of writing endeavors with other individuals, editors for the most part who promise much and deliver little and idea-mad creators that toss you about like Odysseus’ ship on a wine-dark sea. All this up until last month. I no longer will be stuck on someone else’s shipwreck. From now on everything is self-directed and driven. Final cut as a director would say. The way it was years ago. They way it will be again.

My work for the Esoteric Order of Dagon (copies to the John Hay library at Brown) still continues with Random Access Mythosophy #9 being published in February 2025 and #10 published February 2026 starting off celebrating the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Lovecraft’s great writing period upon returning to Providence 1926.

Yet there was work done during this long Odyssey. In February of 2025 I began to write the complete history of something that has been a part of my writing life before anything yet never perceived just how central this was and is. Since 1983 in the background of all I have done, I am the Dungeon Master of an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition campaign still going to this day. What began as a collection of history soon expanded in a genealogy of players and sociology study of the little town wherein this campaign is still played (and in many locations the same basement) to analysis of Cinema and Literary influences backed by a massive array of citations and footnotes. A magnum opus indeed of over 270 pages. And one that is just starting and will be documented yearly as the long-enduring campaign continues to flourish… This is now available through Mythopoeia Games Publications.

So here we are. 43 years later. And this blog will now become a place where I will be sharing the Appendices of this work containing many of the rules and practices of the campaign, that others who play may find helpful in their games, and to preserve a sold history of role-playing game mastery.

See you next week.

DM MDM

Happy Walpurgis

Now he was praying because the Witches’ Sabbath was drawing near. May-Eve was Walpurgis-Night, when hell’s blackest evil roamed the earth and all the slaves of Satan gathered for nameless rites and deeds. It was always a very bad time in Arkham, even though the fine folks up in Miskatonic Avenue and High and Saltonstall Streets pretended to know nothing about it.

Classics that endure! Still here despite the almost year absence. Updates soon.

2024 50%

Happy Independence Day. Enjoying the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci Fi channel. Two and one-half years since the last post? 2024 half gone? No possible way to recount the struggles, turmoil, and triumphs of that stretch of time. At least not in one blog post. And not now. Many things have been done. Many more are currently in the works. Let’s see if the updates can be more regular. On any subject. As Lin Carter always said, Happy Magic.

DEAD RECKONINGS (Hippocampus Press):

No. 31: “One Pure Writer’s Will” — review of Farah Rose Smith’s Of One Pure Will; “Lamb of God” — review of the film Lamb by Valdimar Johannsson 2022

No. 33: “Dark Nights of the Soul” — review of Matt Cardin’s Journals Vol. I; “The Cabinet of Dr. del Toro” — review of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities 2023

No. 34: “A new Lovecraftian Writer in Our Midst” — review of Tony Lamalfa’s Forbidden Knowledge; “Crossing the Void” — review of Matt Cardin’s Journals Vol. II (includes interview) 2023

No. 35: “A Stuart Gordon Afterworld” a review of the film SUITABLE FLESH (adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep”) by Joe Lynch 2024

DUMPSTER FIRE PRESS

Poem — “Seditious Element Salute 2022” in World On Fire Propagandie 2022

ALIEN BUDDHA PRESS

Poem “Creep” in The Alien Buddha Skips The Party Part 2 2022

THE ESOTERIC ORDER OF DAGON AMATEUR PRESS

Random Access Mythosophy #3 (editor/contributor) 2022

Random Access Mythosophy #4 (editor/contributor) 2022

Random Access Mythosophy #5 (editor/contributor) 2023

Random Access Mythosophy #6 (editor/contributor) 2023

Random Access Mythosophy #7 (editor/contributor) 2024

Cover Art for Random Access Mythosophy by Brook Anderson

YEAR END SUMMATION

Fell short of my goal of 12 publications for a tumultuous 2021 but did manage a close amount of 10 for the year. Best wishes to all the editors, publisher, and writers I’ve interacted with or met this year and hope everyone has a productive and successful 2022.

Dead Reckonings No. 29 (Hippocampus Press) “Bedlam’s Children” (review of William Holloway’s BLACKWOOD ESTATES)

Dead Reckonings No. 30 (Hippocampus Press) “Green Hell” (review of the 2021 GREEN KNIGHT film)

“The Good, The Bad, and The Guilty .com” and “A Dog and His Boy” CHILDHOOD’S END double-anthology (Dumpster Fire Press)

Two issues of RANDOM ACCESS MYTHOSOPHY (Feb, Nov) for the E.O.D. amateur press

“Unsung” MARCH PLAIDNESS entry defending Helmet in the 2021 Essay Tournament of Grunge for Marchxness

“White Hellebore” in THE LAST TIME THE ALINE BUDDHA GOT SO HIGH (Alien Buddha Press 2.0)

Print edition of REALMS OF FANTASY RGP SOURCEBOOK III “Perils & Prowess” (Mythopoeia Games Publications)

“The Call of Chapodiphobia” in OCTOPI FROM THE SKY (Dumpster Fire Press).

(Implicit with numerous rejections and unfinished projects).

YEAR END SUMMATION

No posts since March 2020? Really? To claim it was Covid-related would be an understatement.

The year, plague year 2020, has been catastrophic on all levels for many people. I have to report that I have been one of the fortunate ones. As a professor in higher-ed., it has been quite a task alone to work through these times, but many things have happened, and some have fallen by the wayside. In a year of pandemic, upheaval, and tumult, I have been uplifted by all the writers and publishers who have not been daunted by 2020. Here’s my year-end work summation:

Picking up from March 2020 I was scheduled to read some poems for the GRCC Public ENG DEPT Reading Event on Mar 26 but this was cancelled due to Covid. I found a new market with the incredibly prolific and subversive ALIEN BUDDHA PRESS and published the following poems: “Eviscerated” and “Private Hell Perdition” in Alien Buddha Press Gets Rejected, “Nightmare Tracks” in Alien Buddha Press HOUSE OF HORRORS 3, followed with a SONGS OF SELAH podcast reading live on Halloween, and “From The Office Of Dead Letters” THE ALIEN BUDDHA WEARS A BLACK BANDANA.

My work in the Weird Fiction and Art community has continued with: A review of Matt Cardin’s TO ROUSE LEVIATHAN “Epistemological Alchemy” in DEAD RECKONINGS #27 from Hippocampus Press Spring 2020 and reviewed Richard Gavin’s GROTESQUERIE from Undertow Publications “A Weird Tarot Deck” and Robert Eggers’ film THE LIGHTHOUSE “The Light That Never Warms” in DEAD RECKONINGS #28 Hippocampus Press Fall 2020 . I was delighted to be accepted in S. T. Joshi’s new scholarly journal of Weird Fiction with “The Cosmicism of Elfland” in PENUMBRA No. 1 also from Hippocampus Press!

Fell short on a short story publication this year but managed to make my goal of tripling last year’s output. There have been other derailed projects. As lockdowns have devastated the music industry nothing has been done or has happened with THE HICKKICKERS or other music side projects. Along with that, the release of what was REALMS OF FANTASY 2020 by Mythopoeia Games Publications has been delayed to 2021 and will be retitled REALMS OF FANTASY COMPLETE. Lastly, the “Bullets For Breakfast” script is all but over on its path to production.

We have two new cats — VINCENT and VICTOR in the home to make the year and I have been admitted to the Esoteric Order of Dagon (literary branch). Lastly I will be writing in the 2021 MARCH PLAIDNESS competition writing for HELMET and their song “Unsung.”

Accolades to everyone else that has endured through plague year 2020. On to 2021!

Viral Apocalypse and the gaming table

I am pleased to announce Mythopoeia Games Publications has made the following RPG supplements I authored available to help with our isolation: “Games are great way to get through isolation. Why not try a new RPG to help pass the time? For the next 15 days (through April 1st) we have made our We Hate Bards tested core Apocalyptic Fantasy RPG E-Book “Wizards & Warriors” pay what you want at DriveThruRPG (that means FREE if you wish) and all our supporting e-book supplements are ninety-nine cents. We may extend this even longer to weather the upheaval in pursuit of games (and adventure). If you play a session share it at Realms Of Fantasy RPG.” Enjoy!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/155093/Realms-Of-Fantasy-RPG-Sourcebook-I-Wizards–Warriors

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COLOR OUT OF JANUARY

On January 22nd 2020 special one-day only screenings of Richard Stanley’s Color Out Of Space (an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour out of Space”) extended cut will be shown in select theaters across America.

I have been asked to give opening comments for the screening at the UICA (Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts) part of KCAD (Kendall College of Art and Design). It was quite a pleasure to teach this story a year ago at KCAD in Genre Studies: Weird Fiction, learn the film was in production, then have our own theater be selected to house the film.

Review will be posted later.

(PS – special shout out to HPLHS.)

M

coloroutofspace

2020 Has Begun

cyberpunk

Here’s a little recap of my 2019 year in publishing:

“A Look Behind The Challenge From Beyond” — DEAD RECKONINGS No. 25 — Hippocampus Press
“Lovecraft’s Open Boat” — LOVECRAFT ANNUAL No.12 — Hippocampus Press
“You Know Who The Monster Is” (review of Sam L Edwards WHISKEY AND OTHER UNUSUAL GHOSTS) — DEAD RECKONINGS No. 26 — Hippocampus Press
“Perils & Prowess” — REALMS OF FANTASY RPG SIII — Mythopoeia Games Publications
“Bela Lugosi Lives/Daed S’isogul Aleb” — MARCH VLADNESS ‘– Elite 8
“You Are An Anomaly” (review of Brooke Warra’s LUMINOUS BODY) DIM SHORES (via Goodreads) —

Intent to double my work from last year (two publications) and ended tripling 2018. Next year’s goal: double 2019 — for 12 — 1 per month. So far my poem “Black Wings Return” will be in SPECTRAL REALMS No. 12 Winter 2020. Here’s to good start. Best to all the other writers, editors, and publishers I know, have met, or corresponded with and all their works of 2019.

Are we Cyberpunk enough yet?