This webblog is the brainchild of Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer. Ann has served as editor of Weird Tales and with Jeff co-edited such anthologies as The New Weird, the ebook antho series ODD?, and the just-released The Weird: A Compendium of Strange & Dark Stories (Atlantic/Corvus). Jeff is an award-winning writer of weird fiction whose last novel, Finch, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Nebula Award.
This site is meant to be an ongoing exploration into all facets of the weird, in all of its many forms — a kind of non-denominational approach that appreciates Lovecraft but also Kafka, Angela Carter and Clark Ashton Smith, Shirley Jackson and Fritz Leiber — along with the next generation of weird writers and international weird. The emphasis will be on nonfiction on writers and particular books, but we will also run features on weird art, music, and film, as well as occasional fiction.
I feel like they read my mind. "Weird" really gets at the heart of why I liked the books that I do. To help get things kicked off, The Weird Fiction Review interviewed the king of "weird," Neil Gaiman. Here is a direct link to the interview and below is an excerpt from the interview where Gaiman talks about why people are drawn to weird stories:
WFR: What do you think is the appeal of weird fiction generally?Other authors who I think really go a great job of writing weird, but accessible stories are Steven Millhauser, Kevin Brockmeier, and Keith Donohue. In fact, here is a link to a post where I talked about all three in more detail. Also here is a link to my review of Donohue's newest novel, Centuries of June, in which I provide more "weird" fiction links.
Gaiman: For me it’s like a visit to a strange place — a holiday in unearthly beauty and oddness, from which you may not always safely return.
WFR: Do you see a difference between “horror” and “the weird” and “the gothic”, and does it matter to you as either a writer or reader?
Gaiman: I think of Horror as a section of a bookshop, gothic as a type of book that ended, truly, with Northhanger Abbey, and The Weird as an attempt to unify whatever it was that Robert Aickman did, that Edward Gorey did — using the tools of horror to delight and transform. But I could be full of it. And no, it doesn’t matter.
Feel free to add your favorite "weird" authors or stories in the comments. Also, check out the books I have marked "not quite horror" over at RA for All: Horror. These are also good "weird" reading suggestions.
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