(Art is “Halloween 2019″ by jackthetab.)

Sadie Hartmann has a fantastic suggested Halloween reading list here at LitReactor: “Halloween 2020 Reading List.” 

Two other books to that deserve to be on any list include the new Weird anthologies from Handheld Press, British Weird: Selected Short Fiction, 1893-1937 edited by James Machin and Women’s Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women, 1891-1937 edited by Melissa Edmundson. And guess what? Next week, you can take part in the book launch for these two volumes online for free!

Weird book launch: Tuesday, 27th October 2020

At 19.30 UK time / 13.30 EST on Tuesday, 27th October, Handheld Press be hosting a Zoom book launch for our two new Weird anthologies, British Weird, edited by James Machin, and Women’s Weird  2, edited by Melissa Edmundson. Kate Macdonald of Handheld Press will be moderating. To sign up to attend this online book launch, go here for details!

(Photo by Yours Truly.)

There was never more curiosity than there is today about ‘the uncanny’ or ‘strange things’ – ‘things’ that even in our fathers’ day it was improper to believe in at all….

Even now old forumlae haunt and stir.

LOVE: I have fallen upon the breast of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld. 

DEATH: You shall find on the left of the House of Hades a well-spring. Beside it is a white cypress. Say: ‘I am the child of earth and the starry heavens. But my race is of the stars.’

Formulae that are very old. The time may be coming when, their ritual origins traced, their risings and settings chased through our subconscious, we shall know what powers we have evoked exterior to us….

If we do not find out, we had better look out for ourselves. We have been careless lately what spiritual company we have kept; in our choices of ghostly guests.

- from “‘Ghosties and Ghoulies’: Uses of the Supernatural in English Fiction” by Mary Butts (1913) in British Weird: Selected Short Fiction, 1893-1937, edited by James Machin

View the full post.