The Mumpsimus

May was the month when The Last Vanishing Man appeared in the world. Here's some stuff related to that, some places I've been and places I'm going... First, I will be in Brooklyn two weeks from tonight to read and converse with my friends Franz Nicolay and Hannah Tinti . It's at the Powerhouse Arena on June 14 at 7pm. Tickets are required and available at this link , ranging in price from free general admission to buying a book. Jeff VanderMeer interviewed me for Literary Hub . I was sure the pullquote would be, "I tend to gnaw at the same subject matter again and again until I chew off enough of myself to get out of the trap." But they went with other sentences. Yvonne C. Garrett reviewed the book generously for Brooklyn Rail .  "Cheney’s new collection is less the 'horror!' that his publisher hypes  and more a combination of wildly post-apocalyptic brutalism and deeply sympathetic studies of people—lost or irreparably harmed by modern life  an...

When God commanded this hand to write In the studious hours of deep midnight He told me the writing I wrote should prove The Bane of all that on Earth I lovd —William Blake, "The Grey Monk" Over the last month or two, I've started and stopped reading dozens of books, many of them clearly quite good, even excellent, but none of them able to hold my interest in amidst busy days of work, life, etc. And then I found myself reading a lot of Clive Barker for the first time in many years. (I don't seem to be alone — see this excellent Weird Studies podcast episode from last last month with Conner Habib discussing The Hellbound Heart and Hellraiser .) Barker's short stories and novels have captured my reading with their wild commitment to imagination and their seriousness of intent within popular forms. Sacrament is both a summation of the first 15 years or so of Barker's concerns and a departure from the overtly horrific and then phantasmagoric work. Some supernatu...

Today (May 2, 2023) is the official release date for The Last Vanishing Man and Other Stories . Mostly, that just means it's now available from the online booksellers — it's been available from the publisher for a month and has been making its way into independent bookstores for a week or so. International distribution will be a little longer. Ebook, too.  But still, we need one day to say, "The book is published!" — and today is that day. I have some interviews in the pipeline (keep your eyes on Lit Hub and Cemetery Dance ) as well as a Largehearted Boy playlist. Also, I will be doing an event at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn on May 26 with a couple friends (details TBA). I'll put some notes about the book below, but like a public radio or tv broadcaster, I must pause here to say that if you appreciate the book and/or me, the best thing you can do other than buying a copy is to rate it and leave a review on sites like Amazon and Goodreads . Like so much else i...