The Mumpsimus

I have a story in Where Thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe edited by Steve Berman and published by Lethe Press , due out next month. Steve sent me an advanced copy of the book, for which I'm grateful, because it gave me some time to read a few of the other stories (and some poems). I'm all the more honored to be included, because there's some excellent work here, and it's all organized well, highlighting connections without diminishing the range of tones, styles, and ideas. I'm not going to review a book I'm a contributor to (for early reviews, see Publisher's Weekly and Ideomancer ), but I will admit to some surprise at how consistently interesting and unpredictable the stories are. (Okay, I'll mention one specifically: Rick Bowes's story blew me away. And I'm a fan of his, so that's saying something.) This could have been a gimmicky theme anthology, and it's very much not. I don't think you necessarily have to b...

This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe (born 19 January 1809) and here in his honor is a scan of an advertisement from the October 1928 issue of Hugo Gernsback's Science and Invention magazine (click on the image to see it full size): (Fun typo: The description calls Poe "the greatest literary genus [ sic ] that America has ever produced".)