Newsletter 08/17/24
Happy Saturday!
I typed this all up yesterday to post on Friday as normal, but wasn’t able to post it as I went to a Creed concert that was sold out and didn’t get home until really late.
This past month went by fast! I went to the Oddities and Curiosities Expo, which I highly recommend. They have a great selection of dark art, entomology specimens, jewelry, and tea. They travel to different cities throughout the year and it’s a lot of fun to browse through. I picked up a couple of new insect friends, among other things.
Actually, when I went to the Oddities and Curiosities Expo last year for the first time, I picked up my very first insect specimen.
It wasn’t something I had envisioned myself getting but that’s the great thing about conventions and expos, you find stuff you never would have thought about before.
I went on a tour of a former gold mine in Georgia and it reminded me of the kwama mines in the video game Morrowind, which is probably my favorite video game ever.
Then I was in Tennessee and saw some mushroom shelves growing on a tree, another reminder of Morrowind for me.
Got some great pics of cloudy/rainy/foggy conditions in the Smoky Mountains. Made everything look very creepy.
Plus I saw some bears, and an old church, and a weird tree with teeth on it.
Plus, there’s a castle in Kentucky!
When I got back home, I went to Books and Brews, which was a great event.
Then I went to a Sammy Hagar concert on the same day (I actually share my birthday with him – different year though, of course).
And I happened upon this cicada shell on a mushroom. It made for a couple great pictures.
The story this month, ‘The Fire God’ is another one where I actually didn’t do any research beforehand. However, I have watched several folk horror movies on Shudder, to name some: The Devil’s Bath, The Hallow, The Devonsville Terror, and The Reckoning. I also read a folk horror anthology a while back called The Gathering Dark. If you’re interested in folk horror, I recommend checking all of these out; it’s interesting how many different things you can do with a genre.
I had a 100-word drabble published in Snake Bite Books’ monthly ezine. You can check it out by subscribing to their mailing list and they also posted it on Instagram here:
Also, I posted a short story earlier this week, it’s a Dracula story, be sure to check it out if you haven’t already! I will still post a new flash fiction next Friday, but from time to time, I’ll post other stories, too. You never know when I’ll post these, so subscribe for free so you don’t miss them!
Yesterday was National Rum Day and I always think of Baron Samedi when I think of rum. I was first introduced to Baron Samedi through American Horror Story season 3 and I see him appear in things from time to time. He’s the voodoo spirit of the dead and rum is one of his attributes, so my bonus micro-fiction story this month is about Baron Samedi. Subscribe to receive it.