In this interview, Phoebe Marmura talks about fear, fairies, set design, and so much more.
Phoebe Marmura is a writer and artist. Her work explores desire, femininity, domestic adventure, and reclusion. Marmura’s writing can be found in Expat Press, D.F.L. Lit, and Orca Literary Journal.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Erotic Interludes: Tales Told by Women – Lonnie Barbach
In this interview, Randy Nikkel Schroeder talks about noir, character possession, Biblical frisson, and so much more. Listen here.
Randy Nikkel Schroeder is the author of Arctic Smoke (NeWest), Crooked Timber: Seven Suburban Faerie Tales (Green Magpie), and over fifty published short stories. In his spare time, he is professor of English, Languages, and Cultures at Mount Royal University.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Queenpin; The Turnout; You Will Know Me – Megan Abbott
Poetics – Aristotle
Book of Greek Myths – Ingri d’Aulaire & Edgar Parin d’Aulaire
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel – Jessica Brody
Dave Robicheaux novels – James Lee Burke
The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know – Shawn Coyne
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Attack of the Copula Spiders and Other Essays on Writing – Douglas Glover
Red Dragon – Thomas Harris
Winter’s Tale – Mark Helprin
The Lottery and Other Stories – Shirley Jackson
Rose Madder – Stephen King
Mystic River – Dennis Lehane
The Magician’s Nephew – C. S. Lewis
Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage, and Screen – Robert McKee
Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different – Chuck Palahniuk
I read 101 books in 2023. Here are my favorite first reads (pre-2023 releases only).
The top twenty are organized chronologically (I restricted myself to one per author). The rest are organized by authors’ last names.
Top twenty:
The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851) Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert (1856) The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins (1860) Roderick Hudson, by Henry James (1875) Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy (1891) Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, by M. R. James (1904) The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton (1905) The Listener and Other Stories, by Algernon Blackwood (1907) The Subjugated Beast, by R. R. Ryan (1938) Native Son, by Richard Wright (1940) The Hounds of Tindalos, by Frank Belknap Long (1946) Gravity and Grace, by Simone Weil (1947) The Road Through the Wall, by Shirley Jackson (1948) Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin (1956) The Wapshot Chronicle, by John Cheever (1957) The Collector, by John Fowles (1963) Julia, by Peter Straub (1975) The House Next Door, by Anne Rivers Siddons (1978) The Ceremonies, by T. E. D. Klein (1984) Soul/Mate, by Joyce Carol Oates [as Rosamond Smith] (1989) Paradais, by Fernanda Melchor (2021)
Other standouts:
Poetics, by Aristotle (335 BCE) Inner Experience, by Georges Bataille (1943) Weird Mysticism: Philosophical Horror and the Mystical Text, by Brad Baumgartner (2021) Tender is the Flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica (2017) The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories, by Algernon Blackwood (1906) The Lure of the Unknown: Essays on the Strange, by Algernon Blackwood (2022) Drop City, by T. C. Boyle (2003) The Hungry Moon, by Ramsey Campbell (1986) The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares (1940) The Wapshot Scandal, by John Cheever (1964) Falconer, by John Cheever (1977) Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi (2019) A Short History of Decay, by E. M. Cioran (1949) The Vet’s Daughter, by Barbara Comyns (1959) The Juniper Tree, by Barbara Comyns (1985) Americana, by Don DeLillo (1971) The Names, by Don DeLillo (1982) God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, by Vine Deloria Jr. (1972) The Lost Daughter, by Elena Ferrante (2006) The Magus, by John Fowles (1965) Veronica, by Mary Gaitskill (2005) The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, by Amitav Ghosh (2016) Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters, by J. Jack Halberstam (1995) Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris (1981) Last Summer, by Evan Hunter (1968) The Lottery and Other Stories, by Shirley Jackson (1949) Hangsaman, by Shirley Jackson (1951) The Bird’s Nest, by Shirley Jackson (1954) Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing, by Stephen King (2000) The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle (2016) The Moral Essays, by Giacomo Leopardi (1832) Hieroglyphics and Other Essays, by Arthur Machen (2022) Burnt Offerings, by Robert Marasco (1973) The Beetle, by Richard Marsh (1897) A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832–1937: Disgust, Metaphysics, and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror, by Jonathan Newell (2020) A Garden of Earthly Delights, by Joyce Carol Oates (1967) Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, by Joyce Carol Oates (1993) The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art, by Joyce Carol Oates (2003) Jack of Spades, by Joyce Carol Oates (2015) The Anthrobscene, by Jussi Parikka (2014) Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, by Paul Schrader (1972) EcoGothic, edited by Andrew Smith and William Hughes (2013) The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies, by Clark Ashton Smith (2014) Motley Stones, by Adalbert Stifter (1853) Marriages, by Peter Straub (1973) Koko, by Peter Straub (1988) Sides, by Peter Straub (2007) After Life, by Eugene Thacker (2010) Fear and Nature: Ecohorror Studies in the Anthropocene, edited by Christy Tidwell and Carter Soles (2021) A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None, by Kathryn Yusoff (2018)
I’m selling signed copies of all my books (limited; while supplies last)! I can take payment through PayPal or e-transfer. Email mikethorn@live.com if interested. Prices (including shipping):
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“A list of favorite books is always more a snapshot of a moment in time than it is some unmoving, monumental thing: if you asked me to assemble this list ten years ago, it would look a lot different, and undoubtedly it will continue shifting as I continue aging and reading and aging and reading.”
“It might seem strange to assemble a list of the 21st century’s best books as early as 2021, given that less than a quarter of the century has passed. However, from 2000 onward, I made my biggest personal strides, both as a writer and as a reader.”
“The writing was excellent – the author fits multiple layers to the story while making Mark a sympathetic character, despite being the weird and aggressive kid in class. I couldn’t wait to find out where the story was heading and was satisfied with the ending.”
Mike Thorn 