TOD A04 John Langan: Aspiring to Restlessness and The Times They Are a-Fishin’

In this archival podcast Scott Nicolay interviews John Langan, author of The Fisherman (WordHorde), The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies (Hippocampus), and more. It was recorded on July 13, 2015 and originally aired on July 14, 2015. This broadcast also includes bonus new content featuring a follow-up interview with John and News from the Weird with Michael Griffin.

Show Notes

John Langan discusses Readercon, the creation of the Shirley Jackson Awards and that award’s intimate connection to the Weird Renaissance, his upcoming third collection Sefira and Other Betrayals (Hippocampus Press) and second novel The Fisherman, reinventing classic monsters for the 21st century from vampires to Frankenstein to Godzilla, the importance of Jeffrey and Scott Thomas to The Weird, approaches to narrative and the tricks of his trade, literary models from Henry James to William Faulkner to Peter Straub, why character is key to keeping the cosmic horror worldview interesting, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the importance of reading widely, why the current Weird Lit movement is more exciting than ever, and his current reading recommendations including Laird Barron, Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Tremblay, Molly Tanzer and Helen Marshall.

Bonus New Content: John Langan Returns and the Times They Are a-Fishin’

(1:01:44) In an exclusive new segment, John Langan returns to talk more about the creative process behind The Fisherman which was released to great success in 2016, as well as Michael Griffin’s crystalline prose, WordHorde Publisher Ross Lockhart as a critical risk taker, laying roots in your fiction à la Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie humaine and Faulkner, “knitting it all together” like Kerouac and King, his own nods back to his earlier stories, the disturbing open ends of Clive Barker and the Weird, Aickman’s starts, more Henry James, Terry Lamsley, Ramsey Campbell, Adam Nevill, the challenge of Weird horror in novel form, a literary spirit of experimentalism, hooking into Peter Straub’s A Dark Matter, a change in plans for his third collection to 2017 including the opportunity for more new material, what else he’s up to fiction-wise, reviewing for Locus Magazine, and his current reading recommendations including Laird Barron’s collection/mosaic novel Swift to Chase, Damien Angelica Walters, S.P. Miskowski, Anya Martin, Nicholas Kaufmann, and Daniel Braum.

News from the Weird

(2:01:00) Michael Griffin reviews The Fisherman, and helps Scott report the latest news including his own first novel from JournalStone and a Dim Shores chapbook, major autumn collection and novel releases, more Weird on the publishing horizon, and the Weird winners of the 2016 World Fantasy Awards.