One more tale added to STRANGE DARK ONE

I remember'd that I had one other tale that touches on the myth of Nyarlathotep, "Past the Gate of Deepest Slumber." I consider it one of my weakest stories, although it got an honorable mention from Datlow, and never intended it to be reprinted. Thinking over it again, I saw how I could incorporate into it some of my new ideas concerning Sesqua Valley. In "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," Lovecraft mentions that there are two places where the forest of the Dreamlands touches the earth of our mundane reality. I decided that one of those two places will be within ye haunted woodland of Sesqua Valley, and I touched on this lightly in my new 14,000 word novelette, "The Strange Dark One." I rewrote this other story, renaming it "Past the Gates of Deepest Dreaming," and incorporated a scene in which one of the characters, a woman who is a combination of Sesqua's shadow and the elements of Dreamland, enters into the forest of the Dreamlands and has a wee chat with one aspect of Nyarlathotep. Don't know if it works, but I think it has helped to make a boring story more interesting. The revision came to 7,330 words, so it is a substantial addition to my book of tales of Nyarlathotep. The book will be entirely illustrated by the wonderful Jeffrey Thomas.

Spent all of Saturday with S. T. Joshi and his wife and another rad pal, and it was quite delightful. We went to this forest park that had this one place where there were all of these tree stumps and fallen trees, it looked like something out of Lovecraft, or Sesqua Valley. There was also this amazing green swamp, before which S. T. and I posed for a photo that will hopefully be on the back of my next Hippocampus book -- ye author & ye editor. We visited the house where I used to visit with H. Warner Munn thirty years ago, and then we met Laird Barron and his beautiful & charming wife at Olive Garden, where S. T. presented us with our copies of the traycase edition of BLACK WINGS, which is simply stunning. Laird presented S. T. and I with sign'd copies of his new collection from Night Shade Books, OCCULTATION, which is one of the most magnificent collections I have ever read, an amazing book. Laird is still struggling with the writing of his novel, of which he has about two-thirds completed. The novel will be published next year by Night Shade Books.

S. T. would like me to turn in my next collection for Hippocampus by year's end so that they can try to publish it next year. Most of what I want to write for it are many many wee prose poems, very strange things some of which I have posted here; but I also have that lunatic idea that I am going to write a 20,000 word semi-sequel to "The Dunwich Horror." The book will have as its contents material that is mostly non-Lovecraftian, so I want one huge chunk of writing that is Lovecraftian to ye core. Lots of work to do, thus I am away.