S. T. chats with Mike Davis

Things here go very slowly and strangely since my mother's death on the 22nd.  It's not just the grieving process.  For the past five years I have lived with her as her live-in caregiver, and the past two years she was unable to stand or walk on her own and was confined to a wheelchair, which made taking care of her an intense job and one that posed problems to my own health, due to my congestive heart failure.  But ever since we placed her into an adult residence, where she obtained superb care, life in this house, her house, has felt weird and keenly lonesome.  I shall be 62 in May--and this is the first time in my entire life when I have felt the freedom to live my life exactly as I wish to, something my soul has ached for.  But to live such a life brings a great responsibility, and I am finding it all a challenge.  I used to joke about my parents, complaining that they had no life--"all they want to do is stay home."  Now, all I want to do is stay home, reading and writing.

Writing goes well yet very very slowly.  I'm working on a new Mythos tale for an anthology I've been invited to write for.  The invitations to submit to anthologies has increased dramatically, and last year I wrote for quite a number of forthcoming titles.  I have no real need to work on books of my own, as I have written too many in too short a time, and I'm feeling burned out.  I'll have a new book out late this month, and another late next month, both expensive limited edition hardcovers.  It's time to take a break, and at the moment I have no desire to have a new book of my own released in 2014.  I have a number of collections I want to work on, but I will do so slowly.  I want to relax and just take it easy.  I want to experience growing old.

One book that I am excited about is a second omnibus of my work, hopefully to be publish'd by Centipede Press three or four years from now.  I intent to make this the finest of all my books, and plan on writing a number of significant things that will see their first publication therein, including my wee Derlethian novel inspired by The Lurker at the Threshold.  The book will also reprint Some Unknown Gulf of Night, in its heavily revised version.  I am determined to take my time working on this title and write for it the very best original work that I can create.  I want the book to be magnificent, as far as I am able to make it.

So, there's lots of stuff to do.  I'm looking forward to attending the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in May, in Portland at the Hollywood Theatre.  And then, in August, is that wondrous event -- Necronomicon 2013!!  Oh!  That is going to be fabulous!