Akin to Poetry

Those of you who have the stamina to follow these mudgeonries on a long-term basis, or who are shifty-eyed enough to glance at the sidebar now and then, may possibly be aware of my occasional forays into literary criticism. Over the past few years, eight articles of mine on stories by the remarkable English author Robert Aickman have appeared in various venues, and all eight have now been collected in a chapbook to be published by Gary Crawford's Gothic Press in May. I have revised all the pieces, in some cases quite extensively, and hopefully they now contain fewer errors than before. Although some of the publications in which the originals appeared had ISBNs, this will be the first book of mine to have an ISBN of its own, which is a somewhat thrilling prospect.

The chapbook's title, derived from Aickman's own expressed idea of what a weird tale ought to be, is Akin to Poetry: Observations on Some Strange Tales of Robert Aickman. Since it has not yet appeared, I have thus far managed to keep myself from googling it more than once every few minutes. Further news on the matter will be relayed promptly, and in all probability tiresomely, as it develops.