Given the current global financial apocalypse I assume that most of you are now eating shoe leather for dinner, wailing yourselves to sleep in damp & draughty cardboard boxes, and shaking your sore-encrusted fists at an indifferent god. While I can't guarantee that the following cheap/free bits 'n' bobs will rouse you from your wretched misery, they may provide some small crumbs of comfort.

1) A Ghostly Genre: Short Fiction and the Supernatural.

From some of the same team of mad geniuses who brought us "It Came from the 1950s: Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties" comes "A Ghostly Genre: Short Fiction and the Supernatural". Taking place in the august surrounds of Trinity College Dublin this coming weekend (24-25 October), the conference features tasty talks on Robert Aickman, Sheridan Le Fanu, Henry James, M. R. James, Edith Wharton and many more besides. Yummy.

It's the closest thing to "Dreadful Thoughts: The Conference" we're ever likely to see, so I encourage (nay, demand) attendance…even though I can't (alas) make it myself. Pester Bernice or Elizabeth at this address for more info (tell 'em I sent you).

2) Wordsworth Editions – Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural.

I gleefully spat in the pinched and mean face of the recession today by purchasing six books. On my meagre wage that may (at first glance) seem the foolhardy extravagance of a doomed man, but look closer. The volumes in question – part of Wordsworth's groovy "Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural" series – all clock in at well under €4.00. Thrift and classic horror – together at last.

While it is (of course) a giddy joy to be able to pick up the collected stories of renowned authors (Conan Doyle, Henry James, Ambrose Bierce etc) for a modest fee, I get even more of a kick out of snapping up lesser-known delights. Today, for example, I got my mitts on Night Shivers: The Ghost Stories of J. H. Riddell and H. D. Everett's The Crimson Blind & Other Stories. Two relatively obscure gems, with funky covers, for the price of a bog-standard lunch. How can you refuse…even if the bailiffs are kicking down the door?

3) Dreadful Thoughts: Where Do We Go From Here?

Last Monday's meeting of the story club witnessed sad and raggedy clumps of tumbleweed blow through the blog. Numbers were down. Spirits were low. Your host was deflated.

However, with the passing of a week (and the buying of the aforementioned books) a sense of reinvigoration and renewal is in the air. "Damn it", thought I the other day, "There are still so many nooks & crannies of horror to explore and discuss. Without this damn'd club I'll stop reading these lovely, lonely tales and move on to something else." I don't want to do that just yet. For one thing, it wouldn't be fair to J. H. Riddell.

And so…I ask you. Does enthusiasm for, and interest in, the project still remain? Would changing times and days make a difference in terms of gathering people simultaneously together? Are there any changes to the (low-tech) format that might jazz proceedings up?

I'm still (almost in spite of myself) feeling the love for Dreadful Thoughts. With Halloween rapidly approaching it's an apt time to ask – "Is there life in the old dog yet?".

P.S: Don't forget. It's completely free.

Welcome ye night wanderers, ye fumblers in the deep & fear-filled dark. Welcome to the fourth instalment of the interweb's dreadfulest story club.

On the menu (Mmm…) tonight – Edith Wharton's shaggy ghost-dog story "Kerfol".

Though, like many of her contemporaries, Wharton was of the opinion that certain aspects of modernity have proven disagreeable to ghosts (and "the ghostly"), she doesn't wholeheartedly embrace the commonly articulated view (attributed by her to Osbert Sitwell) that "ghosts went out when electricity came in":

"What drives ghosts away is not the aspidistra or the electric cooker; I can imagine them more wistfully haunting a mean house in a dull street than the battlemented castle with its boring stage properties."¹

What the ghost really needs, she tells us, is "not echoing passages and hidden doors behind tapestry, but only continuity and silence". For "where a ghost has once appeared it seems to hanker to appear again; and it obviously prefers the silent hours, when at last the wireless has ceased its jazz".²

This may indeed be true. If it is then it begs questions of our (finished & sequenced) Dreadful Thoughts muxtape. Will the "tape", as I had hoped, add to the spooky atmosphere of our meetings or will it, instead, serve only to deafen the encroaching spirits – driving them scuttling toward the door? Time well tell I suppose – and the latter (potential) result may actually be a bonus depending on the state of your nerves.

But enough. Those of you with club badges – wear 'em. Their mystical properties will either keep you safe from the perils of the otherworld, or damn you for all eternity (I haven't worked out which yet).

Booze (or herbal teas) at the ready? Good…let us begin.

P.S: Club member "Wunderkammer" has created his own dreadful companion to our mixtape. It can be found here. Enjoy.

1. Wharton, Edith The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton (London: Virago, 1996), pg. 3. [back]
2. Ibid. [back]

As the first batch of badges make their way to their (un)lucky owners (and the mixtape continues to grow & mutate satisfactorily), Sinéad has announced details of the tale up for discussion at our next Dreadful Thoughts Story Club meeting -

Edith Wharton's "Kerfol" (html), (pdf)

Go read it, make notes, shine up your club badges and let's all meet back here at 9.00 p.m. on Monday, April 21st.¹

Update 14/04/08: Jess & I have done a bit of WordPress upgrading and "Comments Section" polishing. The very first comment you submit will now be moderated – after that you'll be totally unimpeded (and won't have to mess around with anti-spam words etc).² You now have easy options to format your comments too, plus you've half an hour to go back and edit them, after submission, should you so choose.

Finally, I'm trying to establish a decent "Tags" system on the blog. If you click into an individual post you'll now see "Tags" in the sidebar. This is a work in progress as I'm going to have to go back and re-tag every single post…but it should make the archives easier to navigate when completed. Let me know if you spot any bugs, errors, or general annoyances.

1. Changed from 8.00 pm due to public pressure. [back]
2. This shouldn't be an issue for anyone who's commented before. [back]