The Outer Dark Reception Party – Next Wave of The Weird: Readings from Rising Authors

Participants/readers: Melanie Crew, Richard Gerlach, H.Y. Hsu, Jess Lewis, Joanna Roye, Rosalynde Vas Dias. Moderator/Host: Anya Martin.

Reading from “As the Crow Flies”

Deterministic Landscapes: The Role of Psychogeography in Weird Fiction

Panelists: F. Brett Cox (M), Julie C. Day, Craig Gidney, Jess Lewis, Henry Ward, Heinrich Wilke

In literary criticism, psychogeography explores how the physical environment impacts the mind and behavior of the individual. The claustrophobic density of the city, the homogeneity of suburban developments, the vast isolation of the deep woods, Antarctic ice, or open ocean. What horrors emerge when we make a wrong turn or enter an unfamiliar environment? What madness follows when we attempt to exist in places not meant for human occupation? Our panelists discuss the role of place as a driver of psychology and narrative in weird film and literature.

From Ambergris to Yuggoth: The Fungus Among Us

Panelists: Rick Claypool, Nicholas Kaufmann, Jess Lewis, Eric Schaller (M), Douglas Wynne

Mind control. Bodily infiltration. Altered states of consciousness. Zombification. Encounters with truly alien species. Fungal horrors abound in weird fiction and film. Our panelists take us on a tour of the strange world of spores, fruiting bodies, and vast clonal colonies, the symbiotes and parasites, toxins and pathogens, that have always occupied an important place in the annals of the weird. A little Mycology and a lot of fiction are on your plate.