Hi, just wanted to note that I have a Christmas horror story in the new holiday horror anthology Halldark Holidays, published by Cemetery Gates Media and edited by Gabino Iglesias. My story is called “A Wail of a Christmas.”
You can find the anthology here. It’s got lots of horror superstars like Brian Keene, Bev Vincent, Cina Pelayo, and many more! I’m really pleased to be part of this anthology.
Hi, I just wanted to note that I have a flash horror story “Uninvited”, that will be in the upcoming Halloween anthology Scary Snippets, to be released on October 25. You can find more info here. Happy reading, and Happy Halloween!
Hey, I submitted this lil horror story to a contest awhile back and had actually forgotten about it. I came across it again and thought I may as well share it. It’s a short one but I had fun with it. Here’s Doubled Over.
Hope people are enjoying their holidays! Just wanted to announce that I have a short dark fantasy poem called “Stolen” in the anthology “Darkling’s Beasts and Brews: Poetry with a Drink on the Side”. It’s now available for order on Amazon. You can check it out here.
Thought I’d share an article I wrote awhile back on Alfred Lord Tennyson and his father George Clayton Tennyson. Though Dr. Tennyson died while Alfred was still a young man, he had a big impact on Alfred’s life and personality.
You can read more here
Heya, since it’s Halloween tomorrow, I thought it might be good to share my favorite published short story of mine, “She Makes Them Stiff,” published by The Flash Fiction Press. You can check it out here. Enjoy!
Since it’s that time of year again, I thought I’d share a podcast version of my short story “Hear Me”, which won Feed Your Monster’s Halloween story contest last year. The story was read out by Bill Derwent. It was the first time I’ve had a story of mine done in audio, so that was pretty fun. Enjoy: http://rinoacameron.libsyn.com/website/halloween-special-from-feed-your-monster
I’m a day late, but I wanted to post something in acknowledgment of the anniversary of Poe’s death. He died October 7, 1849. As a fan of bothPoe and Tennyson, I always found it very slightly eerie that Tennyson and Poe’s death days were just 1 day (and several years) apart. So I thought I’d share this short article that I wrote ages ago, but it still stands up I think. Enjoy.
Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Tennyson never met, but were firm allies. Poe defended Tennyson from plagiarists, while Tennyson saw Poe as an American genius.
Alfred Tennyson was not especially appreciated outside of England in the 1830s and 1840s, but Edgar Allan Poe was one of the first American writers and critics to praise his poetry. Poe lamented that not enough people recognized Tennyson’s talents. While Poe was nearly savage in his treatment of other writers, he said hardly a negative word about Tennyson.
Poe once said, “I am not sure that Tennyson is not the greatest of poets.” This was spoken during a time when not many American reviewers were interested in Tennyson. John Olin Eidson noted in Tennyson in America, that Poe never faltered in his support of Tennyson as a great writer, and encouraged others to read his works even while he struggled to get his own poems and stories read.
Poe vigorously defended Tennyson in publications that he wrote for, and called out other authors, particularly Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, for supposedly plagiarizing Tennyson’s poems. Poe compared Tennyson’s “The Death of the Old Year” and Longfellow’s “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year” and claimed Longfellow took ideas and concepts from Tennyson’s poem.
Eidson points out that Poe may have plagiarized from Tennyson’s poem “The Deserted House” for his own poem “The Haunted Palace.” The publication Foreign Quarterly Review compared the two poems and said Poe’s work was Tennysonian, which troubled Poe thereafter.
Tennyson for his part returned the other writer’s sentiments, though perhaps not as frequently or steadfastly. But his mutual admiration with Poe no doubt helped the careers of both writers.
The Poet Laureate was not overly fond of many American authors, but Poe was an exception. He reportedly called Poe “the most original genius that America has produced,” according to Peter Ackroyd in his book Poe: A Life Cut Short. This is a high compliment from a man who preferred to have praise directed at himself rather than others.
Apart from his estimation of Poe as one of the best American writers, Tennyson noted to an American visitor that the one thing he would have liked to see in the United States was Poe’s grave. He also wrote a laudatory four lines for Poe after his death, in which he lamented the briefness of Poe’s time on earth, and the ridicule he’d received.
Though they were not friends, and never even met, Poe and Tennyson had an unexpected yet not surprising connection as writers. Poe helped Tennyson’s reputation in America, and Tennyson acknowledged Poe’s greatness when there were still some who said scathing things about the man, rather than acknowledging him for his great works. Though it was not a friendship, it worked for both writers.
On this day in 1892, Alfred Lord Tennyson took his last breath. He is estimated to have died from a short illness at around 1:30 a.m., at his home, Aldworth, in Haslemere, Surrey. He was 83 years old.
One of his own favorite poems was “Crossing the Bar,” which he requested to be placed at the end of each of his future anthologies. It seems fitting to post it here.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
Now for something a little different. This is Tennyson-related, one of the three (or so) things I talk about on this blog. One aspect of Tennyson’s life that I’ll always find fascinating is his friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam. They met at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1829, and remained firm friends until Hallam’s tragic death of a brain hemorrhage at age 22, OTD in 1833. As a long-time Tennyson fan and independent scholar, I just wanted to acknowledge the anniversary of his death.
Hallam inspired several of Tennyson’s poems, including In Memoriam, the one that earned him the title of Poet Laureate in 1850.
The wikipedia article on his life is actually pretty decent, if you want to read further.
