Category: my nonfiction

Nonfiction Update: I’ve Got a New Home

On By Ryan HarveyIn Announcements, my nonfiction

In September I announced that the Perilous Worlds project was done, and all my posts for them had vanished (temporarily) into the ether. I also hinted that our blogging crew might emerge at another website, and now it’s happened: I’m blogging as part of the web-presence for the magazine Tales From the Magician’s Skull at the Goodman Games website. I already had a relationship with Magician’s Skull because my friend Howard Andrew Jones edits it and my story “Dead Queen’s Triumph” appeared in the April issue.

My first article at Goodman Games is already live, a Halloween-themed look at the “weird menace” pulps and Robert E. Howard’s brief foray into this gory and bizarre corner of pulp history. This was one of the articles I had written for Perilous Worlds that dropped into limbo before it could be published, so I’m happy to see it crawl up from the lower depths to plague the world this October with grotesque mad science and deformity.

I believe some of my articles previously published at Perilous Worlds will resurface at Goodman Games, so I’m going to hold off on my earlier plans to post them on this blog. The future for this project is still coming into focus, but I’m glad to have a new home for my nonfiction.

A Nonfiction Writing Update

On By Ryan HarveyIn Announcements, my nonfiction

My writing life isn’t entirely focused on the arrival of Turn Over the Moon in November. Some shifts have occurred in my nonfiction work. Most of my recent nonfiction has been for this blog—and I wish I had more time to dedicate to making the stream of new articles into a steady one. But I do have some updates about my nonfiction articles; some is not new, but it is something I haven’t discussed until now.

In 2018, which was five hundred years ago as measured in pandemic time, I made the exciting announcement that I was writing articles for a new website, Perilous Worlds, the official web presence of the company that owns author Robert E. Howard’s characters, such as Conan and Solomon Kane. It was not only an important outlet, it was a paying outlet, something I’m not used to when it comes to my nonfiction. Thrilling news, and I launched into the assignment with the aim to write the finest, most professional, most entertaining articles I could.

The endeavor lasted six months. 

Continue reading “A Nonfiction Writing Update” →

Check Out My New Edgar Rice Burroughs Article

On By Ryan HarveyIn my nonfiction
edgar-rice-burroughs

Hello there, 2019! I had hoped to get something posted a bit earlier, possibly filled with definitive statements about the year to come (i.e. making stuff up), but it’s already been an extraordinarily busy year for me so far. Perilous Worlds is starting to ramp up, and soon you can expect around an article a week from me on the site.

My newest article for Perilous Worlds is up now, the first one they’ve posted since the site opened in October: it’s a short examination of the history of the pulps using Edgar Rice Burroughs as a focus. (Update: the original Perilous Worlds site has sunken into the Styx, along with my articles. I’ll repost them here and update the link.)

ERB was one of the reasons the pulp medium grew the way it did. I’m pleased with how the article came out, since it is no simple task to compress the history of the pulps into under a thousand words. Perilous Worlds is teaching me important lessons on concision! Two more articles are finished and waiting in the wings, and I’m finishing up a new one this weekend, a little visit to The Worm Ouroboros. I also recently delivered an article on The Hour of the Dragon to Black Gate as part of a round-robin project on all of the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. That won’t end up posted for a few months, however.

My First Perilous Worlds Articles Are Live

On By Ryan HarveyIn my nonfiction
wallup.net

Update: The original Perilous Worlds website no longer exists. I am going to repost these articles on the blog and will link to them from here as they go live. Currently, the Leigh Brackett article is on Goodman Games.

My first three articles for Perilous Worlds, the new publishing imprint and website, are now live. Presenting, for your enjoyment:

  • “Inside a Song” A Plea the Read The Silmarillion – The Silmarillion is the third stool leg of the J. R. R. Tolkien’s classics—but many people are still afraid to give it a shot. Here’s why The Silmarillion is worth your time.
  • The Hour of the Dragon Welcomes You to the Hyborian Age –Interested in reading the Conan stories by their original author, Robert E. Howard? Start with Howard’s only Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon.
  • Leigh Brackett: Planetary Romantic – Leigh Brackett broke ground as a woman in male-dominated field of 1940s science-fiction. She also pioneered a type of space adventure that still dominates pop culture.