Occult Detective Quarterly

ODQ picA story of mine will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Occult Detective Quarterly.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the story features an Occult Detective (one Simon Wake).  My piece will probably be in issue 3 or 4.

About ODQ

Occult Detective Quarterly #1 is lots of fun.  I recommend it highly to the discerning reader.  Go here to get your own copy. 

 

The Occult Detective Genre

If you’ve never heard of the exciting genre or cross-genre that is the world of the Occult Detective (or even if you have),  Tim Prasil (who is, by the way, one of the writers to be found in Occult Detective Quarterly #1) has an excellent chronological history of the Occult Detective genre on his website.  Prasil is both an Occult Detective scholar and an author of Occult Detective Fiction, namely Help for the Haunted, which is a collection of short stories featuring the enigmatic Vera Van Slyke.

An Artificial Artifact Discovered

As some of you know, I make Artificial Artifacts — that is, fake historical documents and ephemera, designed to tell or suggest a story.  This site is full of examples of my own attempts at such storytelling (click on the Artificial Artifacts tab above to view them), but I am especially proud of these.  [read more=”Read more” less=”Read less”] 

Yew Alley (Based on Batty Langley’s New Principles of Gardening, 1728)

Remnant of a Recondite Record (A Chapbook, strangely corrupted by time)
Possession, Poltergeists, and the Servant Problem (A Glossary)
The Kraken (A Captain’s Log)
Guess I Shall Goe Feed Upon Worms (Actually, Hamlet: A Foreword is better, but not as an Artificial Artifact, so… read both?)

Quicklime (An Advertisement)
Evidence (A Lesson from a Correspondence Course on Detection)

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I was very excited to see that John Linwood Grant, one of the editors of Occult Detective Quarterly, appears to go in for Artificial Artifacts as well, in the form of Parish Newsletters from St Botolph-in-the-Wold.  These newsletters are full of sinister suggestions and hints, and I heartily recommend them.

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Congrats on the publication! I hadn’t heard of the occult detective genre, but looking through that list, it makes sense. 😀

    • Melanie Atherton Allen

      Hey Sara! Thanks! The Occult Detective genre is super-fun, and I highly recommend it. I see that you are A to Z-ing this year after a hiatus. Huzzah! You are back! I will read your entries with interest.

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