Issue 050: Fifty Issues of Hatching Escapes
Scary reads for summer; Locke & Keynote; 15th Anniversary; saying more by saying less
The Big 5-0
Oh, hey there. It’s me again.
I’m smiling in the above photograph because I just realized we’ve made it to fifty issues of this occasional newsletter. My thanks to you for checking in and checking it out, whether you just subscribed, or you’ve been here since the beginning. I hope you’ve been having some fun with it. I know I have. If you’re hip to anyone who might enjoy it, pass it along and see if they want to join us?
These are distracted, exhausting days for a lot of us. Too much noise, too much input. Too much news to process; too much heartbreak to absorb; too much social media (and all of it bad); too much to watch, too much to read; too many newsletters jammed full of too many words. Strange days, strange weather, and everything running at full throttle all the time.
I know how crazy it is. I know how many demands there are on your attention. It’s just the same for me.
One thing I can do to help is keep the newsletter lean and mean. There’s something to the idea of saying more by saying less. Escape Hatch should be a nice thing to find in your in-box; and it oughtn’t impose on your time a moment longer than necessary.
That impulse to say more by saying less goes beyond the newsletter. It’s a refinement of some ideas I’ve been thinking for a while. The thing I want to do most over the next decade is produce a steady stream of novels, novellas, and short stories - a book a year, beginning with King Sorrow. It came to me that I want to speak to people through that work, not social media, which is why I’ve gone silent on all of the various services (my web elf looks after them and posts the occasional promotional note). For me, at least, there’s a richer creative life to be had by narrowing my focus and avoiding the busy, buzzy distractions of the online world. And when I’ve accumulated a few things worth sharing, our Escape Hatch is always right here.
Six to Shock
Ayesha Roscoe of NPR called me up to ask if I could recommend a few scary summer reads. I could. Check it out to discover half a dozen books guaranteed to make it hard for you to sleep.
Locke & Keynote
I was invited to Denmark this summer, to deliver a keynote address to the Third Annual Workshop on Recreational Fear, hosted by Aarhus University. I felt the occasion — speaking to a small scholarly audience at an academic conference — demanded something a little different than my usual schtick. I wound up delivering comments on my life in the fear business: how I wound up writing horror and my approach to the craft of scaring the shit out of people. It was inevitably a bit more autobiographical than my usual thing (and also more formal). But if you’re curious about what I think makes the genre tick, here’s the keynote in full.
My thanks to Professor Mathias Clasen for inviting me to the party and for his gracious words of introduction. Mathias has done some of the best writing about the horror genre of anyone anywhere. His asides here offer just a glimpse of the insights and intelligence to be found in his book, Why Horror Seduces: “Forget about opposable thumbs… imagination… that’s what has probably allowed us to achieve global dominance as a species.”
All that said, would you believe none of these Ph.D.’s in horror believe in ghosts??? WTF, guys? You carry on with your scientific skepticism, see how that works out when The Gaunt Man is crawling across your ceiling at three AM, mouth open and dripping, eyes a blind creamy red, straining from their sockets with madness.
I Always Knew This Would Come to a Bad End
So this just came out, when I wasn’t paying attention: the fifteenth anniversary issue of Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft #1. That very first issue of Locke & Key is now nearly old enough to drive and how about that?
We thought readers might want something fresh for this latest reprint, so Chris Ryall dug out a two-page script I wrote a few years back, titled “Locke & Key: Only Bad,” and Gabe drew it, and now you can see our alternate (and very abrupt) ending for the series. I’m so, so sorry.
Did you know superstar editor and writer Chris Ryall has his own Substack?
Jacksonville Library
I’m in Jacksonville on September 23rd for a Q&A and a signing and, I think, a class the following day on writing from different points-of-view1. Details here. The Jacksonville Library does some legendary events and it was awfully kind of them to invite me down.
The Chief will now partake of your adulation and unstinting praise.
Okay, maybe a dog photo isn’t exactly in the spirit of keeping the newsletter lean and mean, but on the other hand — eeeeeeeeeeeee! — look at him. Who’s a good boy? He’s a good boy! Such a good boy!
You’re a good ‘un too for hanging out with me and letting me yawp at you. Catch you again soon?
I sound real sure of myself, don’t I?
Joe. The idea of having a new novel and/or short story from you every year gives me so much excitement I can barely type this message! New books are always great but a new Hill novel is something I look forward to with such joy! Keep up the great work man!
Very excited for more books from you. Your books are very difficult to purchase from New Zealand and it would be great if we could buy them here... Although I have to say it has been fun trying to track them each down online from somewhere that would ship to NZ. I finally managed to find a copy of Heart-Shaped Box which is now making its way to New Zealand and will mean in have finally managed to track down all of your novels in Hardback. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it actually comes with a dust jacket. Love your work.