Booklist gave the Occultation collection a starred review:  “In every tale, everything heard and unheard, seen and unseen becomes creepier and creepier. The protagonists try to escape by drinking, drugging, fighting, fucking, even fleeing. Yet it’s doubtful any of their gorgeously scary stories has much of a sequel.”— Ray Olson

Other reviews:

Richard Gavin 

Seattle Post Intelligencer Occultation by Laird Barron

My dear friend Jody Rose Occultation by Laird Barron

Grim Reviews: Grim Reviews: Laird Barron’s Occultation Reviewed

Jakob Schmidt: review 

Risingshadow: review.

Interviews:

Via Charles Tan: The Shirley Jackson Awards interviews Laird Barron.

American Frankenstein: http://americanfrankenstein.blogspot.com/2010/03/first-blood-laird-barron.html

Tripp Ritter: Interview with Laird Barron

Horror Reanimated: Laird Barron: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…

Award Nominations:

“Catch Hell” and “Strappado” made the ballot. These are from Ellen Datlow’s Lovecraft Unbound & Poe anthologies.

Occultation Laird Barron. Night Shade (Diamond, dist.), $24.95 (248p) ISBN 978-1-59780-192-8

“Writing with a poet’s eye for detail and a folklorist’s understanding of mythos, Barron lives up to his reputation for elegant, subtle, and nightmare-inducing tales with a Lovecraftian edge in his second short story collection (after 2007’s The Imago Sequence and Other Stories), which includes six reprints and three original stories. In “The Lagerstätte,” a woman who cannot come to terms with her husband’s loss clings to an occult artifact said to reunite lovers whom death has separated. A guerrilla art exhibit turns murderous in the taut and bloody “Strappado.” A mysterious guidebook leads four men on a terrifying camping trip in “Mysterium Tremendum.” Heartbreaking, hilarious, sophisticated, and gory, these stories will thrill, trouble, and haunt Barron’s fans and have newcomers scrambling to search for his other work. (June)”

Courtesy Matthew Jaffe:

of FinePrint Literary Management is now representing my work. Happy day!

Ellen has taken my short story ”Strappado” for her Best Horror of the Year 2 anthology due from Night Shade Books this March. “Strappado” originally appeared in Ellen’s Poe anthology around this time last year. Thank you, Ellen.

A quick rundown of stories I have coming out in 2010:

“The Broadsword,” Black Wings, ed S.T. Joshi PS Publishing
“Vastation,” Cthulhu’s Reign, ed. Darrell Schweitzer DAW
“Gula de Saturnus,” Nostradamus’ Fate, ed Joe Morey Dark Regions
“The Redfield Girls,” Haunted Legends, eds Ellen Datlow & Nick Mamatas Tor
“Mysterium Tremendum,” Occultation, ed Jeremy Lassen Night Shade
“–30–,” Occultation, ed Jeremy Lassen Night Shade

Reprints: “Strappado” will appear in Ellen’s anthology and Steve Berman’s Wllde Stories.

I have several other  pieces scheduled for this year, but am waiting on permission to announce them. More later.

More questions with Laird Barron

read the manuscript of Occultation, my upcoming collection from Night Shade, and gave me this quote:

“With sharp prose and wise, original stories, Barron has repeatedly proven himself one of the strongest voices in the field. This collection is a must read.” –Sarah Langan, author of Audrey’s Door.

 Thank you, Sarah. Her latest book is in stores now: Audrey’s Door

Handed in the OCCULTATION manuscript. The original novella ended up entitled Mysterium Tremendum. It’s fairly long — 22k. Just sold a short story called “Vastation” to Darrell Schweitzer for the 2010 DAW anthology Cthulhu’s Reign. It’s actually an anti-Mythos story, but shhhh!

Centipede Press is putting forth a limited (300 copies) edition of Peter Straub’s KOKO. KOKO is one of my favorite novels and I was honored to write the afterword for this edition. It’s signed by Straub, illustrator Howie Michaels, and yours truly. I don’t know if Centipede is taking pre orders directly, but I note it’s listed on Amazon as an early 2010 release.

PW gave Ellen Datlow’s Lovecraft Unbound a starred review. From the review:

“The 16 new and four reprint stories…all capture what Dale Bailey praises as horror master H.P. Lovecraft’s gift for depicting the universe as “inconceivably more vast, strange, and terrifying than mere human beings can possibly imagine.” Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud, in “The Crevasse,” evoke this alien sensibility through an Antarctic expedition’s glimpses of an astonishingly ancient prehuman civilization preserved in the polar ice. Laird Barron’s “Catch Hell” depicts a Lovecraft-type backwoods community in the grip of a profoundly creepy occult mythology.”  –PW