Til the Last Hemlock Dies

Etiquette By James Robert Smith According to Robert Graves, that nastiest of curses (you know, the one that begins with “f”) is derived from...

When I Worked At That Warehouse. By James Robert Smith We were on the labor crew. on the loading dock. Six of us. All of us either small and...

By Jove By James Robert Smith My father and my uncle Ersley were arguing about the existence of God in 1965 in my uncle’s sweltering beach h...

My dad was always running from something. When I look back on it, that’s what growing up with him was like. He hated the government, religio...

It’s funny how small decisions can make a huge difference down the road. I had the day off and had planned a quick drive up to Pisgah Nation...

Well, they’ smilin’ in yo’ face. All th’ time dey wanna take yo’ place. The animals. All of my pals and relatives know that I have a unique ...

This little fellow is a ghost crab. We encountered one another on my recent vacation as my wife and I sat on a stretch of pristine beach the...

The Arkham House Books anthology that I co-edited with Stephen Mark Rainey is getting closer to publication. I just got the final look at th...

When I was a younger man, I spent many hours per day writing. Sometimes eight to ten hours sitting at my old electric typewriter. It was fun...

I’m a skeptic. And I mean that in the hardest, most adamant terms. For me, the scientific principle holds. If there’s no evidence, I’m not c...

Back in the day, I was doing first reading for Mark Rainey at his late, and very much missed, Deathrealm Magazine . He phoned me one evening...

A few years back I managed to sell a story I had been sending to various editors for almost eighteen years. Yep, you read it right: eighteen...

Some years ago, a pal of mine spent part of a day with a certain best-selling author. They were on a panel together signing autographs and t...

Other writers make me sick. It’s a sad truth. Their work doesn’t necessarily sicken me, (fairly often, alas), but the writers themselves. Th...