Loren Rhoads's Blog
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May.31.2011
I intend to submit another book this week, before my daughter gets out of school for the summer. Of course, today she stayed home with laryngitis, so I've been busy running for more chicken noodle soup, another glass of water, or to change the channel on the TV. It's hard to juggle being a writer...
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May.26.2011
Memento Mori by Bohdan Chlibec My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Mason bought me this beautiful book at the Franz Kafka Bookstore on the Old Town Square in Prague. It’s listed on Amazon.com for $140, but let me tell you, this is one beautiful book!
Memento Mori focuses solely on the Sedlec ossuary outside...
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May.16.2011
When cleaning the garage, I found some less-than-perfect copies of the out-of-print issues Morbid Curiosity #4 and #5. I'd be glad to sell them for $2 each plus postage.
Want to complete your collection? Email me at morbid at charnel dot com and I'll calculate postage for you.
I still have copies...
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May.13.2011
I met a friend for coffee yesterday. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of months, but he’s settled into being unemployed now and had some time to get out of the house.
We met 20 years ago, when I discovered he was an amazing poet. Since then, we’ve founded a couple of writing groups together...
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May.12.2011
It’s hard to narrow it down to my favorite science fiction story. My first inclination is, of course, to name Star Wars -- by which I mean the original movie, which came out when I was 14. I was overwhelmed, absorbed, and inspired by that movie, to the point that nothing that followed could...
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May.10.2011
Corpses, Coffins and Crypts: A History Of Burial by Penny Colman My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Although this book is a Junior Library Guild Selection—meaning that the text is written at a level suitable for children—the chapter headings seemed intriguing (Defining Death, Understanding Death, What...
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May.06.2011
I published my first zine while I was in college. It collected original fiction and poetry written by my high school friends. I didn't have any idea what I was doing, but the process was insructive. We sold a couple of copies to our friends, then sold a few more through a local record store. In...
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Apr.28.2011
I have an issue with caves. I think it comes from touring a cave with my parents as a child. I'd been fascinated by the formations, the stalagtites, the waterfalls of stone. And then they turned the lights off, just to prove how dark a cave could be. That darkness haunts me.
I've been caving...
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Apr.22.2011
One of the things that really freaked me out as I read “Dead Men Do Tell Tales” was the chapter on the forensic study of insects. I remember sitting hunched on the L Taraval streetcar, reading about the bugs that come in clockwork order to feast on the unburied dead. The memory is so strong that...
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Apr.17.2011
Round-Trip to Deadsville: A Year in the Funeral Underground by Tim Matson My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Tim Matson had written on Earth Ponds and Pilobolus, but in middle age, he began to suffer anxiety about the end of his existence. The first thing that offered relief was a photograph of George “...
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Apr.14.2011
I am so proud of my friend Jeff for taking part in this: http://youtu.be/iWYqsaJk_U8
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Apr.14.2011
Country Churchyards by Eudora Welty My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a charming little book this is! It contains 90 black-and-white photographs, snapped by the grand dame of Southern literature in Mississippi churchyards during in the 1930s and 40s. “Mississippi,” she said, “had no art except...
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Apr.07.2011
One thing people always ask -- when they find out I live in San Francisco -- is “Aren’t you afraid of earthquakes?” Of course I am. But I was here for the 7.2 in 1989, which has given me endless enjoyment in retrospect. How many people can tell stories about living through natural disasters?...
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Apr.05.2011
Sentimental Jewellery by Ann L. Luthi My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This little booklet is a treasure. I only needed to crack the cover and come upon the title page, with its illustration of seven exquisite hair broaches and pendants, to fall in love.
What’s a hair broach? In the 19th century, a whole...
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Apr.04.2011
Recently I've been obsessed with uploading all the book reviews I wrote for Morbid Curiosity over the years. Working for the magazine exposed me to some amazing books on a variety of dark subjects. I miss getting books in the mail, but I don't really miss the pressure to read them on a deadline...
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Curiosity is the single most important attribute with which humans are born. Curiosity is a powerful tool, like a scalpel or a searchlight. It is a way to affect change -- even to initiate global change -- on a personal level.”
—Loren's introduction to Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues
About Loren
For 10 years, I edited the nonfiction magazine Morbid Curiosity. Scribner published Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues in 2009. Now I'm blogging about graveyards as travel destinations at Cemetery Travel (http://cemeterytravel.com). A collection of my cemetery...
Connections
Causes Loren Rhoads Supports
Clarion Write-a-Thon
Nanowrimo
Loren’s Favorite Books
Tinker at Pilgrim Creek, A Natural History of the Senses, How We Die, Something Wicked This Way Comes, American Gods, The Bloody Chamber, Owls Hoot in the...
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