J.W. Donley

Category: Reading

  • A Return to the Dark Tower – Revisiting My Friends from the Ka-tet of Nineteen

    A Return to the Dark Tower – Revisiting My Friends from the Ka-tet of Nineteen

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    I first read The Gunslinger way back in my college years. It was a strange experience. I’d yet to read any Stephen King at that point. I’d read Lord of the Rings a few times plus some classic science fiction (plus the stuff they force-fed us back in AP English, but I don’t count that).…

  • Five Stories Ya Gotta Read – June 2020

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    This is the start of a brand-new series of blog posts. Each month I will share with you five stories that I’ve read recently that you should look into. ‘Wilderness’ by Letitia Trent from Exigencies ed. Richard Thomas Recently I took a course on contemporary dark fiction, and this is the first short story we…

  • Five Stories Ya Gotta Read – July 2020

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    It’s time for another Five Stories Ya Gotta Read! ‘Rust and Bones’ by Craig Davidson from The New Black ed. Richard Thomas. This was my very first read of anything by Craig Davidson. It is the vivid story of a broken boxer’s life. You feel every bone crunching punch and the blood spray from head…

  • What I Learned from Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

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    This book blew my mind the first time I read it. I finished the whole thing while on flights for work in December of 2019. I’d never read anything quite like it. Warning: minor spoilers ahead. Before reading this book, I was convinced that there was an unspoken law that authors were not allowed to…

  • 20 Short Stories That Inform and Influence My Fiction

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    Occasionally, someone will ask me what stories and authors influence my writing. That is a difficult question. Really, everything a writer reads in some way influences our writing. It all pushes or pulls our work in some direction. When I read a story that doesn’t work for me, I learn that I should not attempt…

  • Lessons Learned from Josh Malerman’s Bird Box – An Essay

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    The first time I attempted to read Bird Box I did not like it. I made it only a couple chapters in, and the thriller style pacing turned me off. Over the months, the story bugged me until I picked it back up. That time I finished the full story and loved it. But, for…

  • Joe’s Favorite Books of 2019

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    Purposefully, I kept my reading goal lower this year. I wanted to focus on reading for quality instead of for quantity. That said, I hit my Goodreads goal of 50 books last week, as opposed to my goal of 75 for 2018. I would love to shoot for 100 books in a year, but I…

  • Joe Reviews: Blood Standard by Laird Barron

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    I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned sometime in the past that Laird Barron is one my favorite authors. He’s up there in my top five, fighting for the number one spot with Livia Llewllyn, China Mielville, Clive Barker, and Thomas Ligotti.I was leery of reading something not cosmic horror by Mr. Barron. Everyone else in…

  • Joe Reviews: The Secret Name by Eve Harms

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    Howdy! How are all of y’all doing out there on the interwebs? I hope well.I’m doing great! Do you know why?Because I had the pleasure of reading The Secret Name by Eve Harms!”Haven’t heard of it”, you say. Well, let me fill you in.If you’re like me and love libraries and stories involving demonic possession,…

  • Podcasts for Horror Readers and Writers

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    For this week’s blog post I thought that I would let you all in on a little secret. I’m going to share my favorite podcasts for horror readers and writers. This is Horror First up, we have This Is Horror. This is, by far, my absolute favorite podcast. I am a paying patron and highly…