[Letters From the Labyrinth] Official Brian Keene Newsletter

I'm Brian Keene, and this is the 139th issue of Letters From the Labyrinth -- a weekly newsletter for fans of my work. Previous issues are archived here.
Here's a writing excerpt from something I'm working on. I posted it to my private, pseudonymous Facebook profile that I only allow friends and family to see. Most of those friends and family liked it. A few did not. Let's see what you think...
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A few words about happiness versus contentment.
Happiness is for the young. Reach the point where you have more sunrises behind you than ahead of you, and happiness is a ghost from your past, as ephemeral as the dreams you had as a child, or the fun you had as a teenager, or the body you had in your twenties, or the hair you had in your thirties. Dreams dissipate. Fun stops. The one that got away doesn't come back. People get fat and out of shape, and their hair does strange things -- retreating or changing color. That wiggly little puppy that licks your face will not stay that way forever. Loved ones die. Health - be it physical, emotional or spiritual - shifts like sand. Changes aren't permanent, but change is. Yes, that's from a Rush song, but it's also the truth. Only the young chase happiness, and they do so only because they haven't yet discovered that the chase will take them all the way into the sunset.
Contentment, then, is for those of us who have figured that out. To make peace with contentment is to make peace with the universe. I am content to watch the sun set, rather than hurtling toward it chasing happiness, or retreating from it in the fear that happiness will elude me.
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One of my more popular fictional characters is the ex-Amish occult detective Levi Stoltzfus, who has appeared in the novels GHOST WALK, A GATHERING OF CROWS, LAST OF THE ALBATWITCHES, CLICKERS VS. ZOMBIES, numerous short stories, and the forthcoming novels INVISIBLE MONSTERS, BAD GROUND, and HOMECOMING (the latter of which will be his final novel).
Although they’ve recently been experiencing a resurgence in popularity (as evidenced by shows like True Detective and a seemingly endless variety of reality-television ghost hunters), occult detectives and paranormal investigators have a long literary tradition in the annals of weird fiction, dating all the way back to 1840, when Henry William Herbert introduced the character of Dirk Ericson to the world, in a novella called “The Haunted Homestead”, which was serialized in The Ladies’ Companion and Literary Expositor.
This was soon followed in 1855 by Fitz-James O’Brien’s character Harry Escott, a specialist detective who investigates supernatural mysteries. Escott first appears in the short story “The Pot of Tulips”. Reader reaction was positive enough to warrant another appearance, in a tale called “What Was It? A Mystery.”
The next one hundred years saw a bevy of similar characters appearing in both novels and short stories, in pulps and literary journals, and blurring the lines between the mystery genre and “weird fiction” (the genre label that was a precursor to today’s categories of horror, fantasy, and science fiction). Oftentimes, these protagonists were medical doctors, psychologists, or learned men and women who either had psychic abilities or were engaged in metaphysical studies. Authors such as Bram Stoker, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Algernon Blackwood, L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace, Rudyard Kipling, William Hope Hodgson, Sax Rohmer, Seabury Quinn, Robert E. Howard, and Manly Wade Wellman gave the world such unforgettable characters as Doctors Martin Hesselius, James Lewis, and Abraham Van Helsing, the palm-reading Diana Marburg, the mysterious Dyson and Mr. Perseus, the cunning John Silence, the equally-crafty John Thunstone, the ghost-finding Carnaki, the two-fisted Steve Harrison and Moris Klaw, and the rustic Silver John (the latter of which my own popular occult detective, the aforementioned Levi Stoltzfus, owes a big nod of inspiration to).
Times (and tastes) changed, and the sub-genre changed with them. Brian Lumley’s Titus Crow and television’s Carl Kolchak ushered in a new era of paranormal investigators. Some of today’s most popular occult detectives, such as Hellblazer’s John Constantine, Fox Mulder of The X-Files, or Steve Niles’ Cal McDonald, are deeply flawed characters who struggle not only with supernatural demons, but very personal demons of their own. For others, such as Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden, F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack, or Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, the supernatural is merely an accepted part of their every-day lives.
Getting back to Levi -- as I said, the character was absolutely inspired by Manly Wade Wellman's John the Balladeer. The character is often referred to as Silver John these days, but that is not a name that Wellman ever liked. He preferred John the Balladeer, or simply John. Indeed, he never gave the character a last name. But the publisher and the marketing folks decided Silver John would work better and the name has kind of stuck.
John practices a fictionalized version of the same Appalachian folk magic I used to watch my great-grandmother practice when I was young. And it's that same form of rustic powow that Levi practices in my novels. The big difference between the two is that Wellman never has John lose his moral code, or his beliefs. Levi, by contrast, is currently having all of his beliefs challenged, and is having to use other forms of magic as a result.
If you like my Levi stories and novels, and you want to read more like them -- or if you just want to check out what I feel is an essential, seminal part of the horror genre's history, then I urge you to read some of Wellman's tales of John.
There are 28 short stories and vignettes and 5 novels. Most are in print. Many are available in audio. I have listed them below, so if you are browsing "complete" collections on Amazon, refer back to this list to see if the volume you're looking at has them all.
NOVELS:
The Old Gods Waken
After Dark
The Lost and Lurking
The Hanging Stones
Voice of the Mountain
SHORT STORIES:
"O Ugly Bird"
"The Desrick on Yandro"
"Vandy, Vandy"
"One Other"
"Call Me From the Valley"
"The Little Black Train"
"Shiver in the Pines"
"Walk Like A Mountain"
"On the Hills and Everywhere"
"Old Devlins Was A-Waitin'"
"Nine Yards of Other Cloth"
"Trill Coster's Burden"
"The Spring"
"Owls Hoot in the Daytime"
"Can These Bones Live?"
"Nobody Ever Goes There"
"Where Did She Wander?"
"John's My Name"
"Why They're Named That"
"None Wiser For The Trip"
"Nary Spell"
"Then I Wasn't Alone"
"You Know The Tale of Hoph"
"Blue Monkey"
"The Stars Down There"
"Find The Place Yourself"
"I Can't Claim That"
"Who Else Could I Count On?

If everything is working properly, you should see an image above for the premiere and screening party of the new Joe R. Lansdale documentary ALL HAIL THE POPCORN KING taking place at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas. The Lansdale family have been very good to me and mine over the years. I think of them as kin. I'll be at the premiere and the party and I'd be delighted if all of you could be, as well, because it will be a less formal setting than a convention or a book signing which means we can hang out.
I've got a discount code for subscribers to this newsletter. So when you order your tickets, use discount code AstroRegular for $10 off. Click here to get your tickets. It absolutely WILL sell out.
I was the first guest on Max Booth's new inaugural podcast GHOULISH, which is a parody of other horror podcasts. Think of it as The Eric Andre Show of the horror genre, with a bit of Sasha Baron Cohen and Andy Kaufman thrown in.
The first episode goes live today, if I'm not mistaken. It will be at this link (which currently has a trailer).
I wrote an all-new afterword to THE VAULT -- a new short story collection by Richard Chizmar, available in trade paperback ($15) and as a signed limited edition hardcover ($45) from Thunderstorm Books.
To order and for complete details, click here.

This Week's Podcasts:
FUBAR - The Horror Show with Brian Keene - Ep 221
Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, Lee Murray and Brian Keene discuss the use of military in horror fiction, PTSD, their love of the characters they create, and how they craft realistic action scenes involving the military. Plus Joe Hill’s approach to politics, social media policies for writers, Christian Jensen’s new movie, and the final season of CRIMINAL MINDS.
Listen for free on YouTube – iTunes – Spotify – Project Entertainment – iHeartRadio – Stitcher
DEFENDERS DIALOGUE - Ep 67 - End of Season One
The Defenders original run comes to its sense-shattering conclusion, as Christopher Golden and Brian Keene mark the end of an era…and the beginning of a new epoch!
Listen for free on iTunes – YouTube – Project Entertainment – iHeartRadio – Stitcher
That's it for this week. As always:
PATREON - Where I post new short stories, writing advice essays, two serialized ongoing novels, and behind-the-scenes stuff.
TWITTER - The only social media outlet I still use regularly.
YOUTUBE - Where I'm posting free stuff each and every day.
I'll see you back here next week!