Dreaming of Shadow and Smoke
10 September 2025
A Talk with Jim Rockhill Conducted by John Kenny, June 2025 Jim Rockhill has edited collections of fiction by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Bob Leman, and E.T.A. Hoffmann; he is also the co-editor of Jane Dixon Rice’s collected fiction, the essay collection Reflections in a Glass Darkly, and the anthology Dreams of Shadow and Smoke; and has contributed essays and reviews to Supernatural Literature of the World, The Freedom of Fantastic Things, Warnings to the Curious, The Green Book, Dead Reckonings, and a variety of other encyclopaedias and journals. John Kenny: When did you first encounter Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s …
Read more
Exploring the Hollows
28 July 2025
A Talk with Victor Rees Conducted by John Kenny, July 2025 Victor Rees is a writer, performer, and academic based in London. His PhD focuses on the work of Brian Catling, exploring his oeuvre through the prism of the Weird, the Visionary, the mystic and the grotesque. His short stories and scholarly articles have been published by Textual Practice, Swedenborg House, Albion Village Press, Child Be Strange, and The Friends of Arthur Machen. Rees also performs as part of the group keys cut, a living almanac whose practice merges storytelling, live music, puppetry, and shadow-play. Along with Iain Sinclair, Victor …
Read more
The Green Book 25
12 April 2025
“Editor’s Note #25” If you’ve already browsed the contents of this issue, you’ll have noticed that we devoted the entire number to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873). The last time we gave so much space to Le Fanu was for the bicentenary of his birth in 2014 (see Issue 3 and Issue 4). There is no special occasion to herald this issue, save that we’ve since accumulated a handful of interesting items that I feel deserve broader attention. Reprinted here for the first time since its initial publication in 1910 is a recently rediscovered monograph of Le Fanu written by …
Read more
An Irish Wondersmith in New York
17 March 2025
Conducted by John Kenny, October 2024 John P. Irish is an educator and independent researcher who specializes in the philosophical ideas of John Locke and John Adams. His dissertation topic was on the social thought of Fitz-James O’Brien. He has earned Master’s degrees in Philosophy and Humanities as well as a Doctorate in Humanities from Southern Methodist University. He lives in Bridgeport, Texas with his wife Elizabeth and their five children: Tom, Annie, Teddy, Lucy, and Holly—otherwise known as their pets. John Kenny: How did you first encounter Fitz-James O’Brien’s work and what was it about his work that drew …
Read more
Publishing Fitz-James O’Brien
17 March 2025
A reader recently asked me if Swan River Press would ever consider publishing an edition of Robert W. Chambers’s classic collection The King in Yellow (1895). While I love that book, and own multiple early editions, it didn’t take me long to form a response: No, we would not. The main reason for this decision is that The King in Yellow is already available in myriad editions: hardback and paperback, complete and incomplete collections, not to mention volumes that feature broader selections of Chambers’s weird fiction. Take your pick! When asked whether or not Swan River might consider an edition …
Read more
Our Haunted Year 2024
8 December 2024
Art: James F. Johnston It’s no secret that I enjoy a good tradition. Our Haunted Year is one such tradition with which I like to engage as winter closes in, a short reflection on everything we’ve accomplished with Swan River Press this year. When publishing becomes difficult—and there are usually numerous irksome moments every twelve month period—it’s good to remember everything we managed to accomplish despite it all. I write these posts as much for myself as I do for anyone else, but I hope you enjoy them all the same. Let’s see here . . . This year, for …
Read more
Best Horror of the Year 2023 Recommendations
1 December 2024
Ellen Datlow announced the contents for Best Horror of the Year back in April of this year. As is the custom this time of year, Ellen also announced a long-list of recommended stories from 2023. I’m delighted to see a number of inclusions from books we published. All three titles are still available if you’d like to support these authors: Now It’s Dark by Lynda E. Rucker “Knots” Treatises on Dust by Timothy J. Jarvis “Day’s Horse Descend” “To Have a Horse” “We Recognise Our Own” Uncertainties 6 edited by Brian J. Showers “Unfinished Business” by Ruth Barber “The Sands” …
Read more
Holiday Postage
20 November 2024
Hi folks—It’s that time of year again when you’ll hopefully want to order some books for your loved ones for the coming holiday season. As always, the post office can be a hectic place as our colleagues there do their best to get everything on its way as quickly as possible. Below are An Post’s advised final shipping days should you want to receive orders before the end of December. Of course the sooner you order, the better. And I’ll be making daily trips to the post office to accommodate. Please note: Due to a postal strike in Canada, we …
Read more
Irish Women Ghost Writers
7 November 2024
The below is a response sent to the editor of the Irish Times and published on their website on 2 November 2024: Dear Editor, I note the recent article, “Irish Women Ghost Writers: Rediscovering Lost Voices” (30 Oct. 2024) by Jen Herron. Characterising Irish women ghost story writers as “lost”, “forgotten”, or otherwise is misleading. That the general reading public is not aware of particular writers does not indicate they are “lost” or “forgotten”. Indeed, the popular literary mode known as the ghost story has enjoyed a decades-long history of scholarship and publication, particularly in independent publishing. I point to …
Read more
The Past Is a Different Country
5 November 2024
Conduced by John Kenny, September 2024 Carly Holmes is a writer and editor who lives on the west coast of Wales. She is the author of the novels The Scrapbook (Pathian 2014), which was shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award, and Crow Face, Doll Face (Honno Welsh Women’s Press 2023). Her short story collection Figurehead (2018) was published by Tartarus Press. She has had numerous stories published in journals and anthologies, and has been selected for The Best Horror of the Year three times. John Kenny: Before we dive into Uncertainties VII, tell us a little about yourself. Where …
Read more
In an Uncertain Mode
30 October 2024
Conducted by Brian J. Showers For most of our books we conduct short interviews just prior to the title’s release. In the case of an anthology, the interview is with the editor. For Uncertainties 7, I wanted to do something slightly different. Hoping for just a bit more insight into the genre we love, I posed a single question: What draws you to create in the weird/uncanny mode? Here are the responses . . . Tyler Keevil (“Pond Scum”) I often think of this type of writing in photographic terms; it’s akin to viewing our material through a tinted (or …
Read more
The Green Book 24
25 September 2024
37 York Street, Dublin. Reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland. “Editor’s Note #24” In Issue 23 of The Green Book we featured a sketch of Charles Maturin (1782-1824) penned by James Clarence Mangan, originally published in March 1849. Although we now celebrate Maturin as the author of Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), Mangan identified The Milesian Chief (1812) as his own favourite novel: “the grandest of all Maturin’s productions”. In that essay, Mangan also muses on Maturin’s underappreciated legacy in his native Dublin—“not forgotten because he had never been thought about”. He goes on tell us that the writer …
Read more