The Green Book 28
16 October 2026
Editor’s Note #28 With Issue 11, we began running a series of in-depth profiles to showcase genre literature produced by Irish writers. Most of our readers will be familiar with names such as Stoker, Macardle, Dunsany, Riddell, Le Fanu—writers who already receive popular attention to various degrees—but we wanted to explore further. What else was out there hiding on dusty bookshelves of old family homes, tucked away in the storerooms of second-hand bookshops, or secreted in dust-moted libraries and out of the way archives? I suppose there were two main questions we were addressing during this near decade-long exercise of …
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Ghosts of Cambridge Past
9 October 2026
An Interview with Robert Lloyd Parry Conducted by John Kenny © August 2026 Robert Lloyd Parry is a performance storyteller who specialises in bringing to life weird tales by the likes of M. R. James, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, and Arthur Machen. For Swan River Press he has edited three anthologies related to M.R. James: Ghosts of the Chit-Chat (2020), Friends and Spectres (2024), and Ghosts on the Cam (2026). He also wrote the introduction to Curfew and other Eerie Tales (2010), a collection of the short supernatural fiction of Lucy M. Boston. More information …
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Reflecting the Gothic
16 June 2026
An Interview with Richard Gavin Conducted by Alexander Dickow © June 2026 Richard Gavin has authored numerous collections of supernatural horror fiction, including Grotesquerie (2020), Sylvan Dread: Tales of Pastoral Darkness (2016), and At Fear’s Altar (2012). His volumes of esotericism include The Benighted Path: Primeval Gnosis and the Monstrous Soul (2015) and The Infernal Masque (2022). He lives in Ontario, Canada. His new collection, Nocturnal Mirrors, is now available from Swan River Press. Alexander Dickow: You often invoke the term “Gothic” to describe what you do. Do you prefer this term to ones like “weird fiction” or “supernatural horror”? Is there any difference? …
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The Green Book 27
20 May 2026
Editor’s Note #27 With this issue, I am pleased to present another clutch of short fictions by Irish writers that do not seem to fit well into any other Swan River Press project. Thankfully, we have The Green Book, which I hope continues to be a fascinating contextual repository for stray writings of interest to readers of Irish gothic, supernatural, and fantastic literature. The centrepiece of this issue is three stories by Anna Maria Hall (1800-1881), whose supernatural tales do not number enough in quantity to warrant a standalone volume of her own in our Strange Stories by Irish Women …
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Adventures in the South Seas
14 February 2026
Conducted by John Kenny © January 2026 Mike Ashley is a major enthusiast and collector of a wide range of popular fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, supernatural, and crime fiction. He has compiled or edited well over one hundred anthologies of short stories across the whole spectrum of genre fiction and has written a biography of Algernon Blackwood and a five-volume history of science fiction magazines. His Age of the Storytellers (British Library 2005) explores the British popular fiction magazines from the 1880s to the 1940s and he received the Pilgrim Award for Lifetime Achievement in science fiction scholarship in …
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An Interview with E. F. Bleiler
22 December 2025
Conducted by Brian J. Showers (August 2005) This interview was originally published in All Hallows 42 (October 2006), edited by Barbara and Christopher Roden. I would be willing to bet that every student of fantastic fiction has at some point in his or her career read a book with the name E. F. Bleiler printed on its cover. I grew up reading the Dover collections of, among others, Lord Dunsany, Ambrose Bierce, and Algernon Blackwood; each edited and introduced by Mr. Bleiler. On some level, many associate Bleiler’s name with the genre as much as they do Machen’s or Le …
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Our Haunted Year 2025
2 December 2025
“Northern Lights”Fridtjof Nansen After another cycle around the sun, and as the darker days of winter approach, it’s time to look back at what we managed to accomplish this year here at Swan River Press. Along the housing front, the sad answer is not too much. Æon House remains in something of a chaotic state as I continue renovating towards something resembling a grand vision. While most corners of Æon House are still somewhat confused, there are occasional glimpses of hospitable sanity. But enough of that. Onto Swan River . . . The press was nominated this year for a …
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The Green Book 26
30 September 2025
Editor’s Note #26 We find ourselves with a second issue this year focusing on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. I had a handful of items that I couldn’t fit into the previous issue, so I hope you’ll allow me the indulgence of a few more pages. There’s some interesting stuff between these covers. The first piece is the subject of some debate among Le Fanu scholars. The story “My Aunt Margaret’s Adventure” was first published in the Dublin University Magazine (March 1864) between the final instalments of Wylder’s Hand (February) and “Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling” (April). Along with “Wicked Captain …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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