Douglas Clegg

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Typewriterly Love

Thursday, March 19th, 2020

My Alpina

A Machine of Beauty and Precision

This picture looks like it’s about a mirror and some roses but it’s really about my Alpina typewriter, made in Germany in the 1950s. It’s a beautiful machine and I love typing on it. I alternate typewriters when working on drafts, primarily to keep the work aspect fresh.

Rue Morgue Reviews The Faces!

Wednesday, March 18th, 2020

A book reviewer named Rick Hipson reviewed my recent novella The Faces in Rue Morgue magazine. Do you get Rue Morgue? I’ve recently subscribed to it and I’m glad I did.  Check them out here.

From the review: “Exceeds expectations…A suspenseful tale of mounting terror…”—Rue Morgue Magazine

Read part of the review from Rue Morgue

 

Hellebore is for Children

Tuesday, March 17th, 2020

A Garden of Dark Blooms

(One of our major interests here at Stonehaven is the garden. We have several— with themes. One is a Roman Pleasure Garden with pool and pond and tropical plants, another we call Dogwood Park with witch hazel, dogwood, plum, peony and several other bushes and plants and which also has a sitting area and rock wall; and the other is the Witch Garden full of wild things, fountains, and statues of Persephone and Demeter. Hey, life is short.)

Hellebore is one of my favorite flowering plants. It has a very decadent, debauched kind of hang to it, producing some beautiful but stygian flowers that bloom in late winter and might’ve been imagined by Edgar Allen Poe or Charles Baudelaire.

When they’re blooming, their leaves usually haven’t caught up, thus the plant looks ragged in this close-up, but this is the first hellebore blossom of the season.  We planted seven of these around the shady areas of the garden last summer. Apparently, if they manage to survive a few years, they’ll become small bushes and have the potential to produce a lot of these flowers between February and  late April.

New Trade Paperback!

Monday, March 16th, 2020

1st Time in Trade Paperback

Wild Things: Four Tales, about 125 pages in length, contains three short stories and a novella. You can now pick up a signed & inscribed copy at the Signed Bookstore here at the website, or just grab one at an online bookseller. Click the cover to find out more about this book.

Typewriters: Underwood Champion

Sunday, March 15th, 2020

My Underwood Champion from the 1940s.

It’s rusty and well-used, but works like a dream thanks to Marr Office Machines in Pawtucket Rhode Island. Picked this up for about $20, got it spiffed up, and I write rough on it and love the aggressive pounding it takes.

I alternate between a few typewriters, depending on a variety of things (do I have to change a ribbon right now? Why pause? I just grab another typewriter.)  All the typewriters I own (about 7?) are working typewriters and I use them all over any given 12 month period.

Excuse the mess on my work table.

 

My Mood Today

Saturday, March 14th, 2020

Feeling a bit surly, the way our cat Juno might be feeling in this photo.

Would it be great to have nothing but bucolic days and wonderful feelings all the time? Or would that be hellish?

I sometimes think bad moods, unease, and discomfort are signs that you’re onto something…but just not there yet.

Or else today I’m just a moody cat. Back to writing with me.

Patronize Me

Friday, March 13th, 2020

Join up at Patreon.com/DouglasClegg

Find out more about it by clicking on the photo.

Check out Patreon.com/DouglasClegg

Statues and Me

Thursday, March 12th, 2020

I always wanted to live inside an art gallery, a museum with comfortable chairs, or a New York hotel with a lobby full of paintings and statues…so it’s fun having these and other statues around on various shelves and tables in our home.

The faun, which is a replica of the famous statue that survived Pompeii’s destruction, was likely made in a shop between 1946 and 1955 (based on the person who owned it previously). It would be a museum souvenir kind of thing and I think these are still sold in Naples in varying sizes. This is a well-detailed one.

In the photograph’s foreground stands a larger statue of a blacksmith, This would’ve made made under the supervision of its original sculptor, though this is a casting off the original or possibly a diminutive version of the original (though this is one of the taller metal statues we own, at about four feet.)

Statues of a faun and a blacksmith,

New in Trade Paperback: Mischief

Wednesday, March 11th, 2020

Mischief is  up and out and available on bookstores, first time in trade paperback edition from Alkemara Press.

Want a signed copy inscribed to you?

You can do that, too. Click the image below to get it in whatever formats we have available right now.

Get Mischief in Trade Paperback or Ebook

Just Face It

Tuesday, March 10th, 2020

Have you read The Faces? It’s around in both ebook and trade paperback. Check it out: DouglasClegg.com/the-faces

The Faces by Douglas Clegg — Now in Paperback and Ebook