Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts This past week I finished To Leave a Warrior Behind, a biography of the late Charles Saunders, author of Imaro and other heroic fantasy stories. Saunders lived a solitary existence, choosing to connect through voluminous letter-writing with dozens of correspondents. Divorced and without family he died alone in May 2020, surrounded by piles of books and very little else to his name. His body was ultimately buried in an unmarked grave. In short, not...
13 days ago • 3 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts Although you wouldn’t know it from the sparse Silver Key updates it’s been a productive last couple weeks on the writing front. I completed two articles and both are in the hands of editors of sword-and-sorcery magazines. Let’s start with “The small press origins of Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane,” which, appropriately enough, will be appearing in a new little fanzine entitled Night Winds. I was just young enough to largely miss the golden age of the...
20 days ago • 3 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts With this week’s issue we’re officially changing the name of the newsletter, which shall henceforth be known as Arcane Arts: Dispatches from Gondor. Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Yeah, this week is extra heavy on the Tolkien. With a couple of metal and S&S tidbits for those whose bag isn’t Bag-End. The Tower and the Ruin by Michael D.C. Drout This year I finished a re-read of The Lord of the Rings (how many reads is this for me? 10-12?)...
26 days ago • 2 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts From the ephemeral to the mythic, another issue of Arcane Arts. I see S&S… I’m a bit like Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, but instead of dead people I see S&S everywhere. Here’s three recent sightings. Gorgar, GameCraft Arcade. I’m terrible at pinball … but I love pinball machines. And when they’re sword-and-sorcery pinball I geek out. Which describes my reaction to finding Gorgar at GameCraft Arcade in Southington, CT this past weekend. I was...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts You know what would make my life easier? If I had an AI write this newsletter for me. It’s issue no. 2 of Arcane Arts. I’ve only gotten started, and I’m already thinking about turning it over to the machine. Hear me out. Think of how much time I could save! I could play more video games, binge more Netflix, spend more time bidding on back issues of SSOC on Ebay. Except, I don’t do those things (no shade on you if you do. And I probably will place a...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts Welcome to the first issue of Arcane Arts: Dispatches From The Silver Key. AKA, I have an email newsletter and figured I’d best get down to using it. Why this newsletter? I harbor a minor but omnipresent fear that one day Google will delete the Blogger platform without warning or fanfare, and the little castle of sand I call The Silver Key will be swept out to sea. I like my archaic blog and don’t want to migrate over to something like Substack....
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
