Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts What is best in life? Arcane Arts, your weekly dose of sword-and-sorcery and heavy metal. Two things I find best in life, at least. Let’s get to it. Heavy metal memoir: It’s crunch time A professional editor is worth his/her weight in gold. But be prepared to be humbled by their work. Earlier this year I contracted an editor to edit my heavy metal memoir work in progress. Not a copyedit, but a line edit for flow, voice, and readability. And for his...
10 days ago • 5 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts I have a day job that has nothing to do with weird fiction, sword-and-sorcery, or heavy metal. I work for a healthcare consulting company creating all their marketing and branding. I can’t complain: It pays the bills. I am a “somebody” in that space. I have a large following on LinkedIn, host a healthcare podcast, and started an association almost 20 years ago that people still flock to today—all of which puts me in the limelight. I might even call...
17 days ago • 4 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts This was a particularly grim New England winter. The heavy snowfall and intense cold are gone, but the bitter, clammy dampness hung on… and on. I’ve spent too many days inside, looking at my phone and a world on fire. I’m in need of renewal, physical and spiritual. Grail shaped, if I can find it. I took a recent draught from that cup: Joseph Campbell’s Romance of the Grail, which I recently finished. And wrote about here on the blog. I half composed...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts Arcane: From the Latin arcānus. Known or knowable only to a few people: Secret. Mysterious, obscure. Welcome to another issue of Arcane Arts. Its mystery stems from its unpredictable contents, even to me, its master alchemist. This week I discuss James Bond, the secrets of the Holy Grail, and lessons from a life of blogging. How do they all relate to each other? They probably don't, but you must read the signs. Enjoy the strange brew that is issue...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts I recently published my 1000th (!) post on The Silver Key, a short essay entitled “The Super, Super-Secret History of Sword-and-Sorcery.” Not a whole lot of new ground covered there, except for one thing: I acknowledge that I have underestimated the impact of visuals on S&S, which have come to define the subgenre as much as its literary conventions. From that essay: More than any other genre of which I’m aware, sword-and-sorcery is defined by a...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts As I pressed publish on my latest blog post, a review of the new Deathstalker film that wound up being a disappointing “meh,” I happened to notice the post count at the top of the blogger platform. All (999). 999 posts. The next will be my 1000th. A big round number, worth pausing on. I’ve been blogging for a long time. Since 2007, with a large gap (circa 2013-2019) that can be partially explained by Flame and Crimson, partially for reasons that...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
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...
about 2 months 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...
2 months 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?)...
2 months ago • 2 min read