Essays and Nonfiction
Below is a selection of nonfiction books, essays, book reviews, and interviews. (For interviews with me, rather than ones I’ve conducted, see the Reviews & Interviews page.)
A significant body of my nonfiction writing is the 50 columns I wrote for Strange Horizons between February 2005 and May 2012. There’s no simple link to them all, but this link goes to all of my writings for Strange Horizons. I also write brief film reviews mostly for my own reference at Letterboxd.
Essays related to teaching and pedagogy can be found at my other website, Finite Eyes.
Nonfiction Books
Asterisks (punctum books, 2026)
Finite Eyes: Essays on Education and Access (Mumpsimus Press, 2026)
About That Life: Barry Lopez and the Art of Community (punctum books, 2023)
Modernist Crisis and the Pedagogy of Form: Woolf, Delany, and Coetzee at the Limits of Fiction (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020)
Essays
Note: Linkrot has set in. The links to items at Indiewire/Press Play are currently being updated; many are completely unavailable, but I hope to have them replicated on this site soon.
- “Poetry From the Plague Pit: The Early Stories of Clive Barker and Joel Lane”, Reactor Magazine, June 2026
- “Decadent Echoes: Arthur Machen, M. John Harrison, K.J. Bishop, and the Ends of Mystery”, Humanities 14, no. 8, 2025. doi: 10.3390/h14080169
- “13 Horror Movies: A Playlist for Halloween”, Third Man Records, October 2023.
- “The Rats in Our Walls”, May 2022
- “How to Write and Gertrude Stein and How to Read”, Teaching Modernist Women’s Writing in English ed. Janine Utell, 2021
- “Asterisks for Dead Astronauts”, July 2020
- “Time Passes: What Do We Do with Woolf’s Offenses?”, International Virginia Woolf Conference, June 2019
- “On Moderan”, The Millions, 18 January 2019
- “The Reader Awakes: Pedagogical Form and Utopian Impulse in The Years”, Woolf Studies Annual vol. 24, 2018
- “Why Adding Monsters and Fairies to a Memoir Can Make It Even More Real” (with Carmen Maria Machado, Rosalind Palermo Stevenson, and Sofia Samatar), Electric Literature, February 2018.
- “John Keene’s Sentences”, Emerging Writers Network, May 2017
- “Dhalgren” and “Clockwork Orange”, Literary Wonderlands ed. Laura Miller, 2016
- “The Strange Horrors of Robert Aickman”, Electric Literature, October 2016
- “On Samuel R. Delany’s Dark Reflections”, Los Angeles Review of Books, October 2016
- “Why I Am Not a Poet”, The Story Prize Blog, August 2016
- “A Long Gay Book, A Life”, Literary Hub, July 2016
- “Book Notes: Blood”, Largehearted Boy, July 2016
- “Perfect Day”, Cold Takes, July 2016
- “The Face of Christopher Lee”, IndieWire, June 2015
- “Satan in Cinema”, IndieWire, February 2015
- “Terry Gilliam: The Triumph of Fantasy”, IndieWire, October 2014
- “What Is Composition?”, IndieWire, September 2014
- “Total Cinema: Snowpiercer”, IndieWire, July 2014
- “H.R. Giger: Against the Gigeresque”, IndieWire, May 2014
- “Dead Men & Ghosts, Limited” (on Jim Jarmusch), IndieWire, April 2014
- “Writers’ Blocks”. Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer, 2013, 2018.
- “Here, There Be Dragons”, IndieWire, December 2013
- “12 Years a Slave: Glory without Redemption”, IndieWire, November 2013
- “Rob Zombie and the Cinema of Cruelty”, IndieWire, October 2013
- “First Fassbinder”, IndieWire, September 2013
- “They Know Not What They Do: Burn After Reading”, IndieWire, March 2013
- “The End of Violence: The Conclusions of Clint Eastwood”, IndieWire, March 2013
- “Does Mr. Jonathan Smith Cry In His Pillow At Night?: The Unironic Worlds Of Werner Herzog”, IndieWire, September 2012
- “Derek Jarman and the Memory Palace of Life”, Rain Taxi, Spring 2012
- “Stories in the Key of Strange: A Collage of Encounters”, Weird Fiction Review, February 2012
- “Summer of ’86: Stand By Me”, The House Next Door, August 2011
- “Summer of ’86: Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive“, The House Next Door, August 2011
- “Fool to Believe: Remarks on Some Short Stories By Pat Cadigan”, Strange Horizons, August 2011
- “Dystopia on Stage: Caryl Churchill’s Far Away“, Tor.com, April 2011
- “Writing Advice to My Younger Self”, Book Country, March 2011
- “Summer of ’85: Rambo: First Blood, Part II”, The House Next Door, June 2010
- “How to Defeat These Thoughts: The Questions of Wallace Shawn”, Rain Taxi, Winter 2009/2010
- “Awakening the Countervoices in One Self: J.M. Coetzee and the Authority of the Author”, Quarterly Conversation, December 2009
- “Coetzee in the Promised Land”, Quarterly Conversation, March 2009
- “No Direction Home: The Novel as Betrayal” (on Caryl Phillips), New Haven Review Issue 2, May 2008
- “Night and Day: The Place of Equinox in Samuel R. Delany’s Oeuvre”, Strange Horizons, December 2007
- “What Is Appropriate”, Quarterly Conversation, December 2006
- “Close to My Heart: Robert Silverberg’s Worlds of Wonder“, SF Site, June 2005
Reviews
- Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing Up with the AIDS Crisis ed. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Chicago Review of Books, October 2021
- Screen Tests by Kate Zambreno & The Undying by Anne Boyer, Rain Taxi, Fall 2019
- “A New Hope, Ambiguously” [Review of Ambiguity Machines by Vandana Singh], Los Angeles Review of Books, May 2018
- The World Broken In Two: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, and The Year That Changed Literature by Bill Goldstein; Rain Taxi, Winter 2017
- Little Magazine, World Form by Eric Bulson; Rain Taxi, Fall 2017
- “J.M. Coetzee: Glimpses Into a Writer’s Mind”; Rain Taxi, Winter 2015
- The Zero Theorem dir. Terry Gilliam; Science Fiction Film and Television, Autumn 2015
- In Tune: Charley Patton, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Roots of American Music by Ben Wynne; Rain Taxi, Summer 2015
- Stay by John Clute; Strange Horizons, March 2015
- Motherless Child by Glenn Hirschberg; Strange Horizons, July 2014
- The Memory Garden by Mary Rickert; Los Angeles Review of Books, June 2014
- Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor; Strange Horizons, January 2014
- Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, edited by TC Tolbert and Tim Trace Peterson; Rain Taxi (online ed.), Fall 2013
- Empty Space by M. John Harrison; Strange Horizons, July 2013
- The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard; Strange Horizons, June 2012
- “Science Fiction Transcendent”; Scope, February 2012
- Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott; Strange Horizons, August 2011
- What Ever Happened to Modernism by Gabriel Josipovici; Rain Taxi, Spring 2011
- Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature by Gary K. Wolfe; Strange Horizons, May 2011
- Ten Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing edited by Chris Brazier; Rain Taxi, Winter 2010/2011
- Never Let Me Go (film); Strange Horizons, November 2010
- Zulu by Caryl Férey; Rain Taxi, Fall 2010
- Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor; Rain Taxi (online ed.), Summer 2010
- A Short History of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James; Strange Horizons, April 2010
- Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi; Quarterly Conversation, June 2008
- Orpheus in the Bronx by Reginald Shepherd; Rain Taxi, Spring 2008
- Fairyland by Paul McAuley; SF Site, May 2008
- Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson; Rain Taxi (online ed.), Fall 2007
- Right Livelihoods by Rick Moody; Quarterly Conversation, September 2007
- Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand; Strange Horizons, July 2007
- Hav by Jan Morris; Strange Horizons, March 2007
- In Other Words by John Crowley; SF Site, February 2007
- Transgender Rights edited by Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang, and Shannon Price Minter; Rain Taxi (online ed.), Fall 2006
- “Living in a Time of Transition: Two Books by Bryher”; Rain Taxi, Fall 2006
- One Million A.D. edited by Gardner Dozois; Strange Horizons, June 2006
- Last Week’s Apocalypse by Doug Lain, Strange Horizons, February 2006
- Bread and Roses by Bruce Watson; Z Magazine, January 2006
- Mister Boots by Carol Emshwiller; SF Site, December 2005
- Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet; Locus, November 2005
- Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow; SF Site, November 2005
- The Glamour by Christopher Priest; SF Site, September 2005
- Anima by M. John Harrison; SF Site, August 2005
- The Genizah at the House of Shepher by Tamar Yellin; Rain Taxi, Summer 2005
- Was by Geoff Ryman; SF Site, June 2005
- Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tipree, Jr. & The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1; SF Site, April 2005
- Tainaron by Leena Krohn; SF Site, March 2005
- Projections: Science Fiction in Literature and Film edited by Lou Anders; SF Site, February 2005
- Leviathan 4: Cities edited by Forrest Aguirre; SF Site, January 2005
- The Labyrinth by Catherynne M. Valente; SF Site, January 2005
- Horses Blow Up Dog City & Other Stories by Richard Butner; SF Site, September 2004
- “The Way We Name Things Is Important, Ma: The Short Stories of George Saunders”; English Journal, May 2003
Interviews
- Hal Duncan, Fantasy Magazine, December 2015
- Nnedi Okorafor, Omnivoracious, August 2010
- Samuel R. Delany, Omnivoracious, August 2009
- David Beronä, The Swivet, April 2009
- Mary Ann Caws, Rain Taxi (online ed.), Summer 2007
- Ngugi wa Thiong’o, The LitBlog Co-op, February 2007
- Julie Phillips, Strange Horizons, November 2006
- Theodora Goss, Fantasy Magazine, May 2006
- Lydia Millet, Strange Horizons, January 2006
- Joe Hill, The Mumpsimus, December 2005
- Paolo Bacigalupi, The Mumpsimus, September 2004
- K.J. Bishop, The Mumpsimus, June 2004
