01/12/2026 Guest Review from Craig Brownlie!
- Candace Nola
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
It’s Been A Year, Part 4
Reviews and thoughts on writing with Craig Brownlie
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Don’t get me started, but it’s been a minute since I’ve done any reviews because 2025 has been a worse year than even 2024, which is saying something on a personal level. But I have kept reading and writing! So, let’s get started!
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Out of Aztlan by V. Castro
Fragile Anthology by Michael Allen Rose et al.
Back when local newspapers reviewed books, a lot of English majors found use for their education by propounding certain universal ground rules about the art of writing. One common stance held that a short-story writer could not write novels and vice versa. They were allowed to try, but every reviewer knew enough to spout the caveat that only a handful of writers can do both successfully. Bernard Malamud seemed to lead most people’s lists. They were right about him, but realistically it was more than a handful. However, some folks like Harlan Ellison preferred one pool over the other.
The dictum had a point, though. Short stories are a different beast from longer forms. In this age when everyone and their grandmother writes flash fiction; people understand that restrictions increase as word count decreases. Are you trying to hold interest across an hour or across a dozen trips to the bathroom?
Then, add a theme to a collection of short fiction. Beforehand, the writers of Fragile all knew what faced them- horror when a mover shows up at an empty house. What do they find in a box there? The stricter the theme, the odder the story must be to maintain interest and variety. The works here go the extra mile.
After producing a collection-amount of tales, an author faces the task of titling the forthcoming tome, galvanizing the works with a phrase to tie them all together. Castro roots her work in a strong sense of place that somehow feels universal. Hemingway-esque in her control of tone and description, Castro should replace a few dinosaurs on reading tables.
Castro, as well as many of the contributors to Rose’s collection (those who have written novels), continues the line of authors who demonstrate the foolishness of restrictions on content and form when a writer knows their craft. Of course, creators can work in flash fiction to epic book series. They might even dare poetry. The question isn’t can an artist write short stories and novels, but rather do they want to bring the same attention to craft to both?
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All of Your Dreams Will Come True When You're Dead by John Wayne Comunale
Comunale puts the weird solidly into the Western. This feels more like the Star Trek original series episode where Kirk and company end up at the O.K. Corral than another Western with added vampires (which I happen to enjoy). I’m not sure, but this might actually feature a new type of cosmic horror. Or at least a new way of expressing one. Honestly, you’ll just have to read this yourself, which you should do.
Territory by Emma Bull
I should have read this when it was first published, but I’ve been busy for forty years. Bull is now one of my favorite authors. This feels like One Hundred Years of Solitude meets Bad Day at Black Rock. I had no idea that I’d been waiting my whole life for this book. John Updike/Cheever (are they one or two people- sorry for the New England literary humor- I know it does not travel well) may have once said that he keeps a Dickens novel set aside to read when he gets old. I’m considering setting aside the sequel to Territory. I doubt I have the fortitude or faith in my ability to pick it up at the right moment.
No Fair Maidens from Earth to Mars by Rowan Hill
Hill has created a set of great short stories that find the same sweet spot mined by classic writers like Kuttner and C.L. Moore, while updating their techniques and ideas. It is an overwhelming task to write plot-driven science fiction shorts that hit all the right notes, and Hill does an excellent job. All of these would have found homes in the heyday of anthologies and periodicals.
Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & the Politics of the Paraliterary by Samuel Delany
Delany’s essays on writing have been collected into multiple volumes, and it is all required reading if you have any desire to think more deeply about the craft and aspiration involved in the art. Delany has a wealth of collegiate teaching experience (as well as a number of works that are formative in the history of genre writing). This can be mind-expanding reading if it’s your first encounter with deconstruction or erotica, but I believe every writer worth the title should strive and stretch and study. This is way beyond Writer’s Digest, and you owe it to yourself.
Suzanne and I met Delany in the 80s at a con in Massachusetts. We spent the evening talking with Hal Clement, which was fascinating in its own right.
Dracula Beyond Stoker Issue 4.5 by Jamie Flanagan et al.
I have not read magazine or journal fiction for far too long. Dracula Beyond Stoker seeks tales of the Count and his cohort from all the intervening years between Stoker and today. I mention Flanagan here because I heard him read his contribution and then found myself generously gifted a copy. The lightness of the touch in these stories increases as the authors move toward modern times. Come for Flanagan but stay for a history of vampiric meditations.
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What’s driving Craig apeshit: Releasing work too soon!
Read it again when you can come to it as a new reader. Otherwise, you’re on a deadline, which is fine, but you’re a journalist and not an artist. If you can’t tell the difference between your quality stuff and your crap, then perhaps you need a break. Definitely keep writing, but the backlog of first drafts is your friend. Those words long for your fresh eyes. Hopefully, you’ll be amazed at the moments you created six months ago. They might even outweigh the cringe. And yes, the book needs another look before it is published.
If you don’t have the stomach to go over your own work, then you’re probably asking a lot of your future readers. Sure, you’re a creative genius, but please at least answer the question of what you were trying to communicate. Then ask your beta readers what they took away from it. They don’t have to agree with you, but hopefully they will have an answer.
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Don’t wait for high noon before reading these highly recommended books
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BIO for Craig Brownlie:
Craig recently edited the anthology Five Raging Hearts: Splatterpunk for the Soul. Look for Craig's recent work in Hotel of Haunts, Demons and Death Drops, Wands: Year of the Tarot, and Unspeakable Horrors 3.
He has three books out in his Little Books of Pain series: Hammer, Nail, Foot; Thick As A Brick; and A Book of Practical Monsters. These are in addition to the re-release of his middle-grade novel Comic Book Summer. He also has a surprise zombie novel dropping early in 2026. It’s part of a trilogy. Imagine that.
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