Billy Joe Stratton
@billyjstratton.bsky.social
prof, writer, cultural critic horror | native/indigenous lit | southern gothic | posthumanism spikes, leather, dark stompy beats
On this day in 1921, Sid Hatfield was murdered for standing up to coal company thugs in defense of striking miners. John Sayles captured this forgotten hero in his powerful film, Matewan. Here's a piece I wrote on the film’s history and ongoing relevance: hollywoodprogressive.com/film/john-sa...
A good book never fails to take you to places of wonder and delight, mysterious and exotic lands where new knowledge and people live. #walkreading #Nabakov
Nothing like flying back in to Denver and finding an ARC of @stephengrahamjones.com Off the Reservation in the mail! Add that to the gorgeous new edition of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter w/ buffalo edge pages! 🦬 I got while visiting family and my read-walk list is set. #OffTheReservation #BookSky
Seated for The Odyssey, written by Matt Damon! 😎
Best kind of mail day w/ latest @fangoria.bsky.social hitting my doorstep and it is packed. From Hellraiser & Evil Dead Burn to new gen slasher Big Baby and the iconic @barbaracrampton.bsky.social, it's incredible. This is my ultimate bucket list publication to write for. A horror fan can dream! 🖤🦹🔪
Prep work for Shelley’s Frankenstein has me revisiting the Creature's own library w/ some walk-reading today of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Having the monster learn the depths of human despair and sorrow from Shelley's novel is one of the greatest intertextual pairings in sci-fi/horror.
We all remember the terrifying sprint of the infected in 28 Days Later, but its most brutal bites are about class structure and military-industrial collapse. For its anniversary this week, here's my piece on the true cost of the Rage virus via social decay: hollywoodprogressive.com/film/28-days...
The nodal points aligned at Goodwill today: found a signed, physical copy of @greatdismal.bsky.social's Idoru. There’s a cool irony in unearthing a foundational novel about AI and virtual idols as a donated media artifact. Analog resistance is alive and well in the thrift store shelves.
Paranoia, shifting aliens, & total isolation. It's anniversary week for John Carpenter's THE THING. To celebrate one of the greatest sci-fi/horror films ever made (exceeding the source), here's a piece that speaks to why it's a favorite:https://hollywoodprogressive.com/film/john-carpenters-the-thing
Walking past this classic car while reading @chuckpalahniuk.bsky.social's Rant feels like real-life Party Crashing. "'Baiting' means to steer something cherry, virgin-perfect, clean, and polished down the middle of the boulevard..." Buster Casey is one of the 21st century's greatest anti-heroes.
Going back 250 years for my newest walk and read. It’s a departure from my usual literary haunts on this continent. It's one that beckoned me with its title alone: Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker, while I also enjoyed his writing as a student of philosophy...
Syllabus for life update: Playing the classic arcade version of T2 is no longer just early 90s sci-fi nostalgia. Now it’s looking more & more like required simulation training for our impending AI cyborg, dystopian future. #T2 #Terminator2 #Skynet #CyberdyneSystems #SciFi #Dystopia
Started a new walk-read this AM: Ishmael Reed’s The Terrible Twos. It’s a razor-sharp satire of the early Reagan years and a great reminder that even in the worst of times, we have to laugh. Reed shows us that history really is circular as 1982 feels like a perfect mirror to 2026 right now. #BookSky
Wow, @johnlangan.bsky.social's The Fisherman packs one helluva punch! Tentacles, grief & the weird. Starts with the polished, creeping dread of James Dickey, before hurtling you into a nightmarish realm where the woods are just a trap set by monsters & madmen. #BookSky #HorrorCommunity #WeirdFiction
Sometimes instead of working on a writing project or assessing final essays, it's fun to just take a meme. I feel like there are a lot of mongooses (or is it mongeese?) among my friends here.
Fortune is absolutely killing it with their inhuman vibes. Love* this story about mechanizing food service! Why not also innovate the dining experience by having customers lay on a conveyor so food can be pumped in! One robot server could easily handle 500 diners an hour! fortune.com/2026/06/09/m...
Marc Lore’s robots make 500 burrito bowls an hour. A human can make 45. | Fortune
The Wonder founder is automating fast-casual food with machines that make salad and poke bowls, sauces, and eventually drinks but there are few roles for humans in these kitchens.
fortune.com
While media talking heads keep pronouncing the "death of reading," it just doesn't track with what I see from my students. Over the last year they've read everything from Faulkner & McCullers to Jones, Bazterrica, & @stephenking.bsky.social's IT w/ great insight. fortune.com/article/gen-...
Gen Zers are arriving to college unable to even read a sentence—professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates | Fortune
With Gen Z students struggling to read, academics have been forced to adapt—a move critics describe as “coddling” the next generation of workers.
fortune.com
Awards & recognition are nice, but it's the stories and history that literature can only convey that are the true winners in the recognition given to @stephengrahamjones.com's masterpiece, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Long live Good Stab, long live the memory of Weasel Plume, never forget the Marias!
Stephen Graham Jones@stephengrahamjones.com · 2mo agoWhoah, wow: thrilled, floored, and honored for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter to have somehow won both a Bram Stoker Award and a Nebula Award last night! Thanks, all. Signed, a horror writer stumbling around Edinburgh, Scotland.
Reading deep into the night. Rest in Power Marjane...
Took me a sec to come to grips with this list of the 100 all-time best novels, with Middlemarch as #1. Don't get me wrong, I read it as an undergrad & didn't hate it, but back then I was in awe of being able to go to college & talk lit with others. What's your #1? www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
The 100 best novels of all time
The top 100 novels of all time published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?
theguardian.com
This year's Locus Award for horror goes to @stephengrahamjones.com's riveting historical vampire novel: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter! Thankful to @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social for giving me a chance to write on it & for giving space to celebrate Jones' amazing work! lareviewofbooks.org/article/how-...
How Can You Stop a Country from Happening? | Los Angeles Review of Books
Billy J. Stratton examines Stephen Graham Jones’s “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.”
lareviewofbooks.org
Oh, hell yes, so well deserved and congrats to all the other great writes/novels nominated! Long live Good Stab and long live the horror renaissance! locusmag.com/2026/04/2026...
2026 Locus Awards Top Ten Finalists - Locus
Congratulations to all of the Locus Awards top ten finalists! These results are from the February 1 to April 1 voting by readers on an open public ballot. The Locus Awards winners will be announced Ma...
locusmag.com
Stephen Graham Jones@stephengrahamjones.com · 2mo agoWhoah, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter got a Locus Award! @locusmag.bsky.social
As a person who spends a lot of time reading for my classes, I often feel like I'm playing catch-up on all the cool books being published-& I don't just mean those by @stephengrahamjones.com😀 Getting around to Beowulf is a reminder that it's never too late-stories tend to find us when they need to.
Wrapping up my dystopian class-or is it just the daily news cycle at this point?-w/ @agustinabazterrica.bsky.social’s tour-de-force Tender Is the Flesh. Nothing says "happy Summer" like a biting 👀 critique of consumer culture. Here, too, is my review on it: hollywoodprogressive.com/literature/t...
Agustina Bazterrica’s Dobbsian Vision of Dystopia in Tender Is the Flesh
Agustina Bazterrica has extrapolated structures and practices of our contemporary world as the basis for a bleak dystopian vision.
hollywoodprogressive.com
Coming in softcover-Fall 2026! The Fictions of Stephen Graham Jones: A Critical Companion is the 1st book-length study of @stephengrahamjones.com work. 456 pages of insights, 70+ photos, SGJ Foreword, Afterword by @paultremblay.bsky.social, SGJ interview w/ yours truly! A must for horror fans.🧟♂️
The best apocalypse tales do more than warn-they force us to reassess our place in the food chain. @jrjisprobable.bsky.social's Extinction Journals nails it, reminding that "you're the only one who will ever truly know you were even alive." Read it. If you end up wanting a new suit after, it worked!
Oh man, "there is no future, and England's dreaming..."
Stephen Graham Jones@stephengrahamjones.com · 3mo agoHey, cool:
Posting a little late, but loved DaCosta’s 28 Years Later! It doesn't just give us zombies; it gives us the banality of evil. Jack O’Connell channels the ghost of Jimmy Savile in a role that is also a terrifying reflection for our own time. My review: hollywoodprogressive.com/literature/d...
The Dark Age of Rage: Garland’s and DeCosta’s Apocalyptic Monument to the Ruins of History
28 Years Later picks up precipitating virus now settled into a slow burn through United Kingdom and affected areas of Europe nearly three decades removed from the original outbreak
hollywoodprogressive.com
Hmm, sure, call it a cult. But as far as I know Pynchon's books have a body count of zero. My Gravity's Rainbow undergrad class was among the best I've ever taught. The students loved it, too—or so the letter I received through the W.A.S.T.E. postal system assured me. #KeepCoolButCare
Inside the cult of the elusive Thomas Pynchon
As the legendary American author releases his long-awaited new novel, Martin Chilton explores Pynchon’s reputation as one of the most ‘reclusive’ writers working right now
the-independent.com
