My blog done got a makeover, y’all! Now it’s a proper website! For a proper author! The blog isn’t going anywhere, (it’s like 99% of my identity), but now each of my books has its own page for purchase, which will make things easier for the lone person who buys a book from me every six months!

I don’t think I will ever again do anything as excellent as when I photoshopped this image together to accompany a perfume review I wrote.

holy shit I made it into Library Journal

In a month’s time,The Art of the Unknown will be out into the world! Here’s some early praise from some kind, brilliant souls who dwelled for a while in its pages and came back with some blurb-shaped thoughts! Thanks very much to @libraryatnight.bsky.social for reading and sharing your thoughts!

Did a lil chop

In this month's newsletter I share a tiny smattering of the vast swath of contemporary artists you can expect to see in The Art of the Unknown! Read newsletter here: view.flodesk.com/emails/6a6cb...

Scent of the day: Beaufort London Sirenide, bitter almond, the seed inside the seed inside a jar, preserved in pale liquid; the bruised porcelain inside of an oyster shell; a lullaby from the uncanny valley, something soft and strange and gentle that loves you in a way you can't quite parse.

Scent of the day: Berkshire Bathery Fridge Cig is amber light on wet cobblestones, fog off the river, a brass key on a velvet ribbon, a notebook with marbled endpapers. A 3pm weekday Diet Coke, but make it gaslamp fantasy.

Earlier this year, I pitched the idea for THE ART OF THE WEIRD: A Visual Treasury of the Eccentric, the Eldritch, and the Outré. Womp womp. Cue the sad trombones. It did not come to pass. On the Unquiet Things blog today, I wrote a bit about it. unquietthings.com/a-book-that-...

Something strange & mysterious arrives 9/1. The Art of the Unknown is nearly here! Preorder by September 1st and receive an autographed bookplate and vintage bookmark. Treasures for the treasure hunters. Rewards for the restless. Treats for the magpies. www.quarto.com/campaign/art...

One of our favorite depictions of Circe will always be John William Waterhouse’s 1892 painting, which we lovingly translated into scent as part of a collab with author @mlleghoul.bsky.social

Circe Invidiosa Perfume Oil

CIRCE INVIDIOSA  John William Waterhouse. 1892 “The colors in this painting are so lush and beautiful that they defy description. I have always thought that tipping dish of poison, the shade of crushe...

blackphoenixalchemylab.com

Scent(s) of the day: all of the Lestat collection from @bpal.bsky.social ! My thoughts on all seven scents can be found on the blog today. unquietthings.com/the-vampire-...

The Vampire Lestat Perfume Collection | BPAL x AMC

Posing these bottles against the backdrop of my current knit-in-progress, because this lurid neon pink yarn just screams Lestat, as far as I am concerned! Armand (white musk, iris, frankincense, re…

unquietthings.com

This is the only fragrance I can wear on a viciously sweltering Florida July evening.

ghoul dinner

I try not to read reviews of my books because I believe reviews are for readers, not authors. But! I just had to check and see if there was even a single early review for The Art of the Unknown out there in the world...and there is!

Friends! Who are your favorite creators and conjurors of witchy visual art? Maybe they are witchly-inclined themselves, or perhaps they are drawn to the subject matter? I am asking for REASONS. Image: Riding Witches, Otto Goetze, 1924

An artwork that pierces me to my core, sucks the fat off my bones, hollows me completely, and refills me over and over again. Moon Through Young Sunflowers, Charles E. Burchfield, July 1916, gouache, pencil, and watercolor on paper

I did a little art whilst deep in the throes of the Sunday Scaries and I’d like to report that I do in fact feel a teensy bit better.

53 days until The Art of the Unknown is loose in the world! While I was writing this, I read everything, everything! My further reading list is much less useful than a standard bibliography but perhaps way more interesting!

Three years since my dad died. I hadn’t spoken to him in many years but I was coming round (or maybe in retrospect I wish I was.) He was an artist and a major weirdo. I got my love of wordplay, absurdist humor, and Heavy Metal magazine from him. Also my wide smile, squinty eyes and frizzy hair.

The brilliant smallinklings has painted a portrait of our little Lucy, depicting our cranky old lady as a saintly beast, Our Lady of Perpetual Hope, always trusting that a crumb of toast or a crispy bit of salmon skin might fall into her mouth. Sometimes it does! The power of Lucy compels us!

Scent of the night: Lvnea Les Lunatiques is a cupped palm of night air: softly flickering mothwings at midnight, shadow-draped blooms furled in upon themselves dreaming, the holy gleaming poetry of cosmic light from stars long dead, the sweet murmuring exhalations of a slumbering grove of saplings.

Found this lil nugget underneath our hummingbird bush this morning. (Don’t worry, currently waiting for the possom rescue folks to come get her.)

Lots of stuff in my most recent newsletter! I am either a month late with it or a month early, but whatever, time is a construct, god is dead! view.flodesk.com/emails/6a47d...

Scent of the day: Anatol Lebreton Fleur Cachée is celery & shadows, green seeds & spice pods crushed on cool marble, desiccated bouquets more dust than bloom, the skeletal, cobwebbed remains of frosted confections. Gillian Anderson as the clock-stoppingly tragic figure of Miss Havisham.

Second Quarter book reviews are live on the blog! And I read SO MANY amazing books these past few months (to name a few: Strange Girls, Burial Tide, Japanese Gothic.) I also read a few duds, womp womp. unquietthings.com/second-quart...

let’s see you spend you $12.83 BCBS settlement money on something better than a Bichon Frise page clip ok

A shadow in the eye of your bright, sunny summer day! My 10 Very Gothest Perfumes unquietthings.com/my-10-gothes...

Apologies in advance if my cognito-hazard column for the current issue of @ruemorguemag.bsky.social does freaky things to your brain. (Inspired by There Is No Antimemetics Division, Morgellons Disease, Pontypool, etc., where knowing the thing makes you susceptible to the thing.)

50% off of everything in my Pango shop this weekend! And there’s way more than what shows up in this lil video, so click link below and have a look! pangobooks.com/bookstore/gh...