Quentin S. Crisp's Blog
March 11, 2026
More Publishing News
I am a little late in updating things here. I have already posted this news at my Patreon account and my Substack account, but I will now post it here, too.
My 2009 collection of short fiction, All God's Angels, Beware!, is to be re-released by Chiroptera Press, and is already available for pre-order. Readers outside of North America can order copies from Psilowave or from Subterranean Press.
In addition, my 2004 collection of short fiction, Morbid Tales, has now been translated into Spanish by Alberto Ávila Salazar and is imminently to be released by Aurora Dorada Ediciones. There is now an entry for it at Goodreads and the Spanish title is Cuentos mórbidos.
Please also note the release of Kulchur Kat: The Insta Years , by Shaun Pimlott. There is a full list of contents at the provided link. In brief, it is: "A collection of writings about some favourite books and authors. It also includes my interviews with Quentin S Crisp and Alex Older."
I hope to have news about the release of previously unpublished writings before very long.
My 2009 collection of short fiction, All God's Angels, Beware!, is to be re-released by Chiroptera Press, and is already available for pre-order. Readers outside of North America can order copies from Psilowave or from Subterranean Press.
In addition, my 2004 collection of short fiction, Morbid Tales, has now been translated into Spanish by Alberto Ávila Salazar and is imminently to be released by Aurora Dorada Ediciones. There is now an entry for it at Goodreads and the Spanish title is Cuentos mórbidos.
Please also note the release of Kulchur Kat: The Insta Years , by Shaun Pimlott. There is a full list of contents at the provided link. In brief, it is: "A collection of writings about some favourite books and authors. It also includes my interviews with Quentin S Crisp and Alex Older."
I hope to have news about the release of previously unpublished writings before very long.
February 7, 2026
The Sunless Scene (a Radio Preview)
Just a little news. I will be featuring, with a number of others, on Leek Radio, this coming Monday, in a preview showcase of a new forthcoming zine with the title of The Sunless Scene. There are details at this link.
My own part in the showcase will be from an unpublished (and as yet unfinished) work.
I will be posting more news soon.
My own part in the showcase will be from an unpublished (and as yet unfinished) work.
I will be posting more news soon.
December 21, 2025
Fake additions to reading list
This is just a note to say that Goodreads seems to be adding books to my reading list without permission. It's weird that they should be added at all when I don't add them. All the titles in question are titles for which I am the author or a listed contributor. I don't disapprove of the titles, but I disapprove of Goodreads (weirdly) misrepresenting me by adding titles to my reading list behind my back. I've used the 'Contact Us' form to report the issue to Goodreads, so we'll see what transpires.
October 3, 2025
Back to Haunt Us and Nightlands
More news.
I will be speaking at a symposium in the Hoxton area of London under the title of Back to Haunt Us:
https://verdur.in/event/back-to-haunt...
My name is listed with a number of illustrious others, the full roster of speakers being:
J.F. Martel
Jack Hunter
Daniel Corrick
Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes
Quentin S. Crisp
The event was organised by Verdurin (the venue), Amir Naaman and myself. The general theme is the return of non-materialist metaphysics, on which each speaker will have a different angle, my own relating to the supernatural subject matter and function of (some) literature.
I would also like to mention here the release of the first full issue of the Nightlands journal from Chiroptera Press, which combines the first three Nightlands chapbooks in one volume. The second of those chapbooks was the tribute issue to Mark Samuels, which I guest-edited. There is a sample link to a retailer stocking the journal here:
https://www.psilowave.com/product/nig...
I am not sure that I am receiving notifications anymore when I get comments, so please forgive me if I am slow to reply. I will try to stay alert.
I will be speaking at a symposium in the Hoxton area of London under the title of Back to Haunt Us:
https://verdur.in/event/back-to-haunt...
My name is listed with a number of illustrious others, the full roster of speakers being:
J.F. Martel
Jack Hunter
Daniel Corrick
Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes
Quentin S. Crisp
The event was organised by Verdurin (the venue), Amir Naaman and myself. The general theme is the return of non-materialist metaphysics, on which each speaker will have a different angle, my own relating to the supernatural subject matter and function of (some) literature.
I would also like to mention here the release of the first full issue of the Nightlands journal from Chiroptera Press, which combines the first three Nightlands chapbooks in one volume. The second of those chapbooks was the tribute issue to Mark Samuels, which I guest-edited. There is a sample link to a retailer stocking the journal here:
https://www.psilowave.com/product/nig...
I am not sure that I am receiving notifications anymore when I get comments, so please forgive me if I am slow to reply. I will try to stay alert.
June 16, 2025
Out There - now out
My 2016 novella set in the Japanese mountains, Out There, is now available to order in standard hardback and leather-bound editions from Occult Press, at this link.
I'm glad to see it come out again, so that more people have a chance to read it, if they are interested. (It was previously in a very limited edition.) I have a feeling it's even become more topical in the intervening decade, in a somewhat oblique way: space age ambitions are pitted against the gloomily lambent enchantments of folkloric manifestations. Et cetera.
I dare say I'll post here with more news before long.
I'm glad to see it come out again, so that more people have a chance to read it, if they are interested. (It was previously in a very limited edition.) I have a feeling it's even become more topical in the intervening decade, in a somewhat oblique way: space age ambitions are pitted against the gloomily lambent enchantments of folkloric manifestations. Et cetera.
I dare say I'll post here with more news before long.
June 3, 2025
Mid-year News (Yes, I'm on Substack, et cetera)
It's about time I posted some news. Not all of it is mine, but let me start by suggesting that readers scroll down the page at the Occult Press website to the titles listed as "Forthcoming". At the top of the list you will find, next to my name, the title, Out There. Out There was first published in 2016, in a very limited edition of 107. I won't give a synopsis here. Suffice it to say that the novella is influenced by Japanese folklore and literature and involves two friends, one of whom wishes to travel to Mars, hiking in the Japanese mountains.
The second item of news is that I have now (as of last month) started writing at Substack. If you are interested, you may find my Substack account here:
https://quentinscrisp.substack.com/
Thirdly, I would also like to draw attention to the existence of an anthology from British Library Publishing with the title, Spores of Doom: Dank Tales of the Fungal Weird . This volume contains a tale from Mark Samuels. For some reason there is no table of contents for the book anywhere obvious online. (This kind of negligence and incompetence grows apace in recent years and I suspect it is symptomatic of the age: an age in which we emulate machines and submit hastily to the idea of our own obsolescence.) Nonetheless, I have very good reason to believe that the Mark Samuels story included therein is 'Cesare Thodol: Some Lines Written on a Wall'. (This tale first appeared, I believe, in the Strange Attractor journal and later in Mark's collection Glyphotech.) Together with 'The White Hands', included in the Folio Society's Weird Tales anthology (a selection by Michael Dirda), that makes two of Mark's tales that have been anthologised posthumously so far, both in prestigious venues. I hope this bodes well for his future readership. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, in life or death, and I hope those who appreciate Mark's work will do their best to make sure it is remembered and passed on.
Well, that's all the news, but I'll end with a couple of reminders. First, a reminder that I have a Patreon account, which you may find here:
https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=2730...
And also, the permanent link to the interview I did with Nina Power and Doug Lain back in January of this year for Sublation is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8oUb...
I will update with more news as and when.
The second item of news is that I have now (as of last month) started writing at Substack. If you are interested, you may find my Substack account here:
https://quentinscrisp.substack.com/
Thirdly, I would also like to draw attention to the existence of an anthology from British Library Publishing with the title, Spores of Doom: Dank Tales of the Fungal Weird . This volume contains a tale from Mark Samuels. For some reason there is no table of contents for the book anywhere obvious online. (This kind of negligence and incompetence grows apace in recent years and I suspect it is symptomatic of the age: an age in which we emulate machines and submit hastily to the idea of our own obsolescence.) Nonetheless, I have very good reason to believe that the Mark Samuels story included therein is 'Cesare Thodol: Some Lines Written on a Wall'. (This tale first appeared, I believe, in the Strange Attractor journal and later in Mark's collection Glyphotech.) Together with 'The White Hands', included in the Folio Society's Weird Tales anthology (a selection by Michael Dirda), that makes two of Mark's tales that have been anthologised posthumously so far, both in prestigious venues. I hope this bodes well for his future readership. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, in life or death, and I hope those who appreciate Mark's work will do their best to make sure it is remembered and passed on.
Well, that's all the news, but I'll end with a couple of reminders. First, a reminder that I have a Patreon account, which you may find here:
https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=2730...
And also, the permanent link to the interview I did with Nina Power and Doug Lain back in January of this year for Sublation is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8oUb...
I will update with more news as and when.
March 31, 2025
No, I do not welcome our new, tech overlords
In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche tells us that, "He who has a 'why' for which to live can bear almost any 'how'." This is followed by the line: "Humanity does not strive for happiness; only the English do."
Meaning, in other words, is more important than the kind of utilitarian happiness that was, in the nineteenth century, being advocated by English philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and which remains an influential model in the Anglosphere today.
Later, in the twentieth century, Viktor Frankl founded logotherapy, which has come to be called the third school of Viennese psychotherapy, on the principle that Nietzsche's words encapsulate. Frankl illustrates the principle in Man's Search for Meaning, his memoir of Auschwitz and Dachau, where he was a prisoner. His contention was that it is precisely meaning, purpose, which is decisive in surviving such conditions.
Recently, we have seen a spate of AI images in the style of Japan's Studio Ghibli, this supposedly marking some new watershed in AI development. People have been converting photos of themselves, or other images of choice, into the warm, slightly otherworldly style familiar from the animated films of Miyazaki Hayao, and this has been surrounded by a virtual tornado of rhetoric and outrage. There are concerns about copyright issues as well as the devaluing of the original artworks in a more metaphysical, aesthetic or spiritual way. Mention has been made of a "semantic apocalypse". Some of these concerns are subtle but they might, nonetheless, point to phenomena that will have far-reaching consequences. I will, for now, focus on one of the existential questions.
While doomscrolling on the AI theme on X/Twitter, I found mention of Christy Brown, the Irish artist born with such severe cerebral palsy that he only had motor control of his left leg. I can't find the 'tweet' in question now, but here is another one mentioning him in the same context:
https://x.com/MannysMyName/status/190...
It was using his operational left leg that Brown became a painter, thus, through the means given by the struggle to master the art of painting, finding the purpose needed to continue living in the face of the great suffering to which his memoir, My Left Foot , attests.
Now, we may ask, what would have happened if, rather than being encouraged to be a painter, Christy had been told not to bother, because there is an AI that can do it all better and he only needs to feed in a few prompts? This is the situation in which we might now find ourselves as a human species. The question is not whether AI programmes actually make this or that obsolete, though this is a related and important question to which we must return. No, the current live question is whether the tech industry can convince people on a large enough scale that AI makes this or that obsolete. And since, for decades, the value of the humanities has been eroded from both left and right -- from the left, because we are supposed either to have no heritage or to be ashamed of it, and because what remains is devoted to mere left-wing propaganda, and from the right because the arts and humanities are effeminate, decadent and are too often subsidised -- big tech will have a much easier time of persuading people than if people had the benefits of a rounded education, giving full value to the arts and humanities, to those things, in other words, which help us understand ourselves as human beings, morally, culturally, psychologically and existentially.
The voices we hear from big tech and its advocates show that either they do not understand the damage they are doing, or they do not care, or they positively revel in it. Perhaps you, too, revel in the idea of depriving artists of first, their income, and then, any sense of purpose, but do not think for a moment that if the tech companies can do this to artists (I hope they cannot) that they will stop there. All of us need a living of some kind, and all of us need purpose. In our society, with its complex division of social roles and labour, artists, writers, musicians and so on, have the often thankless and usually precarious task of working at the coalface of the Nietzschean 'Why'. We are the purpose-detectors and the purpose-developers for the human race. If you think you will not be demoralised if we are, I put it to you that you are very wrong, and that, if we are allowed actually to be demoralised en masse in this way (further than, frankly, we already are), you will discover in time, and to your great detriment, exactly how wrong you are.
I am keeping this brief for now because I am in the middle of a change of address, made necessary by financial considerations. I can no longer afford the modest flat that I have been living in. What I have written above is not theoretical for me, I am in the very belly of it. However, I intend to expand on this later when I have time, since there is much to say about it. And no, I do not welcome our new, tech overlords.
Meaning, in other words, is more important than the kind of utilitarian happiness that was, in the nineteenth century, being advocated by English philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and which remains an influential model in the Anglosphere today.
Later, in the twentieth century, Viktor Frankl founded logotherapy, which has come to be called the third school of Viennese psychotherapy, on the principle that Nietzsche's words encapsulate. Frankl illustrates the principle in Man's Search for Meaning, his memoir of Auschwitz and Dachau, where he was a prisoner. His contention was that it is precisely meaning, purpose, which is decisive in surviving such conditions.
Recently, we have seen a spate of AI images in the style of Japan's Studio Ghibli, this supposedly marking some new watershed in AI development. People have been converting photos of themselves, or other images of choice, into the warm, slightly otherworldly style familiar from the animated films of Miyazaki Hayao, and this has been surrounded by a virtual tornado of rhetoric and outrage. There are concerns about copyright issues as well as the devaluing of the original artworks in a more metaphysical, aesthetic or spiritual way. Mention has been made of a "semantic apocalypse". Some of these concerns are subtle but they might, nonetheless, point to phenomena that will have far-reaching consequences. I will, for now, focus on one of the existential questions.
While doomscrolling on the AI theme on X/Twitter, I found mention of Christy Brown, the Irish artist born with such severe cerebral palsy that he only had motor control of his left leg. I can't find the 'tweet' in question now, but here is another one mentioning him in the same context:
https://x.com/MannysMyName/status/190...
It was using his operational left leg that Brown became a painter, thus, through the means given by the struggle to master the art of painting, finding the purpose needed to continue living in the face of the great suffering to which his memoir, My Left Foot , attests.
Now, we may ask, what would have happened if, rather than being encouraged to be a painter, Christy had been told not to bother, because there is an AI that can do it all better and he only needs to feed in a few prompts? This is the situation in which we might now find ourselves as a human species. The question is not whether AI programmes actually make this or that obsolete, though this is a related and important question to which we must return. No, the current live question is whether the tech industry can convince people on a large enough scale that AI makes this or that obsolete. And since, for decades, the value of the humanities has been eroded from both left and right -- from the left, because we are supposed either to have no heritage or to be ashamed of it, and because what remains is devoted to mere left-wing propaganda, and from the right because the arts and humanities are effeminate, decadent and are too often subsidised -- big tech will have a much easier time of persuading people than if people had the benefits of a rounded education, giving full value to the arts and humanities, to those things, in other words, which help us understand ourselves as human beings, morally, culturally, psychologically and existentially.
The voices we hear from big tech and its advocates show that either they do not understand the damage they are doing, or they do not care, or they positively revel in it. Perhaps you, too, revel in the idea of depriving artists of first, their income, and then, any sense of purpose, but do not think for a moment that if the tech companies can do this to artists (I hope they cannot) that they will stop there. All of us need a living of some kind, and all of us need purpose. In our society, with its complex division of social roles and labour, artists, writers, musicians and so on, have the often thankless and usually precarious task of working at the coalface of the Nietzschean 'Why'. We are the purpose-detectors and the purpose-developers for the human race. If you think you will not be demoralised if we are, I put it to you that you are very wrong, and that, if we are allowed actually to be demoralised en masse in this way (further than, frankly, we already are), you will discover in time, and to your great detriment, exactly how wrong you are.
I am keeping this brief for now because I am in the middle of a change of address, made necessary by financial considerations. I can no longer afford the modest flat that I have been living in. What I have written above is not theoretical for me, I am in the very belly of it. However, I intend to expand on this later when I have time, since there is much to say about it. And no, I do not welcome our new, tech overlords.
January 27, 2025
Update on the Sublation interview tonight
An update on my previous post.
I am to be interviewed by Nina Power tonight at 5.00 pm GMT:
https://substack.com/@ninapower/note/...
I suppose, but am not sure, that if you wish to watch it live, you need to go to the 'Live' tab at the Sublation YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@sublationmed...
Either that or the 'Video' tab:
https://www.youtube.com/@sublationmed...
In any case, it will be there as an upload after streaming.
QSC.
I am to be interviewed by Nina Power tonight at 5.00 pm GMT:
https://substack.com/@ninapower/note/...
I suppose, but am not sure, that if you wish to watch it live, you need to go to the 'Live' tab at the Sublation YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@sublationmed...
Either that or the 'Video' tab:
https://www.youtube.com/@sublationmed...
In any case, it will be there as an upload after streaming.
QSC.
January 24, 2025
Interview with me (soon) at 21st Century Internet Lit
I mentioned in my previous post that I am soon to be interviewed by the legend that is Nina Power. I have a date, and, since, as I understand it, the interview is to be live-streamed, I even have a time. It will be this coming Monday, the 27th, at five o'clock in the evening, GMT.
The interview will be #2 in the new podcast, at the Sublation Media YouTube channel, 21st Century Internet Lit. Here is #1 in that series, from last month, with Nina interviewing the writer Udith Dematagoda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P684H...
I presume that, if you want to watch the interview live on Monday, you simply have to go to the Sublation channel and the video will be there. (I don't know much about these things.) Here is the channel itself:
https://www.youtube.com/@sublationmedia
I might update this post with relevant links or information.
I hope all is well, ridiculous as that sounds.
QSC.
The interview will be #2 in the new podcast, at the Sublation Media YouTube channel, 21st Century Internet Lit. Here is #1 in that series, from last month, with Nina interviewing the writer Udith Dematagoda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P684H...
I presume that, if you want to watch the interview live on Monday, you simply have to go to the Sublation channel and the video will be there. (I don't know much about these things.) Here is the channel itself:
https://www.youtube.com/@sublationmedia
I might update this post with relevant links or information.
I hope all is well, ridiculous as that sounds.
QSC.
January 20, 2025
New Year news
I'm just writing briefly with some updates.
Sherds Podcast (Sam Pulham) uploaded a 'ten best reads of 2024' video a couple of weeks ago. You may view it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOMcD...
It's an interesting list, featuring Brendan Connell's Cannibals of West Papua, Daniel Mills's A Song in the Night, In Youth is Pleasure, by Denton Welch, my own I Reign in Hell, which was released in June of last year, and six others.
Please note that I am also soon to be interviewed by the brilliant Nina Power:
https://substack.com/@ninapower/note/...?
It will be a video interview, I gather. I shall post an update here with more information on that soon.
And for those who missed it, I was mentioned in connection with the writing process on the Weird Studies podcast at the end of 2024, here:
https://www.weirdstudies.com/181b
If I get time, which I might not, I might even post the second half of my 2024 reading here before long.
I hope everyone is coping reasonably well, or even better.
Sherds Podcast (Sam Pulham) uploaded a 'ten best reads of 2024' video a couple of weeks ago. You may view it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOMcD...
It's an interesting list, featuring Brendan Connell's Cannibals of West Papua, Daniel Mills's A Song in the Night, In Youth is Pleasure, by Denton Welch, my own I Reign in Hell, which was released in June of last year, and six others.
Please note that I am also soon to be interviewed by the brilliant Nina Power:
https://substack.com/@ninapower/note/...?
It will be a video interview, I gather. I shall post an update here with more information on that soon.
And for those who missed it, I was mentioned in connection with the writing process on the Weird Studies podcast at the end of 2024, here:
https://www.weirdstudies.com/181b
If I get time, which I might not, I might even post the second half of my 2024 reading here before long.
I hope everyone is coping reasonably well, or even better.
