Weekly Roundup: June 5th - 10th
This Week’s Posts
A response to another essay that was about Invisible Prose. I argue here that there is more to prose than utilitarian concerns.
Paying subscribers received Chapter Five of Emrys the Fool and free subscribers received Chapter Three. If you received neither, there are instructions below on how to get these in your email.
From the Archives
I argue that wolrdbuilding is important but should remain subordinate to the narrative and characters.
This essay grew some new legs this week thanks to Substack Notes, but I’ve always liked it and hoped it would find its audience someday. It came out nearly two years ago when I had a small fraction of the subscribers I now have.
Listening
I was on the Agitator podcast this week to discuss how we were all rejected by CD Projekt Red. You can watch the video version of the podcast here. My cat makes a guest appearance.
Also, big thanks to my good friend Bart for throwing this album my way. Aethiopes by billy woods is one of the most interesting sounding albums I’ve heard in a long time. It’s like hip hop from another dimension.
What I’m reading
The Paris Review published an excerpt from Blake Butler’s upcoming memoir about his wife's suicide. Get ready to cry.
Finishing up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows for my Harry Potter retrospective. Expect the review in September.
Also about to start Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy. This is part of my ongoing read/reread of Cormac McCarthy. I’ll have more to say about all these when I finish them all, but
has been doing monthly reviews of McCarthy’s oeuvre.Now, a bit of housekeeping.
Poll Results and Changes to Wolf
The results are in from the polls a few weeks ago. Looks like I’ll begin posting some fiction here in an opt-in section of the site. I’ll also begin hosting a podcast elsewhere that will be another serialized novel about a young boy becoming a pirate. This is the story I’ve been narrating for my son.
I’ll have more to share about this once I figure out how to upload and manage a podcast. If anyone has any experience, I’m all ears!
The newsletter has increased in complexity a bit as time has gone on and there are now a few different sections of the site that you can opt into and out of. I’ll break it down here:
If you want to also subscribe or unsubscribe from specific sections, go to radicaledward.substack.com/account.
You should then see your account details, your type of subscription (free or paid), but also your Notification settings.
Here you can toggle on and off which parts of the newsletter to subscribe to. I’ll break these down a bit:
Wolf - Nonfiction. These are the weekly essays you’re used to
Emrys the Fool - A serialized steampunk novel set at a magic school. One part Gundam, one part Harry Potter, and a whole mess of weirdness.
Short Stories - Weekly short stories of varying lengths, genres, and styles.
Weekly Roundup - This is the best option if you’d prefer just a single email from me per week. It will look exactly like the post you’re reading now!
Chat Threads - I don’t use this.
And if you’re one of those kind souls looking to get into my fiction, here are the novels I’ve released recently:
Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster
Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion
Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure
Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera
The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse. Coming 6/21/2023
Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl. Coming 7/25/2023
Some free books for your trouble:
Your output continues to astound. And thanks for the shoutout!
REALLY LOVING HOWL (bought the books, you know). It's wild and nothing like I expected it to be. And in that, it's perfect. Subversive.