Publishing Pirate Poetry In a Perilous Pandemic

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” -H.P. Lovecraft

So it has been a long time since I have written and posted anything in my blog. Life has certainly taken a turn down a dark, strange, and terrifying alley since my last post several months ago with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S.A. in the Spring of 2020. I have been fortunate to have been able to work from home all this time and continue to support myself and family and be able to isolate myself from the general public and possible exposure to the virus. Most of our necessities are able to be delivered or obtained with contact free curbside pickup fortunately which my wonderful wife Ali has been able to take care of, allowing me to focus on work and other things.

I haven’t been writing much unfortunately other than bits of poetry from time to time. However, I have been able to get three poems of mine published in an anthology which was released in October 2020. Island Terrors and Sea Horrors is edited by Ethan Nahté and features twenty short stories and sixteen poems from Ethan Nahté, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, H. G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Alfred  Lord Tennyson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Washinton Irving, and more.

Included are my poems “Drag Me Down to the Depths of the Sea” “A Pirate Adrift”  and “Doom of Destiny” which I have recited at many events as my pirate persona Lars Shortshanks, with The Seadog Slam piratical performing troup. Ethan asked me earlier this year if I wanted to contribute to this anthology that he was putting together and if I had any stories or poems I thought would fit with the theme of the book.

I’m really grateful for the opportunity to be included amongst so many great authors. Coleridge, Poe, Lovecraft, Stevenson, and Tennyson are some of my favorite classic poetry and prose writers and I really like Ethan Nahté’s stories and poetry. I’ve recited some of his poems which are included in this anthology at some of the pirate shows at which I’ve performed. Ethan’s writing has the quality of being able to evoke a powerfully visceral emotional response from the reader, especially in his horror stories that leave one terrified, shocked, and gripping the book,  anticipating what will happen next.

Ethan and I did an interview together about the book and other topics on internet radio station tmvcafe.com with William Snider a.k.a. Zombie Zak on his live broadcast show After Rot.  Below is  the link to the archived recording of the show.

AR394 – Larry Atchley Jr and Ethan Nahté

Also noteworthy of late, I recently joined The Fort Worth Poetry Society which was established in the year 1910 and is the oldest continuously run poetry society in the  Southwest. Steve Sanders, my friend and fellow shipmate in the Seadog Slam pirate poetry performing troupe, and former President of the Fort Worth Poetry Society invited me to join at the end of last year. I had considered joining for some time, and Steve’s urging me to become a member sealed the deal so to say. I attended my first meeting with the other members in December. We all met using Zoom which is how I will most likely continue to attend even after the Pandemic is over because the meetings are held quite far from where I live and work so it will be difficult to make it there in person most months. Here’s a link to their site: https://fortworthpoetrysociety.wordpress.com/

I’ve been re-reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings which is something I do every few years as it’s one of my favorite fantasy books and a great influence on and inspiration of my own fantasy writing. I also have set myself the task of reading all of Robert E. Howard’s stories and poems which I started at the beginning of this year in 2021. I’ve read a lot of his work over the years but there is still much of his prolific writings that I’ve yet to read. He wrote I believe, over 300 stories and more than 100 poems so this is a considerable task to read them all, but I want to experience to entire range of his work, including historical fiction, westerns, weird west, action adventure, boxing, horror, and not just the primarily sword & sorcery Conan and Kull tales that I have mostly focused on in the past.

I am going to wrap this post up, as it’s getting quite long and I had intended on finishing and posting it a few weeks ago but things in the world and my own personal life caused me to put it off again. About those things, maybe I’ll include in my next post. Until then I bid you all to take care, stay well, healthy, safe, and in good spirits. And keep reading everything you can get your hands on.

Back in the Saddle Again

“The truth is that coming up with ideas is easy; it’s making up the stories that grow out of them that’s hard.”

             -Terry Brooks

It’s been awhile since I posted in my blog. I’m really going to try to get back to posting at least every week. I finally am feeling well again after having the flu for the last two weeks or so. I’ve been getting some writing done lately, trying to get some stories finished and writing the occasional poem here and there. I’m still working on the dark fantasy/sword & sorcery novel. I’ve been trying to figure out some things on the paranormal romance novel that I’m attempting. I still think I may need to read more in that genre in order to write it better. Luckily my wife has an extensive collection of them so I can borrow them for “research.”

I took a break from writing to ride my mountain bike since it was such nice weather today. It has been too long since I’ve been on the bike. That’s another thing I’d like to start doing every week again because it is so much fun and such good exercise. My usual riding spot is at River Legacy Park in Arlington. The Dallas Off Road Bicycling Association (DORBA) has built a really awesome single track trail there that goes for miles and even has several expert sections that split off from the main trail. I managed not to crash which is a good thing and only had to take my foot out of the clip-in pedals twice to “dab” so I wouldn’t lay the bike down when the back wheel slid out. I got off the trail almost right at dusk and it did get a little chilly at the end as the sun started going down.

Convention season is coming up and I will be a guest author panelist at ConDFW February 21-23 and All-Con March 13-16. This will be my third year as a guest and I always look forward to it. It’s great to meet up with all my fellow writer friends and fans who I usually only see at conventions.

Also, I’ve been asked to be an auxiliary crew member of the Seadog Slam who are performers of pirate poetry, music, and stories. I have been doing poetry readings at their events the third Wednesday of every month at the half Price Books flagship store on Northwest Highway in Dallas. Dressing up as a pirate and reading and listening to poetry is an awesome way to spend an evening. I was introduced to the group by a mutual friend and was asked to speak at their Steampunk event that they do the first Wednesday of each month also at the store.

I am also co-hosting the radio show Dangerous Minds on internet radio station www.tmvcafe.com on Monday nights at 9:00 PM CST with EW Bradfute and Renee Marie. We talk about strange and funny news headlines and it is really a lot of fun. Be sure to tune in and check it out sometime.

That’s about it for this week. Thanks for reading my idle musings. I’ll leave you with this pithy quote:

“Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.” –Heinrich Heine