John Wiswell on the Web

Because I'm numerically attracted to things that end in 0's and 5's, I've been waiting a solid four years for 2015. A coupl...

2014 was a rough year. Twice, I found myself so sick for prolonged stretches of time that I wasn't cognitively capable of reading at al...

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, bless us for our good intentions, which always outstrip our good works. Tod...

This is the first year my sister has hosted Thanksgiving dinner, and God has decided to celebrate by sending a blizzard for my drive. While ...

This week the first-ever issue of Urban Fantasy Magazine was published. Its first two stories are "A Chance of Cats and Dogs," ...

"We need a Halloween movie." "Jaws?" "No, Jaws is a winter movie." "You mean summer?" "No, ...

Yesterday I finished John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Handling the Undead , and I wanted to call it the most creative zombie story since Max Bro...

It’s not my fault we live in the middle of the woods. It’s not hers, either, but I can use this. We finish Nightmare on Elm Street around ...

It's a good day to celebrate! Yesterday morning I signed the contract and sold my first short story to a pro-rate magazine. The lovely s...

There’s a lot I love about Pacific Rim, but its ending has bothered me since opening weekend. Spoilers , naturally, if you haven’t seen ...

An iconic Fantasy villain, with his +1 cleaver. From an early age I didn't understand most genre distinctions, and especially why...

Senility as wish fulfillment. I've already written a full review of Jo Walton's My Real Children , but I want to talk about som...

My nephew forced me to buy the chair at a yard sale. The "End of the World Sale," the plywood sign called it, and the chair was ...

The modern world has not done enough to safeguard against vampires. The corrupt the young and drink the old, but the bravest hunters st...

How impractical would it be to get Angela Lansbury, Tony Shalhoub, David Suchet, Emily Deschanel and Benedict Cumberbatch to star in an Exp...

From Pinterest . Perhaps you know Venom. He’s the coolest Spider-Man villain. Just ask my fifteen-year-old self and he’ll tell you so....

At the last hospital visit before my birthday, the nurse said I’d had a bad year. Nurses tend to be far more positive, so when she said that...

Walking through a nursing home after hours, the halls are empty but full of our sounds: generators, air pumps, washers. It's a symphony ...

It was Thursday in Baltimore, and I got in line for Otakon at around 6:45 PM. I was hungry, but figured I'd wait an hour, get my ticket ...

Nope. A fun game at conventions is to dance around what you haven’t read. There are so many nerds who get so little face-time validation...

This wasn't my best week. Starting Monday and hitting hard Tuesday, my body started rejecting my new medication. I've only gotten so...

I've had this short story idea for over a month and have been gathering good lines, ideas and character moments. Today I finally had the...

I wanted to do a Readercon post earlier but was wiped from my trip. It was a miracle I didn't fall asleep as soon as I plopped into the ...

A short update this evening: despite my health, I will be at Readercon . It feels like my system is responding to the new medication. I...

This picture will make more sense by the end of the essay. We weren’t sure what was wrong, but this week doctors believed either my...

Sometimes you call a setting evil, or hallowed. There’s good houses and bad, at least according to home owners associations. But there’...

Anyone who cares already knows that Jason isn't the killer in Friday the 13 th . It's his mother, avenging his drowning. He the...