Richard Gavin

One of the most interesting, numinous, authentically occulted writers of the Weird tale working today.

I could go on, but I'll be lazy and just link.

Due to his quiet social media nature, Gavin is often overlooked and therefore vastly underrated, which is a tragedy for anyone who loves beautiful portraits of the true Dark.
 
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I second Grau. In my idiosyncratic taxonomy of Weird writers, I distinguish Gavin because (as Grau said) he is one of the most "occulted" writers out there, which I think is the perfect word to describe him. And this is not in an Aleister Crowley way where the occult aspect basically suffocates every other single aspect of the story so that, like too much salt in a dish, it negates the entire effect. Gavin is the only writer I've ever seen who you can unequivocally tell his occult erudition but it never feels heavy handed. He just has a natural intuition for how to integrate this stream of thought into his Weird Fiction. It's freakin brilliant to me because I can't say I've ever seen a writer get this close except for maybe Karl Edward Wagner (e.g., "Sticks") but Gavin is just better. Great pacing, solid narration, great atmosphere. I started reading him because of the Thomas Ligotti quote recommending him and after reading a lot by him I fell that Ligotti was sincere in his recommendation. Charnel Wine is his first and basically if you hate Charnel Wine you probably won't like anything else. If you love it, Gavin gets better.
 
What a delight to spot this thread during my customary perusal of TLO.

My thanks to all for the interest and kind words. Ted is correct; my online presence is relatively slight, especially when compared to writers who are highly involved in social media. While I enjoy interacting with readers and other authors, I feel that too much online activity is detrimental to my work and my overall state of being, so I try to keep it in check. Also, I confess to being something of an ivory tower writer. I'm content to focus on my work and try to keep promotion of that work to a level that I deem unobtrusive to readers. Understand that I fully appreciate the necessity of promotion; I'm not trying to insult the more extroverted writers. However, every writer reserves the right to be only as "public" as they are comfortable with. My hermetic nature may keep me a bit nearer to the margins of the Weird, but so be it.

I appreciate Michael's comment as well concerning the somewhat uniform character or tone of my fiction. This is insightful. My obsessions and fascinations inform all of my work, and thus give it a kind of recognizable ethos.

It's very rewarding to see my efforts so warmly received.

All,
Richard
 
Love this description from the interview
supernatural tales have been, and can be, used for something more meaningful than whiling away a few moments. They create thickened atmospheres where our surroundings suddenly feel sentient
Click to expand...
I often try to describe the feelings I like getting from such stories and I've never seen it put that way.
 
Robert Adam Gilmour said:
Love this description from the interview
supernatural tales have been, and can be, used for something more meaningful than whiling away a few moments. They create thickened atmospheres where our surroundings suddenly feel sentient
Click to expand...
I often try to describe the feelings I like getting from such stories and I've never seen it put that way.
Click to expand...

Thank you, Robert. I'm glad the quote resonated with you.
 
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