There are more movies about exorcisms that any one person could ever possibly see; I know, because I’ve watched a lot of them during the years I worked on my upcoming novel Dandelion (pre-order here). This is a modern genre, too; it started in 1973, with the release of the grandaddy of them all, The Exorcist, so there are no … Read More
Religion and racism: two things that help create evil in my novel Dandelion.
Of my thirteen prior novels, eight of them were set in the American South. It’s where I grew up and lived for the first forty years of my life, from Tennessee down to the Gulf Coast. It’s a place I know better than any other. And because of that, I believe that it’s impossible to write about the south in … Read More
The origins of Dandelion, part 2
Read part 1 here, and a sidebar post on the music of Exorcist II: The Heretic here. In a Washington Post story about J.D. Vance’s run for office, I first encountered the term ruin porn. lf you’ve read his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, you’ll know what the term means: a tour through ruined rural America, where everything that once thrived is … Read More
Sidebar: Ennio Morricone, Magic, and Ecstasy
This is an addendum to my earlier blog about Exorcist II: The Heretic. One of the best things about that unholy mess of a movie is the score by Italian maestro Ennio Morricone. And one of the best things about his score is the track “Magic and Ecstasy,” used mainly in the trailer I posted in my last blog. But … Read More
The origins of Dandelion, part 1
In the summer of 1977, I saw a movie that would change my life. No, not that one. I mean, yes, I saw Star Wars multiple times, and my first published byline was a review of it that I wrote for a small-town paper. But I’m referring instead to Exorcist II: The Heretic. I was 14 that year, spending the … Read More
So, like…where have I been?
So some of you might wonder why it’s been four years, since 2018’s The Fairies of Sadieville, since I’ve had a new novel out. What could I have been doing? There’s a few answers to that. In the summer of 2018, I lost both my mother and my ten-year-old son. The double-whammy of losing both my past and future within … Read More
Raney and the road not taken
****Trigger warning for racism.**** I’ve had one legitimately wealthy relative: for the sake of this, we’ll call her Aunt A. She was my godmother, and since she never had any children of her own, she a) saw me as a substitute, and b) had no idea how to relate to a child. She’s the reason I hate squash to this … Read More
“A Slight Hint of Lackadaisical Summer Torpor”: John Hartness on Writing and Publishing Southern Horror
Everyone knows the giants of southern literature, because they’re also giants of literature, full stop. William Faulkner, Walker Percy, Harper Lee, Robert Penn Warren, and so forth are perennials in lit courses and high school English classes. When it comes to horror, though, there isn’t the same respect. New England gets Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, but names like Manly … Read More
Giants of West Tennessee: Jack Boone
NOTE: This is the latest in an occasional series about notable figures from my home region. These are, for the most part, personal reminiscences and opinions; where available, I’ll include links so interested readers can find out more. While Memphis has its own vibrant literary history, rural west Tennessee suffers from a dearth of serious writers. The swamps, fields and … Read More
Retrieving Zeder from the K-Zone
This is a story of a cinema treasure hunt, and as such, may be a bit tedious to those outside the rather narrow confines of “Lost Italian horror films of the 1980s” fandom. But I suspect everyone loves a mystery, and I’ll do my best to make this one interesting. Right around the turn of the last century, I recall … Read More