s t joshi

S.T. Joshi is an American writer, musician, critic and award-winning scholar whose work has covered much weird and fantastic fiction, especially H. P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Lord Dunsany, and associated writers. Incredibly prolific with over 350 books published, he has also expanded into areas such as atheism, weird poetry, race relations and political discussion.

Outline

Here are the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

(00:00) - Introduction
(02:54) - Origin story: H P Lovecraft, Brown and Princeton
(21:23) - Music and choral composition
(27:38) - Weird fiction: Thomas Ligotti & Caitlin Kiernan
(36:43) - ‘The Lovecrafts’ biopic
(41:11) - Atheism 
(56:02) - Happiness, health, and productivity in your work 
(1:09:04) - Lovecraft’s letters 
(1:15:34) - The cheerful pessimist. 

Mentioned

S.T. Joshi’s homepage, biography of Lovecraft, and memoir
H.P. Lovecraft
Ambrose Bierce
H.L. Mencken
Lord Dunsany
Caitlin Kiernan
Thomas Ligotti
Sonia Greene, H.P. Lovecraft’s wife
‘The Last Wave’ 1970s Australian film by Peter Weir