S. T. Joshi’s Blog
January 20, 2026 — The Clark Ashton Smith Circle
I was delighted to participate in the one-day conference on Clark Ashton Smith, entitled “The Clark Ashton Smith Circle,” held at the Carnegie Library in Auburn, California—the very building that Smith haunted as a child, where (in the opinion of some scholars) he read every book that the library owned at the time. The conference, on January 10, featured five substantial panels. I was on two of them. The first, “Smith’s Poetry,” was a lively discussion of the entirety of Smith’s verse, from early to late. One panelist, John R. Fultz, was ill, so the conference’s organiser, Nils Hedglin, ably filled his role as moderator. Here is a photo of the panel, featuring (from left to right) Nils, myself, and Ron Hilger:
After lunch, I was on a panel on “Smith’s Science Fiction.” I had told Nils that, in the course of rereading Smith’s tales for my biography, I had gained a renewed appreciation for these stories. Cody Goodfellow and Ron Hilger joined me on this panel.
Other panels were also lively. However, another no-show (because of illness) was Charles Schneider, who was to have made a “special presentation” at the end of the day. Instead, Dwayne Olson and Todd Warren recounted their quest for rare and obscure items of Smithiana.
The conference featured a dealer’s room as well as a display room where examples of Smith’s books, magazine appearances, and artwork were presented. I supplied a small number of items from my collection, including the “Unexpurgated Clark Ashton Smith” pamphlets issued by Necronomicon Press. And, of course, I had in hand a provisional copy of my biography (The Star-Treader: A Life of Clark Ashton Smith), which attracted some attention.
All in all, the conference was a rousing success. The panels were videotaped, and I imagine they will be uploaded onto YouTube or some other such platform in due course of time. We hope to reprise the event—and make it span two days rather than just one—in two years’ time.
Outside of the conference, Mary and I enjoyed several wonderful meals. We spent January 11–12 in Sacramento, where one evening we had dinner with my sister Nalini (who flew up from Carmel Valley) and Dwayne Olson at a place called Crawdad:
At this place, and also at a restaurant called Virgin Sturgeon, I silently begged HPL’s apology for devouring seafood!
I have been busy otherwise. As soon after January 1 as possible, I uploaded my reprint of John Dickson Carr’s first novel, It Walks by Night (1930), as a Sarnath Press publication (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GDQ6WTB3). It is a scintillating work—an expansion of the novella “Grand Guignol,” which appeared in the Haverfordian (the student-run literary magazine of Haverford College), which I reprinted (along with other works from this periodical) in a previous volume. I shall now set about reprinting Carr’s novels one by one as they go into the public domain. By the mid-1930s he was publishing four books a year—which will keep me hopping!
Another book from Sarnath Press is the fiftieth—yes, fiftieth—volume of my edition of H. L. Mencken’s Collected Essays and Journalism, this one titled Magazine and Newspaper Work, 1930 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GH7DMHWH). The material is, as always, engaging reading, as Mencken’s wit and humour remain vibrant and lively.
I forgot to mention previously that one of the most distinctive gifts I received for Christmas was Olivia Luna Eldritch’s book Recipes from the World of H. P. Lovecraft (Thunder Bay Press, 2023) (https://www.thunderbaybooks.com/books/recipes-from-the-world-of-h-p-lovecraft-9781667202327/). How could this book have escaped my attention until now? No one had brought it to my notice. It looks like a delightful book, and is printed in a sturdy hardcover edition with lavish colour images in the interior. In spite of the whimsical titles of some recipes (e.g., “Silver Key Chili Con Carne”), it does appear as if the recipes are actually meant to be prepared by the adventurous chef; and indeed, many of them look most toothsome.
Work on other fronts proceeds apace. One of the largest projects I have (almost inadvertently) become enmeshed in is a complete edition of the short stories of W. C. Morrow (1854–1923), the friend and colleague of Ambrose Bierce, who wrote one of the most piquantly titled books ever published: The Ape, the Idiot and Other People (1897). But this volume is only the tip of the iceberg of his contributions to short fiction, relatively little of which is weird. Indeed, a substantial number of tales are in the crime or mystery genre, and Morrow could well be regarded as something of a pioneer in this genre, given that most of these stories were published in the later nineteenth century. It is likely that my edition will fill a solid three volumes, the first of which I hope to publish in a few months.
But numerous other Sarnath Press publications are also in the offing, and I plan to issue one book every two weeks! Stay tuned.