Grotesque

[close] A book club for those who appreciate literature that thrives in shadows. We meet every 1st and 3rd Wednesday at Wolverine Farm in Fort Collins, CO. The word "phantasmagoria" has its origins in pre-electric stage production, where flame, smoke, and mirrors were used to create practical effects of moving images before a live audience. These images were often ghostly, otherworldly, or supernatural. In literature, "phantasmagoria" has a similar meaning. "A fantastic or dreamlike sequence of real or imagined images." -- The Oxford English Dictionary

[close] Bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre, which often uses elements of absurdism, satire, and the grotesque, along with pop-surrealism and genre fiction staples, in order to create subversive, weird, and entertaining works. Splatterpunk is the result when horror fiction met bizarro and had a gender nonconforming baby. Hatched in the 1980s, because yes the chicken really did come first, it is distinguished by graphic and gratuitously gory depictions of violence. All these genres share a countercultural alignment. We read that stuff (someone has to), and other abnormal fiction, then write publicly to one another here about the experience of reading it. If you join this group, you can too.