Cozy Cthulhu

I've become quite fond of writing cozy Cthulhu stories. In them, you'll find many concepts borrowed from the world created by the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Arcane tomes, chief among them the Necronomicon, abound. The outer gods—primarily Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu, and Yidhra—occasionally drop in. The fantasy realm of the Dreamlands, with its weird and fantastical creatures like nightgaunts, zoogs, shantaks, and ghasts, is not as removed from the real world as you might think.

In my stories, you won't find the pervasive sense of impending horrific doom that Lovecraft excels at. Instead, the emphasis is on found family. The stories are optimistic, and not all creatures are hostile. Some could be considered downright cuddly. Whimsy isn't associated with Lovecraft, but it's embraced in cozy Cthulhu.

Arkham Files: The Summons

Toward the end of Visions from Beyond, the first story in Arkham Files, Neal was transported to the frozen plateau of Leng. There he met a yellow-masked priest in a monastery of ice. The priest, later revealed to be Nyarlathotep, told him, "Neal Carter, you dared find me. You will come when I call. But until then, begone!" Neal was whisked back to Arkham, but he didn't forget the priest's words. The time has now come for that prophecy to be fulfilled.

Have Dragon Will Travel

Genevieve Cogman's marvelous series The Invisible Library is a natural for crossovers. The Librarian heroine Irene Winters and her shapeshifting dragon assistant Kai are constantly on the prowl for rare books that could destabilize worlds. Their assignments stretch across a universe of alternate worlds. Speaking from personal experience, stopovers in a favorite fandom are often too tempting to resist.

Arkham Files: Slimed

In my next Arkham Files story, Neal Carter, Sara, and Henry will pay a return visit to their friends in New York City. Six months have elapsed since their previous meeting. That experience was chronicled in Chaos Conundrum. Back then, only Mozzie and Diana met with Arkham Neal and Sara. The encounter was particularly life-changing for Mozzie. He accompanied Neal and Sara back to Arkham where he was recruited to be an auxiliary member of a new intergalactic league formed by Senior Librarian Coppelia. During the visit, Mozzie was injected with the rare element algolnium. He can travel through both Celaenian wormholes and the graviton tunnels created by an interdimensional library. His mission is to monitor for signs of chaos on Earth.

Arkham Files: Strange Signals

Neal Carter has now known for a year that he's an alien hybrid. After the initial shock of discovering that his mother had Celaenian DNA and his father was a shapeshifting Meropian, life hasn't been too bad. Neal looks completely human. True, he has an aura but only a few alien species can see it. His sensitivity to algolnium isn't likely to cause any issues since only a few colleagues know of the element's existence.

Ringing in the Year of Baby Bear

That's right, Penna and I decided that 2024 will be the Writing Year of Baby Bear. You may remember that Baby Bear was the nickname Irene Caffrey gave her grandson Neal when he was an infant. In honor of Penna's 10th Anniversary of Caffrey Conversation (October 2023), what better choice could there be? It's a year when we hope to have so many plot ideas, we'll need two names for them—berries for fluffy ideas and cubbies for the angsty ones.

Straddling Two Worlds: The Woman in Violet

Two of my series—Arkham Files and Tales from the Library—feature librarians and portals to other worlds. So you probably aren't surprised to hear that I've often daydreamed about the characters having joint adventures. I'd already tested the waters by having the Arkham Files crew visit their counterparts in Caffrey Conversation. There they learned about the dangers of crossworld contamination. The resulting chaos that can ensue is a concept that Irene is very familiar with. The possibilities for collaboration finally became so enticing that I couldn't resist giving it a whirl.

Arkham Files: Chaos Conundrum

Something strange is going on in Arkham. If you've already visited the New England college town, you're not surprised. After all, this is a place where an extraterrestrial is the head librarian, traveling via wormholes is routine, and a talking armillary sphere guides the team. But hang on, even Neal and his friends are perplexed. That can't be good.

Tower of Koth

Today I posted my first story of 2023, the Writing Year of the Giraffe. This is a year when Penna and I will stretch our writing necks to capture "raffies," our term for the plot ideas of the year. Tower of Koth is the 14th installment in Arkham Files, a meta series currently written by Mozzie. It's set in the summer of 1976. Ten months have elapsed since Neal met Peter and Elizabeth. He's gone from being a stranger to an honorary member of the family. As this story opens, he and Peter are attempting to assemble a crib. Elizabeth's due date is about two months off. But developments overseas rapidly overtake domestic activities.

Ring Out the Old

Over the past few years, Penna and I have linked each year of writing to an animal. 2022 has been the Year of the Duck where our plot bunnies are all ducklings. Soon we will honor a new animal, but before 2023 arrives, we still have a few ducklings who are quacking to be presented.

Feeling Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! Our characters have enjoyed Thanksgiving in many of our series, including Caffrey Conversation, Arkham Files, and Crossed Lines. Today I added a new story to the list: A Drexford Thanksgiving. This is the second story in the Ghostnet series—a world where witches, vampires, and werewolves live harmoniously with humans by hiding in plain sight. This story like the first one in the series is a one-chapter short take. New traditions blend with old as a young witch adjusts to her life in Drexford, and it wouldn't be Ghostnet without a generous dose of magic.

A Brighter Future

A reader recently asked if it was necessary to read my Crossed Lines and Arkham Files series in order to follow the plots in my Caffrey Conversation stories. The short answer is no. Any key events in the other series are always summarized in the Caffrey Conversation stories so you won't feel like you're missing out.

Found Families

The found family relationship in White Collar is generally acknowledged to be one of the most appealing aspects of the TV series. In the world of Caffrey Conversation, Penna and I super-sized it.

Arkham Vault: Queen's Gambit

Queen's Gambit is the 10th story in the Arkham Files series, a collection of meta tales written by Diana Berrigan and Mozzie in the Caffrey Conversation series. This story was conceptualized shortly after Henry Winslow joined the Arkham Files Round Table writing group, and his influence is evident in the plot. To name just one example, he uses his Arkham Files character Henry Chaseman to justify his solo work in Argentina in The Dreamer and Nocturne in Black and Gold.

Vault Acquisition: Standing Stones

Standing Stones is the ninth Arkham Files acquisition to the library vault at Miskatonic University. It is the sequel to Scorpion Hill and takes place in February 1976.

Reboot of the Arkham Round Table

After Rolf and Klaus Mansfeld were captured, Diana seriously considered hanging up her writer's hat. The Arkham Files fanfics had been designed to manipulate the brothers, and the strategy worked. What justification could there be to continue writing them?

Alien Politics

Now that Mozzie is co-writing Arkham Files with Diana, it's not a surprise to those who know him that he's managed to inject one of his favorite conspiracy theories into the stories. You've already encountered several candidates in Caffrey Conversation. Who can forget his obsession with Hitler clones? The otherworldly connection to tunnel slime is another example. In Arkham Files, Mozzie found an ideal breeding ground for extraterrestrial interference in global politics.

Shadow of Vietnam

Mozzie inserted a lurking anti-war sentiment into Arkham Files. His character, the astrophysicist Dante Atwood, was a vehement protester of the Vietnam War. Like many scientists and scholars, he was appalled by the toll taken both on people and the environment. Mozzie found an unexpected ally among the members of the Arkham Round Table writing group with Tricia who'd been an environmental activist in college.

Love Is in the Air

Valentine's Day is nearly here. What better time to pause and celebrate the importance of love in our stories! Thanks to the extended timelines in our series, we're able to create slow-burn relationships where love in many different guises can be explored. Cupid's arrow has not always been directed toward couples desiring sexual love. Love that is familial or platonic in nature is just as important as romantic love.

Vault Acquisition: Scorpion Hill

Scorpion Hill is the eighth Arkham Files acquisition to the library vault at Miskatonic University. It is the sequel to Sands of Abydos and begins three days after the conclusion of events in the previous story.