Occult Detective Quarterly ran for 5 issues & one anthology, when we were hit by an unexpected tragedy. Our publisher, Sam Gafford of Ulthar Press suffered a massive heart attack, from which he never recovered.
We though we were dead in the water, but my partner, Jilly Paddock said to me, why don't we publish it? Her own imprint, for her science fiction books had lain fallow for ages, after she found a place at Pro Se Press. Just a couple of Kindle only books remained, but her latest novel was, at 475 pages, too long for Pro Se to want to publish in a single volume. So we decided to do it ourselves. Jilly knuckled down & learned to format paperbacks, and ebooks, and in a surprisingly short time she got good at it. She's even formatted books for other authors at Pro Se. We published her epic space opera -
Warbird.
My reaction to the suggestion that we should take on something as complex as publishing a magazine was, "No way, No how can we possibly do that. We'd lose too much money!" But then two things happened. Cliff Biggers in the US, a man who'd had a story accepted for
Occult Detective Quarterly #6 went to extraordinary lengths to make sure it was published. Cliff is the editor and co-publisher of
Comic Shop News, and the owner of
Dr. No's Comics and Games Superstore in GA., and he loved the magazine so much he offered to finance it's continuation. Secondly, Jilly pointed out to me that all those stories had been accepted for publication at
Ulthar Press. Our imprint was called
Cathaven Press. It was pure synchonicity. If you don't get the inference, go ask any Lovecraft fan.
Thus,
Occult Detective Magazine was born. I point blank refused to tie us down to quarterly, which proved rather prescient, what with the COVID pandemic messing up all our lives. We put together issues 6 & 7, and I think we even improved on what went before. Indeed, #6 was the first ever issue to beak even, financially.
I should state here that money was never a big deal for my co-editor John Linwood Grant & myself, nor is it for my partner, Jilly. We just wanted to pay the authors & artists & not lose our houses. We're certainly in no danger of losing our personal non-profitmaking status yet. In fact, while
ODQ had been getting plenty of positive feedback, it really wasn't selling anywhere near enough copies to remain viable. Sam Gafford & John both lost money on it. I lost a little myself, but nothing worth crying over. We needed to get sales up to a healthier level! I first conceived the idea for this special promotional #0 issue when Sam was still with us, but stuff got complicated, as you all know & it took until now to get it finally out there.
THE OCCULT DETECTIVE RETURNS
OCCULT DETECTIVE MAGAZINE IS PROUD TO PRESENT
A bumper new issue – over 100,000 words – featuring both unpublished stories and reprints new to the magazine’s pages, all generously offered by some terrific authors to promote the magazine. None of these tales have appeared in
ODM before, and one or two are otherwise hard to find.
ODM #0 is completely
FREE as a thank you to loyal readers over the last few years, and as a taste of what the magazine does for those not in the know.
This special issue includes stories by:
Mike Carey
Sam L Edwards
Joshua M Reynolds
Bev Allen
Paul Finch
Willie Meikle
E J Stevens
I A Watson
Jilly Paddock
John Linwood Grant
Mike Chinn
Adrian Cole
Rosemary PardoePlus a host of non-fiction articles and reviews by
G W Thomas,
Tim Prasil,
Dave Panchyk, and
Dave Brzeski. With art by
Autumn Barlow,
Adam Benet Shaw and cover by
Enrique Meseguer.
ODM #0 is available at no cost now in .pdf format (see below), and there will be an ebook/Kindle version in due course. A limited edition print edition may follow later.
FREE DIRECT DOWNLOAD OF THE FULL ISSUEIf you have any download problems, just email
occultdetectivemagazine@gmail.com
And the next regular issue,
ODM #8, will be out soon, with all-new tales of unwise investigations, eerie events and catastrophic encounters – plus the occasional victory for the occult detectives.
This issue will include:
Brandon Barrows – '
Angel Scales'
Melanie Atherton Allen – '
The Voice on the Moor'
Paul StJohn Mackintosh – '
Ghost Trainspotting'
Uche Nwaka – '
Spirit Counsellor'
Rhys Hughes – '
Memory Fumes'
Robert Guffey – '
Committee of Mystery'
Rebecca Buchanan – '
The Bones are Walking'
D G Laredoute – '
Theatre of the Mind-Read'
C L Raven – '
The Dead Shall Rise'
Carsten Schmitt – '
Tahdukeh'
Christina L White – '
Becoming Art Deco'
I A Watson – '
Vinnie deSoth & the Saucer People'
Plus the usual reviews, and interior art (so far) by
Mutartis Boswell and
Andy Paciorek.