My 'Wall Street Journal' Interview on Thomas Ligotti

The full text of my interview for a 2015 article

In September 2015 The Wall Street Journal published an article about Thomas Ligotti’s transition from cult horror author to mainstream literary figure. In print it was titled “A Master of Horror Blows Up.” Its alternate online title indicated the reason for this coverage of a formerly marginal literary figure in a top-tier newspaper: “Penguin Classics to Publish Ligotti Stories.”¹ The publication of Ligotti’s first two books, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe, in a combined Penguin Classics edition was imminent, and this event represented a kind of default act of literary canonization, as the article’s author, Michael Calia, noted in its opening line: “Horror writer Thomas Ligotti is about to enter the American literary canon.” The existence of such a book meant Ligotti would now be one of only ten living authors to have been published under the Penguin Classics imprint, placing him in the company of such mainstream luminaries as Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo.

Michael interviewed …