Welcome to
THE EDGE OF REASON
Here, you will find perspectives that finesse life’s colors into many shades of twilight.
Here, darkness becomes light, as paradox courts absurdity.
Allow me to be your guide.
Together, we will visit strange vistas,
kiss the surface of calloused worlds,
while dancing on broken glass,
each cut screaming with the stroke of the pen.
Here,
At the very edge...
I welcome you.
Jamal has endeavored on his first journey as a book editor on a kaleidoscope of twisted cautionary tales, perverse revelations, and brutal truths, that use animals in metaphor. This Anthology is Aesop’s Fables meets Silence of The Lambs.
Penned by a gambit of Stoker award winning writers, and up and coming greats such as: Akua Leslie Hope, Alessandro Manzetti, Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng, Cindy O’ Quinn, Colleen Anderson, Cynthia Pelayo, Dominque Hecq, Edward Martin III, Eugen Bacon, EV Knight, Geneve Flynn, Jamie Flanagan, Jeffery Howe, Lee Murray, LH Moore, Kareem Hayes, Linda Addison, Lisa Morton, Marge Simon, Max Gold, Melanie Stromm, Michael Bailey, Nzondi, Oz Hardwick, Patrick Thompson, Sara Tantalinger, Satori Alston, Steven Barnes, Steven Van Patten, Tim Waggoner, Travis Herrmann, Wayne Fenlon, and Wrath James White.
Release date: October 14th, 2024
NEW DEAL ANNOUNCED
Jamal Hodge signed for 2024 Poetry Release!
Jamal Hodge signs to the Crystal Lake family (and on Patreon).
His THE DARK BETWEEN THE TWILIGHT Poetry Collection will be published next year.
From Jamal: This collection is my rickety cathedral of prose. Here, as Virgil guided Dante, I invite you to transverse these quiet songs of darkness, this Purgatory of Twilight, and accept the bright prism of Heavenly contradiction. This journey through extremity saved me from my own terrors. Poems born in truest love and despair, lend them you eye, lend them you ear...
Earlier in the year 2023, Jamal co-taught the Author's Journey poetry workshop with the incredible Colleen Anderson, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Maxwell Ian Gold for Crystal Lake Publishing. We had energetic poets with a range of experience and ideas. It was fun and enlightening.
Crystal Lake will soon be publishing Whispers From Beyond featuring poems by members of the workshop. Jamal's poem, "Tomorrow I'll Be Five" will be included in the TOC.
Jamal's short story “It Calls To You.” and the poem " Loving Venus" appear in the anthology series—“The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022”
Edited by Africa’s greatest editor Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, who created the first anthology that won the World Fantasy Award for best Anthology, and the magnificent Eugen Bacon, a 2022 World Fantasy Award finalist, and Milton Davis, the renowned award-winning Black Speculative fiction writer and editor. This Anthology series showcases some of the best writers from the African diaspora such as Linda Addison, Sharee Renee Thomas, and Akua Leslie Hope, to name a few, and has stories that will astonish you.
You can get it here.
Jamal's deliciously dark Poem, "Gogron Fruit" appears in the renowned magazine's December 2023 issue.
Jamal Hodge is directing the upcoming series on the world’s greatest horror writers called Madness & Writers.
Created by Velva Carter & David Maloof, Written by Michael Bailey, Staring Lukas Hassel.
Stories of the Reconvergence
This anthology presents tales of this reconvergence. Set on richly imagined planets scattered across the cosmos but linked once again by near-instantaneous travel, these stories introduce you to characters—human and otherwise—navigating love and loss, alliance and intrigue, violence and betrayal, and, most of all, the joys and perils of exploration and scientific discovery. Edited by: Angie Hodapp and Joshua Viola, Published by: Hex Publishers and Random Games
it is part of a major multi-million dollar gaming franchise from the developers of such classics as Donkey Kong, Country, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo. Jamal's Poem "Those That Wear Skin" is featured alongside such legendary writers as Stephen Graham Jones, Tim Waggoner, Jane Yolen, and Linda Addison.
Jamal's Poem "Those That Wear Skin" is mentioned in this article by Kirkus Reviews
QUALIA NOUS
Jamal Hodge's Poem "Me" will be featured in Qualia Nous in legendary Editor Michael Bailey's second edition of the famed sci-fi Horror Anthology alongside Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Lee Murray, Paul Michael Anderson, Gordan Linzer and many more!
CHIRAL MAD 5
Jamal's Poem SEASONAL MEAT and Prose Poem PARABLE OF THE BLUE MAN will be published in the Anthology CHIRAL MAD 5, edited by Michael Bailey (recipient of the Benjamin Franklin award, Bram Stoker Award, and a Shirley Jackson Award Nominee.) Along side stories and poetry from Stephen King, Langston Hughes, Linda Addison, Sharee Renée Thomas, Josh Malerman, Christina Sng and others.
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Hodge’s poetry uses the language of everyday and classical to create beautiful new songs. Wielding this unique instrument, he takes us on a journey, through space & time, to show life surviving in the harsh realities of justice denied, love refused, ghosts haunted, and infinite cosmos honored. There is growth and beauty reflected in the ashes of human weakness, in poems that unwind like a prayer to show how awakened choice can make destiny self-evident. This is a book to be read more than once so that unexpected layers can be revealed.
– Linda D. Addison, award-winning author, HWA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, and SFPA Grand Master.
TURNING GRIT INTO GREATNESS:
BLACK HERITAGE MONTH SERIES INTRO
Jamal Hodge has written the opening to the 2023 Horror Writers Association Newsletter for Black History Month.
WAKING FROM A DREAM OF HELL
Jamal's story WAKING FROM A DREAM OF HELL will be in the anthology You're Not Alone in the Dark: True Stories of Authors overcoming their darkest moments to reach their dreams.
HWA NEWSLETTER ‘BLOOD & SPADES’
How I Lick My Muse Bloody- by Jamal Hodge
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Jamal Hodge invites us to dive deep into our emotions to experience what it truly means to live. His latest collection The Dark Between the Twilight is an introspective look into the dichotomy of existence and existing. His words are raw, powerful, and unforgettable. They stay with you on this darkly haunting journey into the human condition.
— Christina Sng, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Collection of Nightmares
SFPA’s 2022 Dwarf Stars
Jamal’s Poem “Colony” placed 2nd in the Dwarf Stars 2022, marking him as the first Black writer to place in the competition.
Biz Boost Magazine
In this intimate interview for Biz Boost Magazine, Jamal Hodge talks about finding the courage to be vulnerable, so you can create in your deepest truth.
Space & Time Magazine 2022
Jamal’s short story, WAR GENE will be in the Spring/Summer Issue of Space & Time Magazine 2022
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If you haven’t read The Dark Between the Twilight, you’re missing out on a marvelous collection by Jamal Hodge, a new poet of many talents. The book consists of three sections, and each holds a wonderment all its own. Hodge is a genius at bringing you into his world with Poems of an intimately personal level, mixed in with a selection of speculative poems to entice the imagination.
— Marge Simon, Multiple Stoker Award recipient, and SFPA award winner
The Siren’s Call Magazine
The Siren’s Call (Issue 58, Summer 2022) is here with some of the darkest tales of gore, madness, and fun.
You can read Jamal’s poem “PINK BANANA” on page 110 at the link below.
Final Frame Short Film Competition
Jamal has been selected as a judge for Final Frame Short Film Competition 2022 at Stokercon
Forty Five Black Men In Horror
Jamal Hodge will be Co-editing the upcoming Forty Five Black Men In Horror with Sumiko Salson, following her wildly renowned 100 Black women in Horror. The upcoming book of interviews and essays will include insights from some of the foremost names in Horror.
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The Dark Between the Twilight is a voice vibrating beneath the skin, remembering the oblivion of something too little – ourselves – and the huge shadows at the end of the tunnel, with diamonds for eyes – lures, promises. That voice tells about our lives of flesh, the universe, and all the splinters running fast between them. A book to read.
— Alessandro Manzetti, 3x Bram Stoker Award winner and Elgin Award winner
The digital online version of the magazine is free. We appreciate the support.
Savage Planets Magazine
Savage Planets volume 2 issue 3 is up with some of dopest CGI art. Amongst the brilliant offerings of visuals and story, you can checkout my sci-fi poems “Sector 431B” & “Pluto Is Not a Planet” On page 58 & 59.
Star*line Magazine
Jamal’s cosmic Poem ‘Celestial Life’ is featured in Star*line Magazine issue 45.2, Spring 2022.
Hybrid
‘It Calls To You’ Jamal’s short story will be featured in the thrilling Anthology from Hybrid Sequence Media this Spring.
Edited by Donald Armfield & Max Ian Gold.
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Every now and then, the world is introduced to a work of art that transcends without end; that is not bound to time nor space but rather collective consciousness itself. With soul-wrenching poems such as ‘The Dream of Worms’ and ‘Tomorrow, I’ll Be Five’, or the vulnerability of ‘Goodbye’, and the affecting ‘Stay. Live.’, Jamal’s book, The Dark Between the Twilight, touches upon a reader’s enigmatic soul with an introspective emotion that will inspire generations of artists to come.
— Nzondi, Bram Stoker Award-winning Author
Rhysling Anthology
Jamal’s poem “Loving Venus” original featured in NOMBONO has been selected for awards consideration in the 2022 RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY, a collection of the best Sci-fi poetry in the world.
Penumbric Magazine
An interview with Jamal Hodge is the cover feature in Penumbric magazine December 10th 2021. Telling tales from the other side of fear.
Check it out the interview:
PENUMBRIC INTERVIEW
Horror.org
Black Heritage in Horror:
An Interview with Jamal Hodge.
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The Dark Between the Twilight explores how beauty can be found in sorrow, and how pain can lead to strength. Each page unfolds like a vision, both breathtaking and heart-wrenching. Jamal Hodge boldly spills his blood for us, reaching, as the best poets do, for the unvarnished truth of who he is and the bitter challenges we all face. You can’t read this collection and not be changed.
— Brian W. Matthews, author of the Forever Man series