The Cleaner! The only cleaner you’ll ever need. Noah and Dillon live a peaceful life in Midwest suburbia. But when a normal household errand releases an ancient cosmic monstrosity, the couple becomes trapped in their home. For the couple to survive, Noah must face fears which have defined him for decades. Chthonic Cleaning pulls the classic monster movie into the depths of something more slipstream and surreal, blending horror and weird fiction into a pungent cocktail you’ll find hard to put down. “Austin Gragg is a new author on fire.” — Angela Yuriko Smith, Publisher of Space and Time Magazine and 2018 Bram Stoker Awards® Finalist. *** Austin Gragg lives in Independence, Missouri. He shares Independence as a hometown not only with Harry S Truman, but two of his favorite fantasy authors, Jim Butcher and Margaret Weis, both large inspirations in him giving this writing thing a shot. Austin is a member of the Horror Writers Association and was a 2019 finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest. When he isn't writing, reading, or spending time in his garden, he can be found playing Dungeons & Dragons with his partner, friends, and a pride of small domestic lions. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram (@austingragg), Facebook (@graggwrites), or visit him online at www.austingragg.com

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: In the works of William Shakespeare there is often times an air of mystery often equated to forces of occult powers. It is my belief that the mystery conveyed through his plays is not mere tricks to entice an audience. Rather his methods involved a comprehensive understanding not only of human nature, but also of forces of higher powers. These powers are often talked about in religious studies and would have been known to most as “God”. So for the purpose of this essay we will think of God as a force rather than a being, a total and comprehensive all pervasive weaving in the fabric of time. To the person uneducated in the occult powers, it is easy to see the outrageous pieces of his art as magic. Which is like the ultimate cop out, just throwing away its value and meaning to the wind. To read Shakespeare is to feel Shakespeare, not some rational understanding. To read Shakespeare is to transport from the ephemeral material world to the eternal realm of spiritual eternity. The sense that this brings to mind is where the aesthetic pleasure of reading Shakespeare envelops the world. It is why we are still reading Shakespeare today and will continue to do so for quite some time. But to know time is to exist on a different plane than Shakespeare inhabited. For Shakespeare’s world was that of the eternal due to a super conscious understanding of the Divine. More than likely these forces were working through him because he had found a way to open himself up to the muses in order to become a muse himself. In other words we are mere fools in time and Shakespeare suffered greatly to give the world a piece of himself.

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 97, University of Colorado at Boulder, language: English, abstract: In this essay the role perception and/or memory play in our understanding of reality will be analyzed. How is this understanding accounted for or depicted in representations or theories about reality and what larger conclusions can we draw from this? The interpretation of reality is a fascinating topic for exploration for a variety of reasons. Despite inhabiting our own realities and living a unique human experience as ourselves, we generally have no way to access what it would be like to have someone else’s experience. I will attempt to contain the concepts in this essay in limited fashion, but obviously terms such as subconscious are not fully comprehended and thus are subject to interpretation and understanding. However, I take subconscious to deal with complex phenomena such as self-preservation, identity, motivations, desires, fears and so forth. On the other hand the ‘mind’s eye’ if you will is whatever thoughts are being held up and examined or being explored by your active willing. The long and short is, various things are happening in the deep layers of consciousness but what is in your minds eye is that which has caught your attention.

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, University of Colorado at Boulder, language: English, abstract: The concept of freedom is an idea formed throughout history dealing with multiple ideas of how it ought to be described. Freedom is inherently a social trait considering human beings are social beings. The idea must come from some idea of what it means to be unfree which would make it a relational concept. This means it can only be known when comparing the relationships between people and their relative abilities to act in self-directed ways. Freedom is often described as one’s ability to be a self rationalized being, a rational being that acts in accordance with it’s higher self. Another conception of freedom is the absence of external constraints or barriers, which may prevent an individual from acting in a particular manner. The distinction between what has been described as positive and negative freedom has focused the freedom debate on whether or not men should be coerced or regulated in helping them live according to what their higher self would will, or whether they should be left alone to determining their own actions. While this distinction helps to broaden ones perspective on how freedom is to be defined, it leaves out the inseparable interplay between the two. Positive freedom cannot be had without negative freedom and vice versa. Instead the two should be taken as casually interacting and directly affecting the other. Since humans are social beings, it is of primary importance to consider freedom in social context.

Meet the residents of issue #138: a woman who accidentally creates a new standard of femininity, another who breaks up botanical love to save her people, a god who discovers a new lifestyle, a shattered self view and finding new self worth at all costs, the dutiful reaper on an unexpected mission, a convict with an unusual set of friends, a falconer losing the only thing she has left and gaining something new, a woman fighting to preserve her intellectual freedoms, a hunter of the dead... all wait for you between the pages of the latest quarterly issue of Space and Time. Speculative poetry, prose and nonfiction pack into over 100 pages of entertainment that will stick with you long after the reading is done. Includes original grahic novel shorts by Alessandro Manzetti and Mark Levine!

A haunted father who discovers a place where incomplete things--and people--are made whole. A mischievous satyr who hatches a plan to set loose chaos on a global scale. A workaholic witch in search of her kitty companion. Invasive technology to rewrite the human brain. Dragon slayers. Zombies. Time travelers. Ice skaters. These twenty short stories stretch across multiple universes and beyond death--and yet, they remain intimate, personal, emotional. They demonstrate the strength of the human spirit to find hope and seek a better tomorrow in even the darkest times. A selection of the best speculative fiction from DreamForge and Space & Time literary magazines, these are the stories we need today as we struggle through a pandemic, divisive politics, rampant misinformation, a belligerent defiance of facts and science, and new technologies that are already spiraling beyond our control. Read, my friends... and take hope.