Susan Maxwell @ Bibliothèque des Refusés

@bibliorefuses.bsky.social

897 Followers 631 Following

linktr.ee/dr.susan.maxwell Bibliothèque des Refusés is the imprint of independent author & scholar Susan Maxwell. Fiction: Literary — Fantasy — Mystery (as R.S. Maxwell). Non-fiction: academic themes related to archives & fiction. Reviews.

Very fuzzy photo of book.
Weather satellite image showing Ireland covered with clouds.
Film poster for Céline et Julie vont en bateau (Céline and Julie go Boating).
Photo of books stacked on shelf - First Light by Peter Ackroyd; The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano; A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges; The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen; Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury; Witch Wood by John Buchan; Heart of Darkness and Other Tales by Joseph Conrad; Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey; Ambivalence by Brian Dillon; The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco; The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher; The Question Mark by Muriel Jaeger; Dooneen by Keith Ridgway; The Coast of Everything by Guillermo Stitch; and The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe.
Studio photo of Luke Skywalker, C3POm and Chewbacca with Muppets - Miss Piggy as Princess Leia, Gonzo as Darth Vader, and Link Hogthrob as a Stormtrooper.
Cover of Watt by Samuel Beckett.
Collage of stills and posters featuring women in Science Fiction film and TV. Claudia Christian in Babylon 5; Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2; Mary McDonnell in Battlestar Galactica; Nichelle Nicols in Star Trek; Katee Sackhoff in Battlestar Galactica; Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road; Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3.
Promotional image for Smashwords Read an eBook Week, featuring a cartoon illustration of a reader immersed in a book.
Mock-up of book Death at Hallowtide as physical book and on e-reader, against background of SPFBO 11 graphic. Text box 1: SPFBO XI Entrant. Text Box 2: Corrbofinn. A place where things are… different. Where the mortal world borders on the otherworlds of the sidhe. Where Jessica Quill has inherited a property and just become the prime suspect in a murder. Text Box 3: books2read.com/dah Buy online or order from your local bookshop.
Mock-up of book Death at Hallowtide as physical book and on e-reader, against background of SPFBO 11 graphic. Text box 1: SPFBO XI Entrant. Text Box 2: Corrbofinn. A place where things are… different. Where the mortal world borders on the otherworlds of the sidhe. Where Jessica Quill has inherited a property and just become the prime suspect in a murder. Text Box 3: books2read.com/dah Buy online or order from your local bookshop.
Book cover flanked on either side by brief notes on content, each with an arrow graphic (in various styles) pointing to the cover image. The features listed are as follows: Consecutive page numbers Multiple syllables, often in the same word Printed on paper* Paragraphs of varying length Brief biographical note on author Words (individual and arranged in sentences) Figures of speech Short stories, each with its own title Punctuation marks *except for the ebook, which isn’t
Front cover of Death at Hallowtide by Susan Maxwell, writing as R. S. Maxwell. Line art. Top: pumpkin Jack-o'-Lantern. Bottom: white dog with red ears, walking from left to right. Centre: signpost pointing to Corrbofinn both left and right, to 'mysterious' and everyday aspects respectively. Left: small green bottle with skull-and-crossbones label, moon obscured by clouds, stone tower, crime-scene outline of body. Right: twig with leaves attached, cottage, pub sign, Mini Cooper car.
Cover of Death at Hallowtide. Book description on back cover: Corrbofinn. A place where things are… different. Where Jessica Quill has inherited a house and land. And where she has just become the number one suspect in the murder of local wide boy Tony Millar. Jessica's life has entered uncharted waters. A job she hates, a cheating partner, her unexpected inheritance, and the final straw: tripping over a corpse in the rain when she comes to rural Ireland to arrange the sale of her property. But Herne's Acre is no ordinary place. It’s a key crossing-point on the borderlands between the mortal world and the otherworlds of the sidhe. And now it is to be sold by a stranger unfamiliar with the true nature of Corrbofinn, a source of considerable anxiety for Thornapple, that very civil servant of the Borderlands Commission. Bewildered, grumpy, and armed only with knowledge of toxic plants and classic detective stories, Jessica pursues her own inquiries to clear her name. Corrbofinn yields some of its mysteries along with new friends—human, canine, and… Well. You know. Increasingly conflicted, Jessica’s sensible self squares off against her dreams of a different life. But she makes enemies, too, leading to a deadly showdown on Hallowe'en, when the borders between worlds are at their most fluid and uncanny.
The poster advertising the Lumière brothers cinematographe, showing a famous comedy (L'Arroseur Arrosé, 1895). Shows members of a typical theatre show audience of the era delightedly watching a film screen flanked by pulled-back curtains.
Screenshot of consecutive posts on Bluesky timeline, the first from Blaft Publications publicizing a fundraiser for their forthcoming book 'Bandigoat: A Collection of Strange & Horrible Tales', the second featuring photos of a white mountain goat by Jeff VanderMeer with text 'the epic derangement of the mountain goat'.
Screenshot showing details of conference panel discussion on Saturday 23rd of August: 3.15 – 5.05 – Panel 2 – Archives and Archaeology (Panel chair: Rebecca Stone Gordon) Amy Leblanc – Think about what you don’t get to see: Ghosts, Archives, and Images in Leanne Shapton’s Guestbook: Ghost Stories Susan Maxwell – A Catalogue of Terrors: Archives, Fiction, and Archival Fiction Mark P. Williams – Excavating the ()ole Complex: Re-reading M. R. James via Reza Negarestani; Or Chthonic Modernism of ‘Count Magnus’, ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ and ‘Mister Humphreys and His inheritance’ Tracy Hayes – Codicology releases Demons – The Antiquarian Gothic
Still from The Wicker Man, showing Edward Woodward as police sergeant Neil Howie.
Cover illustration from Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. Cartoon illustration of police sergeant on a bicycle.
UbuWeb Founded 1996 February 1, 2025 A year ago, we decided to shutter UbuWeb. Not really shutter it, per se, but instead to consider it complete. After nearly 30 years, it felt right. But now, with the political changes in America and elsewhere around the world, we have decided to restart our archiving and regrow Ubu. In a moment when our collective memory is being systematically eradicated, archiving reemerges as a strong form of resistance, a way of preserving crucial, subversive, and marginalized forms of expression. We encourage you to do the same. All rivers lead to the same ocean: find your form of resistance, no matter how small, and go hard. It's now or never. Together we can prevent the annihilation of the memory of the world.
RECIPE Stuff the breast of the chicken with some of the sausage meat. Place the sugar thermometer in the syrup while it is boiling. Withdraw the pan from the burner as soon as the correct temperature has been reached. Wash the sago. Mix the cornflour into a paste with some of the cold milk. Fill with repared paste, using either a hot knife or a forcing pipe. Transfer to a tin lined with greased paper and bake for 1 hr. 45 minutes with the Regulo at Mark 4. Mix and turn out on a floured board, shape into cutlets, coat with the egg and bread crumbs and fry in hot fat for the rest of your natural.
Screenshot of map of Ireland from the Irish meteorological office website, showing the entire country as Status Red for Storm Eowyn.
Red curtains
Head-and-torso colour photo of Samuel Beckett with bookshelves in background.
Screen clip showing '666 posts'.
Photo of breakfast table, close-up of Bombay Sapphire gin bottle containing milk.
Cover of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, illustrated by Tove Jansson.
Cover of Hanuki Murakami's Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
Cover of The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk (trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones).
Screenshot of 'suggested accounts', one of which is rather, er, unseemly. So apologies for lack of actual alt text, but I don't want to encourage the algorithm!
Cover of The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera.
Front cover of The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera.
Close-up photo of author (wearing a beanie hat) beside exuberant skeleton sculpture in botanic gardens, as though engaged in conversation.
Poster of characters from series 3 of Primeval, against a background collage of fearsome prehistoric and dustopian future creatures.
Susan Maxwell is an independent author and scholar who writes literary/slipstream fiction for adults, fantasy literature suitable for younger readers. The novel Good Red Herring was published by Little Island Books; subsequent novels and a short story collection have been published under the Bibliothèque des Refusés imprint. Maxwell holds a PhD for research on archives and the margins, and writes non-fiction related to archives and literature.
Book cover flanked on either side by brief notes on content, each with an arrow graphic (in various styles) pointing to the cover image. The features listed are as follows: Consecutive page numbers Multiple syllables, often in the same word Printed on paper* Paragraphs of varying length Brief biographical note on author Words (individual and arranged in sentences) Figures of speech Short stories, each with its own title Punctuation marks *except for the ebook, which isn’t
Mock-up of cover of Hallowtide Boar as ebook. https://books2read.com/HallowtideBoar
Front cover of Dorothy Macardle's 'The Unforeseen', re-published by Tramp Press.
Screen snip of session from Programme: Sunday, October 6, 2024 10:30 The Relationship Between The Writer and the Reader: Who Owns the Text Alhambra - Gibson,Duration: 60 mins Jeevani Charika/ Rhoda Baxter (moderator) Michael Carroll Paul Carroll Richard Sparks Susan Maxwell In Person, Not Recorded, Writing, Fandom, Panel, Once the story is written and is out in the world, who does the tale belong to - the writer, or the reader? Join us as we discuss fan fiction to author intent and everything in between! We are also running an online version of this panel with different panellists.
The name 'Susan' spelled out in satellite images of landscape features resembling letters.
Composite image of the covers of the following books: The Schirmer Inheritance (Eric Ambler0; Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (Umberto Eco); Little Egypt (Lesley Glaister); Faithful and Virtuous Night, (Louise Glück); Of Ochre and Ash (Eleanor Hooker); Antarctica (Claire Keegan); You Should Have Left (Daniel Kehlman, trans. Ross Benjamin); A Memory Called Empire (Arkady Martine); A Severed Head (Iris Murdoch); The Thursday Murder Club (Richard Osman); The Book Collector (Alice Thompson); A World Beneath the Sands (Toby Wilkinson).
Screenshot of festival website header.
Front cover of 'A Severed Head' by Iris Murdoch.
Desktop computer covered in cobwebs.
Screenshot of web page for reviews https://sites.google.com/view/bdr-susan-maxwell/other-writing/reviews
Snippet from Guardian website showing "'Queen of the Con': Woman found in Maine oredered to be extradited to Northern Ireland."
e-book cover for short story Hallowtide Boar.
Screenshot of web page, showing header and first question/answer: You describe yourself as writing ‘slipstream’ or ‘irreal’ fiction—what do these terms signify? These are terms of convenience: as Ursula Le Guin said, genres are really for marketers, not writers. Slipstream and irreal are the most comfortable labels I have found, because while they make it clear that the reader need not expect psychological realism or depictions of the lived experience, they don’t really nail down what the reader should expect. They suggest literature that does not aim for realism, but that straddles an unreliable border between consensus reality and fantasy, that depicts aspects of reality in a heightened way, and creates fantasy that is in many ways very familiar and mundane. The terms signify a way of writing that tries to defamiliarise, rather than depict, the familiar.
This short story collection showcases the variety and evolution of Maxwell’s writing. Low fantasy in the mould of the Flux Avellana or Muinbeo Chronicles series; slipstream tales in the fuzzy margins of the weird and the real; experimental ‘synaesthesic’ fiction where fragmented or non-linear narrative is echoed in the structure and visual layout of the text. … … Maxwell’s mastery of language and style—lyrical, mordant, elusive, and savage in turn—is evident in all of the stories in the collection, nowhere more so than in the exhilarating apocalyptic bravura of the final story, ‘Each Tether Has its End’.
Screenshot of linked web page.
Weather: Why have we seen so many storms in Ireland in recent years? A very high level of storminess has meant more frequent and intense storms, like Storm Kathleen, hitting the country.
Front cover of 'A Wild Goose Hunt': manuscript map, ragged tear across centre, revealing image of planets in space. Silhouette of man standing L foreground, top hat & cane, from rear.
Screenshot from Kobo website of my three e-books available in Kobo Plus.
Open cardboard package, revealing a bit of packing material resting on contents of which an invoice listing seeds purchased is uppermost.
Cover of 'The Care and Feeding of Stuffed Animals' by Glen Knape.
Front image: manuscript map, ragged tear across centre, revealing image of planets in space. Silhouette of man standing L foreground, top hat & cane, from rear. Back cover: “You did not tell the Abbess a single lie,” Diamond said, “but you didn’t tell her the truth.” As a good Sombrist, Hunter Sessaire is aware that not only lying, but curiosity, is very much frowned upon by his community. As an apprentice archivist, he cannot resist the temptation to puzzle out how a manuscript could have been stolen from the room within the Sombrists' Labyrinth. A room that opens only during a planetary alignment. An alignment that has not yet taken place. But this is not the only enigma abroad in Muinbeo. Seemingly disparate occurrences remain opaque even to those normally in the know. Detective Chief Inspector Hal McCabe is scratching his head over the inexplicable vanishing of his apprentice, Salmon Farsade, and the dramatic and destructive theft of an ancient silver hand from the local school mu
Book cover flanked on either side by brief notes on content, each with an arrow graphic (in various styles) pointing to the cover image. The features listed are as follows: consecutive page numbers multiple syllables, often in the same word printed on paper* paragraphs of varying length brief biographical note on author words (individual and arranged in sentences) figures of speech short stories, each with its own title punctuation marks *except for the ebook, which isn’t
Cover of The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison
Interior of Monkton House, showing part of hall/corridor with green carpet with multiple paler green pawprints woven in. Walls are decorated in pattern of vivid wavy horizontal bands of darker colours against pale yellow background; sofa agains one wall upholstered in same pattern; view to wall at end with painting featuring two partially robed female figure against an architectural background, with bench below picture and curtains of the same pattern as walls to either side.
Cover image for short story.