{"id":11514,"date":"2025-08-06T06:44:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T10:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11514"},"modified":"2025-08-05T16:58:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T20:58:03","slug":"a-visit-to-the-lucentini-museum-of-curiosities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11514","title":{"rendered":"“A Visit to the Lucentini Museum of Curiosities”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Now here\u2019s a trip to a museum that didn\u2019t turn out as expected! \u201cA Visit to the Lucentini Museum of Curiosities\u201d was published in the latest issue of the antholozine Soul Scream: Fear and Loathing<\/em><\/a>, edited by Christopher Ryan. In it, you find out about a mysterious lower west side Manhattan museum that no one wants to talk about–and why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horror is not a genre I usually read, so I was surprised to find that some of the stories in this issue could certainly fit in the best crime publications, and the futuristic take of some other tales made them good candidates for the sci-fi category. My story, about a young couple’s ill-fated museum visit, leads off the collection, and I\u2019m pleased to be included with authors who have such rich imaginations!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While most of the stories are definitely inspired by troubling aspects of our current political moment, some focus a little more broadly on the fundamental dilemmas of being human. Stressful times just make those dilemmas worse. To his great credit, Ryan included work from seasoned writers as well as talented high school students. What a thrill it must be for them to see their words in such an impressive collection! (I remember the shock when I sold my first short story. I cried.) Some collection highlights for me, out of many:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cSchool\u2019s Out for Summer\u201d by Wendy Maxon \u2013 a roller coaster operator relies on the technology to operate his coaster, but when it fails, what will he do about all those people hanging upside down? This story reminded me of people who use GPS to get to jobs they\u2019ve held for years . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAnguish Art Showcase\u201d by Rebecca Cuthbert \u2013 expresses everything I hate about reality television, taken to its extreme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJim Crow: 2028\u201d by Steven Van Patten \u2013 although the story has a lot of \u201cmessage,\u201d the author was so skilled at building tension, I had to take a couple of breaks when reading it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFinal Advice\u201d by Charles Barouch \u2013 though times are desperate and uncertain, there\u2019s still room for a hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each story or poem is followed by a short commentary from Soul Scream<\/em> staff along with a few questions to the author about the work\u2019s origins and development. This was fun company to be in!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Order it here from Amazon!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now here\u2019s a trip to a museum that didn\u2019t turn out as expected! \u201cA Visit to the Lucentini Museum of Curiosities\u201d was published in the latest issue of the antholozine Soul Scream: Fear and Loathing, edited by Christopher Ryan. In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,1160,126,120,66],"tags":[2287,2286],"class_list":["post-11514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-horror","category-reading-2","category-short-story","category-suspense","tag-christopher-ryan","tag-soul-scream"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2ZI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11517,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11514\/revisions\/11517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}