Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
Sunday, October 5, 2025
Shonen Knife at Hi-Fi Indy, Fountain Square, Tonight
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Bummer October
This is a repost of some previous Pagan Spirits book blog content. It combines the original Bummer October post from 2022 with the update.
October 1, 1941: 52-year-old Aline Murray Kilmer, herself a poet and also the widow of Joyce Kilmer, a poet killed in World War One, dies following three years of an unknown, but excruciatingly painful, illness.
October 1, 1951: Journalist Pauline Pfeiffer dies at age 56 of acute shock. She had a rare pheochromocytoma tumor on one of her adrenal glands. It appears that when Pauline’s transgender daughter Gloria was arrested for using a women’s bathroom and Gloria’s father Ernest Hemingway called his ex-wife Pauline to tell her, the news of Gloria’s arrest caused Pauline’s adrenal tumor to produce the hormones that caused the fatal state of physical shock.
October 2, 2018: Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, who resides in the U.S., is murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi’s writings were critical of the Saudi government, and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is suspected of being involved in the assassination.
October 2, 2019: Guitarist Kim Shattuck, who played for groups including Pixies, the Muffs, and the Pandoras, dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at the age of 56.
October 3, 1849: On this election day, Edgar Allan Poe is given alcohol and marched from polling place to polling place in an illegal voting scam that was popular at the time. It may have contributed to his death four days later.
October 4, 1951: Henrietta Lacks passes away from complications of cervical cancer. She had been treated with radiation therapy at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. As a result of her cancer and/or the radiation, her organs failed. After her death and without her knowledge or consent, Lacks’ cancerous cells will be collected and used to start an “immortal” cell line that will be used in most of the major medical research of the 20th century.
October 4, 1970: Her road manager finds 27-year-old singer Janis Joplin dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. She has apparently died of a heroin overdose.
October 4, 1974: Poet Anne Sexton dies by suicide in her car, locked inside her garage, by carbon monoxide poisoning. She is 45 years old.
October 5, 1995: 50-year-old voice actor Linda Gary, who provided an impressive number of cartoon characters with their voices in American animation of the ‘70s and ‘80s, dies of brain cancer.
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Linda Gary is mentioned in this novel. https://amzn.to/3rUIsfh |
October 5, 2001: Robert Stevens, a photographer for the tabloid newspaper Sun in Boca Raton, Florida, dies of pulmonary anthrax. His death is the first in a series of anthrax terror attacks that killed Stevens and four other people and sickened 17 others.
Microbiologist Bruce Ivins is the lead suspect in the FBI investigation into the anthrax attacks. He dies by suicide before he can be arrested and charged.
October 7, 1849: In Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe dies.
October 7, 1992: The last fluent speaker of the Ubykh language, Tevfik Esenç, dies at the age of 88. The Ubykh people are a subset of the Circassian people, who were the victims of ethnic cleansing by the Russians in the 18th and 19th centuries.
October 10, 1901: 23-year-old David Park Barnit, a poet of the Decadent school of poetry, dies suddenly of what newspapers describe as “an enlarged heart.” Some suspect this may be a cover story and that the young poet may have taken his own life.
October 10, 1963: 47-year-old French cabaret singer Édith Piaf dies of liver failure from liver cancer and cirrhosis after years of alcohol and drug addiction.
October 10, 1984: One employee and three customers are killed when a fire breaks out at Ole's Home Center in South Pasadena, California. The youngest victim is two years old. The fire is determined to be arson by investigators who include John Leonard Orr. In 1992, Orr will be convicted of this and several other arson fires in the Los Angeles area.
October 12, 1943: Poet Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV, best known as Robert Lowell or Robert Lowell, Jr., is sentenced to a year in prison for draft evasion for being a conscientious objector to service in World War II.
October 19, 1950: Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, age 58, dies after apparently suffering a heart attack and falling down the stairs of her home.
October 19, 1977: A small fire breaks out aboard the charter plane used by members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. No one is hurt, but the fire makes Cassie Gaines hesitant to board the plane the next day.
October 20, 1728: The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 begins and burns through October 23rd. It destroys nearly a third of the city’s buildings, leaving approximately 20% of Copenhagen’s population homeless. The University of Copenhagen library loses approximately 35,000 texts.
October 20, 1977: Cassie Gaines, her brother Steve Gaines, Ronnie Van Zant, road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and pilots William Gray and Walter McCreary die when Lynyrd Skynyrd’s chartered plane runs out of fuel and crashes in the woods outside Gillsburg, Mississippi. Drummer Artimus Pyle, guitarist Gary Rossington, and keyboardist Billy Powell all survive with serious injuries.
October 20, 1990: Stunt performer Brian Jewell, portraying a hanged man at a New Jersey “haunted hayride” attraction, accidentally hangs himself in earnest.
October 21, 1966: “[On this date] a massive coal-tip slid down a mountainside and engulfed the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, killing 144 persons, mostly school children. In response to an appeal the following week in a national newspaper, an English psychiatrist, J. Barker, obtained a large number of reports from respondents who felt they may have received paranormal information concerning this tragedy. After all claims were carefully checked out, thirty-five cases remained which Dr. Barker considered worthy of confidence. In twenty-four cases, the respondents had related the information to someone else before the landslide occurred. Dreams figures in twenty-five of these accounts. In one, the dreamer saw, spelled out in large, brilliant letters, the word ABERFAN, In another, a telephone operator from Brighton talked helplessly to a child, who walked toward her, followed by a billowing cloud of black dust or smoke.” - Our Dreaming Mind by Robert L. Van de Castle
October 22, 2009: The county government of Zhenyuan, Gansu province, China, announces on social media that it has burned 65 “illegal publications” outside of a local library. It describes the books as either “religious” or displaying “leanings,” presumably leanings that tend to disagree with the Chinese government.
On the same day, in the United States, novelist/blogger Mac Tonnies dies at age 34 of a cardiac arrhythmia.
October 23, 1731: Fire breaks out at Ashburnham House in Westminster, England. The house holds the Cotton Library, a collection of books and historical documents gifted to the British Crown by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, a Member of Parliament who died in 1631. The fire destroys 13 manuscripts and damages 200 others. The Nowell Codex, the single manuscript on which the Epic of Beowulf is recorded, is among those damaged.
October 24, 2010: Pan Jin-yu dies at the age of 96 in Taiwan. She was the last fluent native speaker of the Pazeh language.
October 26, 1952: Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to sing on the radio in the U.S. and the first African-American to win an Academy Award for acting, dies of breast cancer in Los Angeles. She’s 59 years old.
October 26, 1990: 15-year-old William Anthony Odom, setting up a gallows scene for a Halloween tableau in North Carolina, accidentally hangs himself when the rope he’s using tightens on him.
October 26, 2018: A bomb addressed to then-Senator Kamala Harris is intercepted by authorities in Sacramento, California. Cesar Altieri Sayoc, Jr. is later convicted of the terroristic threat.
October 26, 2022: Food writer Julie Powell dies of cardiac arrest at age 49 after battling a COVID-19 infection.
October 28, 1991: The commercial fishing boat Andrea Gail is lost amid the so-called Perfect Storm weather event that began with Hurricane Grace, formed on October 26th. The boat sinks with six crew members aboard near Sable Island, Canada. Their bodies are never recovered. In all, the Perfect Storm claims 13 lives.
October 31, 1871: Emily and Mary Wilde, the older half-sisters of Oscar Wilde, attend a Halloween party at Drumacon House near Ulster, Ireland. During the last dance of the evening, Mary gets too close to a candlestick and catches her dress on fire. Emily, too, catches her dress on fire as she rushes to help her sister. Party host Andrew Reid leads the women outside in the hope that the snow would help them extinguish the flames, but both sisters die of their injuries, Mary (age 22) on November 9th and Emily (age 24) on November 21st.
See also: Bummer Halloween
Saturday, September 27, 2025
33 Short Films About Shelbyville
Scenes from my visit to Shelbyville, Indiana, on Sept. 25, 2025, spiced up with a few Simpsons quotes about the fictional Shelbyville, Springfield's rival city.
Highlight: Capone's Downtown Speakeasy in the town square.
~Sandy Allen's Wikipedia page~
My husband, Tit Elingtin, didn't especially care for my Shelbyville video.
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Said husband, a full foot and a half shorter than Sandy |
He said Sandy Allen was the most interesting thing about it. So I made a 1-minute video with smoother narration, focusing on Allen.
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Newspaper Comics from 100 Years Ago
Friday, September 19, 2025
Hands Off Our Free Speech
There is some shit up with which free Americans cannot and shall not put, and a crackdown on free speech is a stinking, leaking, overflowing silo of such.
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Don't let them tell you what you can and can't say. Resist. Make them keep their damn hands off your natural human rights and intellectual freedoms. The Enlightenment genie is out of the bottle and no, we will not be putting it back in.
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Find the 'Oakley Falls' Audiobook on Apple Books Now
The steamy Sapphic vampire fantasy Oakley Falls in not only available in print once again, but also in audiobook format.
Find it on Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/oakley-falls/id1837713875
This 43-minute book is only $1.99.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
New Audiobook Releases: The Deep Space Scrolls, Guide to Fortune-Telling By Dreams
New in audiobook:
What does it mean for your future if you dream of cats, beans, knives, or an earthquake? This anonymous author knew back in 1894 and now all of their dramatic A to Z secrets can be revealed. Learn the meanings of dozens of dream-objects and how they can foretell the future, at least according to this old-timey "science."
Find it from these retailers:
NOOK Audiobooks: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/guide-to-fortune-telling-by-dreams-anonymous/1148152682?ean=2940203505866
Everand (Scribd): https://www.everand.com/audiobook/909357316/Guide-to-Fortune-Telling-by-Dreams
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2hDTgKfwCHjBULUsUsGUwZ
Hear a short sample of the introduction on YouTube:
The other new book I published in audio format is The Deep Space Scrolls:
Robert Franklin Young (1915-1986) was a science fiction short story writer and novelist from New York State whose career spanned 50 years. In The Deep Space Scrolls, he imagined the voyage of the starship Camaraderie 17 as it encountered the mysterious Spaceship X. The circumstances of that mysterious craft cause pilot Colonel Greaves and the senator committee who interview him to question the nature of human history. It provides proof of the most unlikely story in the most unexpected place possible.
You can find it at these retailers:
NOOK Audiobooks: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-deep-space-scrolls-robert-f-young/1137360723?ean=2940203726186
Kobo, Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/deep-space-scrolls-the?sId=d631ebe0-8111-42d9-827b-39eb2df35d2b&ssId=sOxVsinVmkZuHUrvel1Cv&cPos=1
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4GDgVIrk7K9vKSc5WWFwE3
Don't forget, you can always check aeess.com for the latest audiobook releases. You can download the mp3 file, yours to own, directly from me. I get to keep all the royalties except the cut that the payment processor takes.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Happy Birthday, Siobhan Fahey
Happy 67th birthday to the Irish singer Siobhan Maire Deirdre Fahey of Bananarama and Shakespears Sister fame.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Back in Print (eBook): Oakley Falls, a Sapphic Vampire Fantasy
Back as a stand-alone ebook: Oakley is a lesbian, a vampire, and a stripper. She and her mortal lover Hollie have their issues, but Oakley's unlife is going well...so why does she find herself waking up chained to a chair in the basement of The Third Eye Gentleman's Club? Could it have something to do with her favorite pro basketball player, flamboyant, New Orleans-bred Johnny Lee Bayliss?
(Yes, I named a character after Timothy James Bayliss from Homicide: Life on the Street.)
"Oakley Falls" was originally published in the Vamps anthology from Torquere Press. Get the ebook for 99 cents now from these retailers:
Apple Books
Barnes and Noble
Kobo/Rakuten/Walmart
Smashwords
Tolino
Vivlio
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
New Audiobook Releases: Aesop for Children, Northern Drinking
Are you looking for an audiobook you can listen to with the whole family? Do you want to introduce your children to classic literature, help them gain an appreciation for books, and improve their vocabulary?
- The Young Crab and His Mother
- Belling the Cat
- The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
- The Fox and the Grapes
- The Bundle of Sticks
- The Lion and the Mouse
- The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf
- The Frogs Who Wished for a King
- The Rat and the Elephant
- The Crow and the Pitcher
Monday, September 1, 2025
O. Henry at Overdue Podcast
The History of Love
Little Women
Sunday, August 31, 2025
We Didn't Start the Fire, Part 7: Firestarters, the Final Verse
"We Didn't Start the Fire," Part I
Part II: British Beatlemania
Part III: Julie S. Howlin
Part IV: Firestarters Podcast
Part V: Firestarters Podcast Continued
Part VI: Firestarters Podcast Continued Some More
[Verse 5]
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
O. Henry Audiobook "Art and the Bronco" for Sale at Walmart and Everand (Scribd) Now
In the mood for a Western? Stream Art and the Bronco by O. Henry, a Western short story available now on Kobo (Rakuten, Walmart) and
Walmart/Kobo Link: kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/art-and-the-bronco-1
Everand/Scribd Link: https://www.everand.com/audiobook/906020046/Art-and-the-Bronco
Here's a sample:
That's my campfire from this past weekend, by the way. The husband and I stayed at a camper in Niles, Michigan.
Friday, August 22, 2025
Back in Print (eBook): Oliver's Famous Clam Chowder
Back as a standalone e-book: Their vampire friends insist that werewolf couple Natalie and Matthew really must try Oliver's famous clam chowder. When the wolf pair meets the vampire chef, though, it's Oliver himself who's on the menu.
Heat level: Spicy. This is a male-male-female erotic romance.
Ending: Happily-for-now. This story continues in "Oliver's Good Night Kiss."
Oliver's Famous Clam Chowder is available for 99 cents at the following ebook retailers:
Apple Books
Barnes and Noble
Everand
Kobo at Rakuten
Smashwords
Tolino
Vivlio
If you prefer the audiobook format, get it for $1.99 at Apple Books.
Would you like to listen to a completely free short story on YouTube? Sample Grimm's Fairy Tales with the spookiest story in the collection, "The Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was." Unlike Oliver's Famous Clam Chowder, which is definitely for adults only, the Brothers Grimm's folk tale is appropriate for most ages. Adults listening with young children should be aware that it mentions death, ghosts, and corpses.
Thursday, August 21, 2025
We Didn't Start the Fire, Part 6: Firestarters, Part III (of IV)
Part II: British Beatlemania
Part III: Julie S. Howlin
Part IV: Firestarters Podcast
Part V: Firestarters Podcast Continued
Saturday, August 16, 2025
Back in Print (eBook): "Herbert: A Romantasy" by Erin O'Riordan
Available now as a stand-alone erotica ebook: "Post Op" by Erin O'Riordan.
"Herbert" previously appeared exclusively in The Erotica Anthology. Read a sample here.
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Back In Print (eBook): "Post Op" by Erin O'Riordan
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
We Didn't Start the Fire, Part 5: FireStarters II
Joseph Stalin,
Malenkov
Nasser
and Prokofiev
Rockefeller,
Campanella
Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn,
Juan Peron
Toscanini,
Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls,
"Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein,
Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett,
Peter Pan
Elvis Presley,
Disneyland
Bardot,
Budapest,
Alabama,
Khrushchev
Princess Grace
Peyton Place