“Well, I’m in a sort of winter world. And there is a castle, though I’m not allowed to go in. Ladies walk by in dresses that look very pretty, but they never seem to say anything. At least not anything interesting. They do sometimes smell like blood, though.” fr. “Burial Plot” (2026).

I

Shelly Blake-Plock is a writer. His work is usually occupied with characters, the things that they do, and the things that compel them to do those things. It is that way in his fiction, which usually tracks as literary horror. And it is likewise that way among the reams of his applied research into the intersection of human experience and machine-readability. Both appear as uncanny on the page.

Ongoing projects include multiple novels and a rapidly expanding body of short fiction. You are invited to reach out at any time to discuss. As for the research, if you are interested in that sort of thing, you probably already know where to find him.

II

You will find on this website descriptions of works of both long and short fiction, a discography of songs, and a research bibliography. These things are connected in that they represent the work of Shelly Blake-Plock, who was born exactly two months following the announcement of the resignation of Richard M. Nixon as president of the United States.

While his early literary output was known for its experimental tendency to blur verse and prose and often eschew linear narrative development, Blake-Plock’s quinquagenarian output is more firmly rooted in storytelling and character dynamics. This often takes the form of ensemble-driven literary horror in which friends, communities, and occasional figures of mythic linkage find themselves in hot water.

III

In whole, the materials collected here trace several decades of writing and thinking across forms: poetry, fiction, songs, and technical work. While tempting as it may be to resist making outright connections across these categories, in practice they tend to share a common concern with narrative, structure, and the strange ways human beings behave when experiencing changes of state.