The Paradox Twins is a copyright infringing biographical collage that exists on the Internet, pieced together by an unknown auteur.
Named for the famous thought experiment, it concerns estranged twin brothers who reunite at their father’s funeral to discover they no longer look alike. Haunted by the past (and possibly the future), they move into their father’s house to settle his affairs, only to reignite old rivalries and uncover long-hidden secrets, most of which involve the young woman who lives next door.
An epistolary work comprised of excerpts from various memoirs, novels, screenplay adaptations, and documents of public record, The Paradox Twins is an experimental, sci-fi ghost story about the scariest, most unknowable quantity there is—family.
Recently filmed a video of myself reading an excerpt of my story, “Letters to the Purple Satin Killer”—IN CHARACTER— for the Night Worms youtube channel. Introducing… The Ladies Behind The Letters!
I’ve got a new story in Dark Moon Digest #38, out now from Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing. It’s called “Satanic Panic Attack”, and is written in the style of one of those old, text-based adventure games, like Zork. I had a lot of fun with this one and am proud of the way it turned out. I think DMD is the perfect home for it.
SATANIC PANIC ATTACK is a text based game of strategy and black magic. Use your cunning to navigate the world and advance your powers. Only the most adept of apprentices shall achieve initiation into the dark coven. Enter “start” to begin.
>start
Bedroom
You awake to the sounds of the KROZ morning crew blaring from an alarm clock radio. Evil red numbers display the time: 6:30 AM. A snooze button dominates the clock’s center. Sunlight spills through the window, highlighting the Commodore 64 on your desk. The desk has two drawers. Posters of leather clad musicians paper the walls. The scent of bacon wafts in through the door
Out now, from Necro Publishing: The Big Book of Blasphemy, featuring my story “Playing Doctor.” Super proud to be in this monster TOC. #grateful#blessed
Allie pinched the slide between her fingers and unzipped the body bag. The hook and hollow of interlocking teeth parted to reveal a familiar face, one as stoic as her own. Its cloudy blue eyes stared unseeing from within the plastic shroud. Her father had warned her, but she’d insisted on preparing the body all the same. “By myself,” she told him. He didn’t like it, but knew better than to argue…
I also just learned that an Italian version of The Big Book of Blasphemy will be published by Independent Legions in November 2020. That’s a spicy meat-a-ball!!!
My debut short story collection, OUT NOW from CLASH Books. Thirteen weird pieces of literary genre fiction. Singularities, ciphers, and reappearing limbs. Alien messiahs and murderous medieval hydrocephalics. A dark collection that twists dreams into nightmares in an attempt to find a whisper of truth.
“This is dark stuff, but fun, without any hipster wink of irony or cynicism. Writing stories that are simultaneously grim and good-hearted is a fucking tough line to straddle, and writing them well… let’s just say I don’t see that often. Chaplinsky walks a barbed-wire tightrope here. In short, good shit.”
—Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist’s Handbook
“In Whispers in the Ear of a Dreaming Ape, Joshua Chaplinsky takes readers on a wild ride through a landscape of darkness and absurdity. You may think yourself safe, but you’ll learn soon enough—no one rides for free.”
—Kevin Kolsch, writer/director of Starry Eyes, Pet Sematary
“If you’re sick of tepid short stories that taste like watered down milk, Whispers in the Ear of a Dreaming Ape is the collection of multi-colored, bite-sized brain pan bullets that might just be the cure. Joshua Chaplinsky has an imagination both of depth and breadth, and no two stories are alike. You can practically hear the lively, fascinating, hallucinatory click of his brain throughout the book. An enjoyable read for all of us dreaming apes.”
—Autumn Christian, author of Girl Like a Bomb
“The weird tales of Joshua Chaplinsky are full of magic and surprises. Whispers In the Ear of a Dreaming Ape is one of the most original short story collections of the year. A must-read if you like your fiction smart and strange.”
—Cameron Pierce, author of Ass Goblins of Auschwitz, Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon
“Spend some time in Chaplinsky’s weird and wild stories and you may want to bathe afterward, but you will have been relentlessly entertained.”
“Ceaselessly inventive, Chaplinsky doesn’t so much work within various genres as he does pull them apart like taffy, crafting something new and previously unseen.”
—Keith Rosson, author of Smoke City, The Mercy of the Tide
This is one of the greatest things I’ve ever been a part of as a writer.
TALES FROM THE CRUST: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PIZZA HORROR is out now from the lunatics at Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing. It includes my pizza-menu-as-story “Cenobio Pizzeria.”
You think this is a joke? Brian Evenson has a story in this thing. So does Rob “author of The Warehouse, soon to be a major motion picture from Ron Howard” Hart. There’s even a sick-ass limited edition hardcover, that comes in its own pizza box.
I’ve got a new story in MYTHIC #11, out now. “Fundament of Justice” is a speculative tale about violence as a means to an end. You can purchase both ebook and paperback editions directly from MYTHIC, or via the Beast.
OUT NOW from Salo Press— I Transgress, an anthology of transgressive fiction edited by Chris Kelso. It includes my story “Sangomas”, which takes place in South Africa and is about a very different kind of heist.
Check out this insane TOC:
Laura Lee Bahr, Tom Bradley, Joshua Chaplinsky, Garrett Cook, Dennis Cooper, Samuel R. Delany, Andrew Gallix, C.V. Hunt, James Joyce, Violet LeVoit, Edward Lee, Nick Mamatas, Thomas Moore, Scott Philips, The Residents, Matthew Revert, R.G. Robertson, Michael Salerno, Lauren Sapala, Gary J. Shipley, Iain Sinclair, John Skipp
I’ve got a new story in The Wyrd #2. Editor Marcel Harper describes it as, “a mind and time-bending story of an altogether different kind of mile-high club.” You can check out Aft Lavatory Occupied here.
This story started with the title. I came up with it—you guessed it—on a plane. But I had no idea what the story would be about.
A while after that I came across a Stephen King anecdote. I think it was in Dans Macabre or On Writing, but don’t hold me to that. It was about this story idea he had. About a bathroom (I remember it being on a plane or in an airport) that people kept going into and never coming out of. Eventually they sent in law enforcement, then the army, but no one ever came out. Was it a portal to another dimension? He never wrote it because he had no idea how it ended.
![promowebblasphemy[2]](https://joshuachaplinsky.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/promowebblasphemy2.jpg)
Cover by 
Joshua Chaplinsky 