Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Commonplace Book of the Weird: The Untold Stories of H.P. Lovecraft | 2010 | Joseph Fink | Buy |
| 2 | What It Means To Be A Grown-Up: The Complete and Definitive Answer | 2012 | Joseph Fink | Buy |
Joseph Fink’s early anthology work includes A Commonplace Book of the Weird (2010), which reimagines Lovecraft’s unfinished ideas, and What It Means To Be A Grown-Up (2012). Both predate the launch of Welcome to Night Vale and show Fink’s interest in weird fiction and humor.
A Commonplace Book of the Weird takes fragments from Lovecraft’s personal notebooks, story concepts he jotted down but never completed, and builds new stories from them. The result mixes Lovecraftian horror with a more modern sensibility. What It Means To Be A Grown-Up has a comedic tone that foreshadows the dry humor Fink would bring to Night Vale.
These two anthologies are minor works in Fink’s catalog, but they are useful for fans who want to trace his development as a writer. The Welcome to Night Vale podcast launched in 2012, the same year as the second anthology, and quickly overshadowed everything that came before it.