The Author-Oddity Newsletter is almost two years old! Every month, I include a few oddities that sparked something for me. Books, of course. But I also include other media that helped fuel my creativity: paintings, sculptures, short films, indie games, etc.
I love oddities that give me the chills. My favorite art leaves me a little unsettled, a little wary of the woods. It makes me wonder if it might come alive with the right amount of moonlight. It always feels like it has a story in its veins.
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For now, here’s my favorite oddities from 2026. If you’re a writer, artist, or creator of any kind, I hope these spark something for you too.
Note: I’m a big advocate of 100% human-created art. I want to fill my life (and eyeballs) with human creators who make stuff with their own hands and brains and painstaking energy. In that spirit, check out “Unique Gifts” below. If you’ll be gift buying this holiday season, consider art as an option!
Oddities as Art
“Die Mimik der Tethys (The Expressions of Tethys)“ (1892) by Julius von Bismarck. The artist suspended this corroded buoy that, thanks to a satellite connection and eight electric motors, rocks and heaves in time with its real double in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s hypnotizing to watch even via video; I kept wondering what it sounds like in person, what it feels like to stand below a high-sea buoy.
“Tele-present wind” by David Bowen blends science and art to let you experience the wind on Mars. In the installation, grass stalks bend and dance, attached to mechanical devices that respond to Martian wind data previously collected by NASA rover and lander missions. Especially as a sci-fi fan, I love how this piece evokes a sense of stepping off a ship onto a new world. It’s so subtle and clever, just a really unique way of helping us feel a connection to another planet.
Valdevia encompasses the art of Eduardo Valdés-Hevia, a digital artist from Spain who uses photomanipulation to create strange and uncanny scenes, creatures, and worlds. The work is surreal, often unnerving. The artist has worked on projects like Gravity Falls’ Book of Bill, SCP Archives, and Home Safety Hotline. I admit I wasn’t much for photomanipulation before stumbling into Valdevia, but now I feel like I’ve got a better appreciation of its range and potential.
Unique Gifts
CocoonToy is the work of a Ukrainian artist named Anna. Talk about oddities, right? According to her Etsy bio, her world of characters originated with a character concept course. Anna came up with an alien-fish waitress who worked in an intergalactic bathyscaphe and dreamed of singing to guests. Inspired, Anna decided to create her character in polymer clay. Due to a happy mistake, the blushing pale flesh tones emerged, and out poured another wide range of gentle fantasy creatures.
*Personal note: I’ve loved CocoonToy’s work for ages, and a few years ago, I ordered a jackalope for my sister. It arrived perfectly, and the detail is just beautiful, all the little veins and toes and freckles.
Carved by the Garden is a single-player structured journaling game created by Cassi Mothwin (@cassi_mothwin). Mothwin designs, writes, and illustrates incredible tabletop RPGs. Of all her beautiful offerings, I think this one appeals to me most. It looks like dark, lush folk horror with a sort of epistolary vibe, as you have to document your character’s days in the strange nearby woods. I love that you can play solo, completing it in around 2 hours, and I love that it asks you to find your own tokens: “leaves, pebbles, seeds, thorns, petals, etc.”
Alluring Remains (@alluringremains) is a true oddities shop. Tayla, the artist behind these beautiful pieces, breathes new life into artifacts of death using glittering jewels and sunlight. All bones are ethically harvested, with an eye to incorporating them into her work with curiosity and an appreciation of their elegant structure and form.
The Codex Seraphinianus is an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world, written entirely in a made-up language. Luigi Serafini, the Italian artist and designer behind the codex, created it over about two years in the 1970s. It clearly takes inspiration from the Voynich manuscript, an illustrated manuscript from the 15th century that also appears to capture an imagined world in an indecipherable language. While prices range depending on the edition, it does seem possible to buy a full copy of the codex.
Abigail Larson (@abigail_larson) takes a mixed-media approach to dark fantasy and Gothic romance characters: pencil, ink, watercolor, a touch of Photoshop. I’ve admired her art for so long! I’ve got my eye on several of her prints (“The Beast” in particular, though it’s almost impossible to pick), not to mention the tarot decks she’s worked on.
Paintings
“Death Looking in the Window of One Dying” (c. 1900) by Jaroslav Panuška, a Czech painter and illustrator. Per the National Gallery Prague, “Panuška did not seek harmless ghosts and human features . . . His figures are gaunt, as if non-material, their limbs being covered with shrivelled skin.” You can find more of his paintings at this article.
“Ghosts on a Tree” (1933) by Austrian artist Franz Sedlacek. His work isn’t always eerie, but when it is, it’s theatrically so, with surreal, dreamy vibes. This video covers more details of the artist’s life, but in short, while Sedlacek achieved recognition during his lifetime, he disappeared under the Nazi regime. It wasn’t until the 1980s that his work started attracting attention again.
“The Appearance of a Spectre” (~1900) by Serafino Macchiati. An Italian painter, Macchiati had a strong “connection with parapsychology and Spiritualism.” He did well as an illustrator for novels; this painting was among his work for the French “Je Sais Tout” magazine, which published serialized short stories and novels.
“Death on the Rail” (~1873), a wood engraving drawn by Jules Tavernier. This French-American painter, draftsman, and illustrator eventually became a member of Hawaii’s Volcano School. The man loved volcanoes. He died at age 45 in Honolulu, presumably from alcoholism.
Film Oddities
“Fake Documentary Q“ is a low-budget Japanese YouTube horror series that began around 2021. I recommend starting with one of my favorites: “Basement.” This project overall is especially well executed: smart editing, good writing, often brilliant acting. The emphasis here isn’t on jump scares or gore: instead, the mokumentary/found footage short videos are atmospheric and unsettling, premises that hint at a way bigger universe and continued story. I’d gladly read a book oriented fully around just this elevator premise; in the absence of that, I Found a Lost Hallway in a Dying Mall by Ben Farthing and Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig both come to mind.
“World of Mr. Plant” by Ashur Gharavi is a weirdcore horror series that has no right being so charming and funny (eh, given the number of murders). It follows, with subtlety, the budding romance between the introverted (often deadly) Mr. Plant and wholesome, multi-eyed (sometimes deadly) Argos. Gharavi’s paper craft is so clever and creative, I forget half the time that this artist is the one actually playing all the roles. This video is a compilation, in order, of the short clips as of about mid-2025.
Giulia Grillo, as Petite Doll, creates surreal art using photography, video, and her own body. She designs and constructs her own sets, which can get incredibly ornate: sculpture, SFX prosthetics, and a huge range of materials. Her short set of video performances are a must-watch: a 1950s alien dons her mask for the day while grieving her lost astronaut, a young woman holds a rose made of tongues, and a Victorian lobster-hand wife slips into a hot bath. They’re enchanting and strange, with stunning attention to detail.
“Mistletoe” (just ~5 minutes) is a lovely piece of animation based on the 19th-century poem “The Mistletoe Bough.” This hand-painted, paper-animated piece tells the story of a Baron whose new bride disappears. The animation excels in adding nuance without words, adding a thread of greed and mistrust that makes the story come alive.
Indie Games
“Welcome to Elderfield” is a spooky farming RPG. I’m not usually much for farming RPGs . . . but this one adds spice. On top of farming, fishing, and mining, you can “beseech the old gods, investigate mysteries, watch unsettling news programs, get lost in the dead mall, die in your sleep and more.” The scale of this thing is huge, and all I watched was Kimchica’s playthrough of the demo. And the art! It looks almost like Junji Ito x Darkwood to me, grim and moody, rich with the kind of detail that makes you want to explore.
Hauntii by Moonloop Games is a sprawling hand-drawn action adventure about a ghost’s journey to recover its memories from life. It has a neat mechanic that lets you “possess” enemies as well as world elements like trees and columns, so you can shake or topple them. The game play, including the story, is gentle and charming, soothing in a way (even as you blast little orbs at anything that threatens or interests you).
Homicipher is a language deciphering and exploration adventure game where you can (lightly) romance the “monsters.” You’ve stumbled into another world, a gritty series of interconnected rooms. Your only way out? To communicate with and befriend some of the non-human beings. First, though, you have to decipher their language. This mechanic is so unique, forcing you to fiddle out what squiggles refer to what kind of nouns and verbs so you can decide how to react to the equally unique characters.
Faith: The Unholy Trinity is pixel horror, blending classic 8-bit gaming with the Satanic Panic vibes of the 1980s. You’re a young priest about to act without the approval of the Vatican. All alone, you’ll have to struggle against demons, cultists, and your own shaky faith. This game is eerie and clever, managing a real atmosphere of dread and isolation by incorporating deeply unsettling animations.
The Flayed Man is a short point-and-click horror game. You wake up without memories . . . or skin. In quiet agony, you solve a crumbling house’s puzzles, pass judgement on others, and determine your own fate the process. I watched Magnus October Gaming’s playthrough of this grotesque little game.
Weird History and Other Oddities
Sounding of the Titanic’s whistle (1999). The White Star Liner RMS Titanic sank in 1912. In 1993, one of her whistles was recovered and restored. In 1999, using compressed air rather than steam to protect the metal, the whistle was sounded again to a large crowd in St. Paul, MN.
The gold scale worm. Deep down in the frigid Atlantic ocean, you might have the misfortune to encounter Eulagisca gigantea, one of the largest scale worms out there (at ~8 inches). As far as deep sea oddities go, it’s lovely at first. Look at those pretty gold tassels. But if it’s hungry, expect an eyeless, toothy head.
The 1883 Krakatoa eruption. I can’t believe I knew so little about this event. When this volcano erupted, the series of explosions blew the island out of existence. It produced the loudest recorded sound in the world to date, sending shockwaves around the entire planet seven times. Combined with the resulting tsunami, it ended over 36,000 lives. For years after, people around the world, looking up through the lingering ash, saw blood red skies, blue moons, and lavender suns.
Enjoy these oddities?
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Learn more about what I like to create at “My Writing.”
