His The Weird Tale examines horror and fantasy writing by Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James, Ambrose Bierce, and Lovecraft.

[2][4] He discovered the work of Lovecraft at age 13 in a public library in Muncie, Indiana.

This devotion led him to decline offers from Yale and Harvard so that he could attend Brown University, which is located in Providence, Rhode Island where Lovecraft had lived.

[7] In August 2014, Joshi opposed the decision to retire and replace Gahan Wilson's bust of Lovecraft as the World Fantasy Award statuette in light of a campaign highlighting Lovecraft's history of racism; Joshi returned his World Fantasy Awards in protest.

[8] "The Ghost in the Corner" by Lord Dunsany, edited by S. T. Joshi and Martin Andersson Hippocampus Press 2017