Happy Easter

Dude made us an Easter card and it's lovely.  The message is beautiful, the front cover is a vividly coloured egg, the whole thing is great.  On the inside cover, he's drawn a little conversation between him, me and Alison and this is a picture of it.

Note how Alison looks good and says nice things.  Then notice that I'm bald and just say "YEAH! Dude!"  I love that kid!

Urban Occult released today...

Today marks the release, in print and as an ebook, of "Urban Occult", a new anthology from Anachron Press, edited by Colin F Barnes.

Featuring a great line-up of writers, this is an excellent read (I'm reading it at the moment, I'm three stories from the finish and each one so far has been very good) and the book itself looks fantastic.

cover design by Sarah Anne Langton

The book is available from a variety of places, some of which can be found here:

From the Anachron Website

From Amazon (e-books)

Amazon UK Kindle

Amazon US Kindle 

From Amazon (print)

Amazon UK Print

CreateSpace Print

Kobo

Lulu

My contribution is called "The Witch House", a little story I'm really quite pleased with.  It came, initially, from an image of three boys cowering in a doorway as something towers over them, which doesn't actually appear in the final draft.

The location for the piece is all real (I wish I could say the same for the Witch house itself) and when Nick's Mum & Dad used to live in New Street, we’d often climb over into the fire station yard to play (before the library was built, that area was wasteland and we played there too).  There were old buildings near the bottom of New Street that backed onto the yard and we investigated once or twice, but never went in anywhere.

Happy birthday to my sister

Tracy would have been 42 years old today.

Yet if you should forget me for a while 

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave 

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, 

Better by far you should forget and smile 

Than that you should remember and be sad. 

--- Christina Rossetti 

Writing round-up

2013 is turning out to be quite a busy year for me - always nice to hear - so I thought I'd put together a little round-up to keep everything in the same place.

First to appear is Urban Occult from Anachron Press, edited by Colin F Barnes.  This features my story "The Witch House", which I'm really pleased with.  It's set in Gaffney in 1985 and is based on real locations in Rothwell that Nick & I used to play in when we were kids in the 80s.  Further details here.

Cover art by Sarah Anne Langton

My story "Mr Stix" will appear in For The Night Is Dark, edited by Ross Anthony Warren from Crystal Lake Publishing.  I was asked for a story about the fear of the dark and so I combined parental anxieties with the most unlikely monster - Mr Stix - I could think of but it seems to work well (with cover art by Ben Baldwin).

More details here

When Darkness Calls, edited by Emma Audsley from Screaming Spires Press, is a charity anthology (with proceeds going to Pictor School in Cheshire and Autism Awareness).  It features a revised version of my story "Empty Souls, Drowning" and I'm proud to be included in the line-up.

More details here

Cover art by Daniele Serra

The Demonologia Biblica, edited by Dean M Drinkel, will be published by Western Legends Publishing.  It features my story "Falsche See, On The North German Plain (N is for Nickar)", which is about a water demon and set in Germany (giving rise to some fun town names).

More details here

Cover art by James Powell

I'm really looking forward to ill at ease 2, coming soon from PenMan Press - I've read all the stories and it's an excellent collection.  Following on from our grand experiment, Steve Bacon, Neil Williams and I return, along with Sheri White, Val Walmsley, Shaun Hamilton and Robert Mammone.  It includes my story "The Bureau Of Lost Children", which was inspired by an incident where we briefly lost sight of Dude but takes that level of parental fear to whole new levels.

This will be available in print and as an ebook and I'll post more details nearer the time.

Cover art, once again, is by the superbly talented Neil Willams

Anatomy of Death (in five sleazy pieces) is edited by me and Peter Mark May, from Hersham Horror Books.  A loving tribute to the films and paperbacks of the 70s, this features stories by Stephen Volk, Johnny Mains, John Llewellyn Probert, Stephen Bacon and me - my tale is called "The Glamour Girl Murders" and features a foot fetishist, a beast and London suffering through the tail end of the 1976 heatwave.

More details nearer the time.

The cover art (this isn't the final version) is by the excellent Neil Willams

Imperial Stormtroopers

Alison & Matthew bought me a new camera for my birthday, for which I was really grateful (I love taking photographs and have long wanted one with a decent zoom).  This is just the ticket and I love it and so the first thing I did was, of course, to take pictures of some of my Stormtroopers.  And here they are:

 You know, I think that might be one of the droids we're looking for...

TK421, nobody gets on or off, okay?

The Glamour Girl Murders

Urban Occult - available for pre-order

features my story "The Witch House"

Urban Occult Limited Pre-Order

Limited to 50.

Behind urban life, weird and horrific things fester. 

The whispers and chills of things long gone… the promise of power from the darkness… the seduction of those that lie in the shadows… the occult is all around us: in town houses, in mansions, and in your very own street.

Editor Colin F. Barnes collected together fifteen stories by a cast of critically acclaimed authors from around the globe who look into the stygian gloom, explore the dark corners of our houses, and peer into the abyss of human temptation.

Featuring stories by: Gary McMahon, Ren Warom, Gary Fry, Mark West, K.T. Davies, Nerine Dorman, Alan Baxter, Adam Millard, Julie Travis, Jason Andrew, James Brogden, A.A Garrison, Jennifer Williams, Sarah Anne Langton, and Chris Barnham.

Special Pre-Order Edition Limited to 50.

This pre-order edition means you will get the book at least a week to two weeks ahead of general release and:

A FREE ebook version (for any eReader)

and A FREE ebook of Day of Demons. (eBooks will be emailed to you on the 4th of March).

Just £9.99 (+£2.99 shipping anywhere in the world).

Pre-Order here: http://www.anachronpress.com/product/anthologies/urban-occult-limited-pre-order/

Sleazy story is done...

I sent my sleaze story to Peter Mark May today - it’s called “The Glamour Girl Murders” and is set in London at the tail end of the 1976 heatwave.  There’s sex, violence, foot fetishism and something in the upstairs room and I’m really chuffed with it.  I’ve also read the Stephen Volk and Johnny Mains contributions and I think our “Anatomy Of Death” anthology could be very good indeed.

This marks the end of my short story writing commitments for the time being (unless someone else wants to ask, of course) and it’s time to look ahead at different things.  I’m keen to explore novellas still (I have two coming out, both from Pendragon Press - “Drive” this year and “The Lost Film” next year) and Pete, via Hersham Horror Books, has asked me to write one (to be published next year) for him.

I have an idea (a long gestating project some of you might remember, called “The Day It Rained”) which I’m going to pitch, but I’m thinking of something contemporary and dark and sexual for Hersham Horror.  I don’t have much in mind, but this is the part of a project I love, where everything is open and nothing is set and the sky, quite literally, is the limit.

King pips "What Gets Left Behind" at the post

Back in December, I posted that "What Gets Left Behind" had been nominated in the Short Fiction section for the This Is Horror 2012 Awards (post linked from here).  I was thrilled to be listed alongside such great writers as Stephen King & Joe Hill, Cate Gardner, Mike O'Driscoll (and his book was, for me, the winner on the list) and Gary Fry and realised that I had no chance.

Imagine my surprise, then, at the announcement of the awards this evening.  No, I didn't win - that'd be a real Hollywood ending, wouldn't it? - but I did place as runner-up to Messrs. King.

Amazed and chuffed, I'd just like to thank every who took the time to vote.  I appreciate it!

The Awards winners are listed here

Anatomy Of Death - coming soon...

Back in January last year, in this post, I mentioned that Peter Mark May, head honcho at Hersham Horror Books, had asked me if I'd like to project-lead a new anthology.  I jumped at the chance and, since I was free to come up with my own theme, decided to look back on the genre, to horror in the 70s.

Ah, horror in the 70s.  Slim paperback novels, full of sex and violence, death and intrigue and films such as those made by Amicus and Hammer and Pete Walker et al.  This collection takes those concepts and runs with them, fully embracing the era.

As project leader for "Anatomy Of Death - in five sleazy pieces", I'm really lucky - I got to write my story, about a foot fetishist photographer in London during the 1976 heatwave, using lessons learned from my sleazy horror reading over the past couple of years.  I have brand new stories from Stephen Bacon, Johnny Mains, Stephen Volk and Andrew Murray (who makes his debut with this collection).  I have cover art by the talented Neil Williams and I'm working in collaboration with Pete May.

More details as they emerge but, in the meantime, here's the teaser poster I've put together and which I posted to Facebook today.