A Love Like Blood

I have not one, but two books coming out in July.

I've already talked elsewhere (but weirdly I forgot to do so here!) about my new short story collection from ChiZine Press, And Cannot Come Again, which is out in July.

But I also have another book out, from Dark Minds Press, being released the same month.

It's called A Love Like Blood.

It consists of two novelettes on the theme of missing parents.

"From the author of AND CANNOT COME AGAIN and the BLACK ROAD series, two tales of family trees whose roots go down into dark and bloody soil. 

FITTON’S GHOST: When Laura inherits her murdered father’s derelict shop, she finds herself haunted by the terrible Grinning Boy. To escape him she’ll have to learn the truth about her family, and face something even more monstrous than him... 

BURNS THE WITCHFIRE, UPON THE HILL: Emma searches for her long-lost mother, only to learn she died mysteriously years before. Will uncovering the truth doom Emma to the same fate? 

The answers lie in dark earth, hidden places… and in a love like blood."

"Hauntingly beautiful and compelling, these stories will linger in your mind long after you’ve finished reading. Simon Bestwick understands what it is to be human, to be fragile and frightened, and yet still find the strength to fight."

- Damien Angelica Walters, author of Sing Me Your Scars and The Dead Girls Club.

I'll post a link to where it can be bought/pre-ordered as soon as I have one. 

What's New? with Gwendolyn Kiste

Gwendolyn Kiste is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, from JournalStone; the dark fantasy novella, Pretty Marys All in a Row, from Broken Eye Books; and her debut novel, The Rust Maidens, from Trepidatio Publishing. Her short fiction has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Shimmer, Black Static, Daily Science Fiction, Interzone, LampLight, and Three-Lobed Burning Eye as well as Flame Tree Publishing's Chilling Horror Short Stories anthology, among others.

Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, two cats, and not nearly enough ghosts.

UPDATE: As of Sunday 12th May 2019, Gwendolyn is in fact the Bram Stoker-winning author of The Rust Maidens, which was awarded for Superior Achievement In A First Novel.

1. So, what’s new from you?
I’m right between two big projects at the moment. My debut novel, The Rust Maidens, was released in November 2018 from Trepidatio Publishing, while my next book—a novelette called The Invention of Ghosts—is due out this coming November from Nightscape Press.

2. How did it come about?
The Rust Maidens and The Invention of Ghosts were ideas that lived with me a long time before finally making their way onto the page. Both books deal with friendship and loss and the horrifying ways that we learn to cope with pain and ostracism. That being said, plot-wise, the stories are very different. Friendship is a form of salvation in The Rust Maidens whereas the relationship between the two protagonists in The Invention of Ghosts becomes more complicated and even treacherous. As with many writers, there are certain themes that I love, and I always think of myself as circling those ideas like a vulture or a shark, trying to examine them from as many different vantage points as I can. I’m hoping that readers that enjoyed The Rust Maidens will like what I’m doing in The Invention of Ghosts, since there’s overlap while definitely telling a new story, but I guess we shall see when the novelette is released!

3. Tell us about the process of how you created it.
My process often varies so much, not only from story to story but even across the development of each particular piece. I would say for both The Rust Maidens and The Invention of Ghosts, the process started with lots of research and prep, and then from there, I did a bit of formal outlining before jumping into the writing itself. In my experience, it helps to have something of an outline for longer works, though I do my best not to feel locked into a plan if the story starts to develop in a different way.

I also try to do a decent bit of editing as I go, so that when there’s a full draft of the story completed, I don’t still have a mountain of work ahead of me. All that being said, one person’s process is another person’s prison, and I personally think there are very few steadfast rules as to what’s the “proper” way to write a story, which is why if one approach isn’t working, I have no problem with completely throwing my own plans and rules to the wind. Writing can feel like a strangely magical process at times, so I always remind myself that when things get tough. In my experience, if you stick with a piece, you can usually find a way out.

4. What was your favourite part of the process?
The research for both of these books was a lot of fun. For The Rust Maidens, I really enjoyed investigating more about Cleveland in the 1970s and 1980s, all the ins and outs of the landscape and the economics and the pop culture of the time. I’m from Ohio originally, so there was something special about delving into that history, which is extremely personal for me. For The Invention of Ghosts, I got to explore a lot about the history of the occult. Much of the information I already knew coming into that project, but through my research, I definitely went deeper into the specifics, including about the Fox Sisters, Mother Shipton, and the Victorian occult movement in general. As so often happens with research, there was so much that I wasn’t ultimately able to include in the final stories, but it was such a tremendous experience simply spending time researching those subjects, which are both so near to my heart.

5. What was the toughest part of it?
Getting a project across the proverbial finish line is often the hardest for me. Starting a new story is always an exhilarating feeling, but sometimes, midway through, the ideas can get so muddled, as you realize certain subplots or favorite lines just don’t fit with the whole anymore. Editing can be such a rewarding part of writing, as the final book takes shape, but it can certainly be frustrating too. And the only way out is to write your way through it all. At least in my experience, there are no shortcuts with writing. You just have to keep going until you figure it out. 

6. Is there a theme running through it?
Much of my work deals with coming-of-age, horrific transformation, and characters—in particular women who are outsiders—trying to find their place in the world. These two books in particular take on those themes, though in very different ways. With The Rust Maidens, the body horror is absolutely at the forefront, as a group of teenage girls are literally transforming into rust and decay. The Invention of Ghosts, on the other hand, deals more with body horror through the perspective of what it means to be a ghost, to be invisible, to conjure loss in a physical sense through working with the occult. I’ve always loved stories that deal with hauntings, and it was a really incredible experience as a writer to get to take my love of the supernatural and the occult and see how I could tell a ghost story in a different and even more surreal way than I’ve done before.


7. If you had to sum this book up in three words, what would they be?
For The Rust Maidens—decay, transformation, and freedom.
For The Invention of Ghosts—occult, friendship, and loss.

8. Where can/will we be able to get hold of it?
The Rust Maidens is available now from JournalStone and Amazon, and The Invention of Ghosts will be released in November from Nightscape Press. That pre-order page should be up in the coming months, so until then, feel free to keep up with me at my author website, for updates.

What's New? (Mr and Mrs Edition) Part Two: Thana Niveau

1) So, what’s new from you?

I launched three books at Fantasycon last year – my second collection Octoberland, my micro-collection Unquiet Waters, and my debut novel House of Frozen Screams.

2) How did it come about?
 
I’m not very good at staying on top of all the stories I write, and I should have published a second collection years ago! As a result, Octoberland covers quite a range and is something of a bumper crop. Unquiet Waters is smaller and more intimate, with four stories linked by the theme of water. And House of Frozen Screams was partly inspired by our search for a new flat, combined with all my primal Cronenbergian body horror fears. It’s my take on a haunted house, one that isn’t quite what it seems.

3) Tell us about the process of how you created it.  
My process is pretty reclusive. I can’t write in cafes or public places with other humans around. I focus best at my desk, where I play film scores to accompany whatever I’m writing. (Or not writing – sometimes I can just stare at the blank page for ages wondering where the hell my muse has got to.) But I have Alexa to keep me company if I feel too isolated.

4) What was your favourite part of the process?  
It’s bound to be the same for every writer: that exquisite moment when everything clicks into place and the story flows straight from your mind to the page. But other than that rare and magical experience, I really love world-building. I probably spend way too much time on it, because a lot of it never even makes it into the story. But I like to hope it enriches the writing anyway. 

5) What was the toughest part of it?
 
When I was writing House of Frozen Screams, I was very much looking forward to a couple of gruesome death scenes I had planned. I’ve written loads of violent, horrible deaths and enjoyed killing characters before, even nice ones. But in House, I found it really difficult. I’ve heard other writers describe similar experiences, but it was a first for me.
6) Is there a theme running through it?

There’s definitely a theme in House of Frozen Screams: the female body is as much a place of horror as any haunted house.

7) If you had to sum this book up in three words, what would they be?
 
I’ll do all three books! Octoberland: haunted, nostalgic, sinister Unquiet Waters: eerie, uncanny, apocalyptic House of Frozen Screams: unnatural, nightmarish, macabre

8) Where can/will we be able to get hold of it?  
Octoberland – PS Publishing
Unquiet Waters – Black Shuck Books House of Frozen Screams – Horrific Tales

What's New? (Mr and Mrs Edition) Part One: John Llewellyn Probert

1) So, what’s new from you?

I've got a short story coming out in Cemetery Dance magazine called 'Healing Hands Beneath a Swann-Morton Sky'.

2) How did it come about?

I was at the gym, which is the only place in the world I might even consider watching daytime TV. There was a piece about bacterial antibiotic resistance and the fact that no new antibiotics have been developed for many years because it's not of sufficient financial interest to drug companies. That's the sole reason. So people are dying of infections right now simply because drug companies don't see sufficient profit in researching new ones. I had been aware of this before, of course, but for some reason at that moment it focused my mind perfectly.

3) Tell us about the process of how you created it.

I got incredibly angry about the state of the world we live in, came home from the gym, and wrote the whole thing straight down in a notebook.

4) What was your favourite part of the process?

Realising I'd created something of a nature and style that I'd never done before, and done it to my satisfaction.

5) What was the toughest part of it?

People have often commented in the past about how successfully I blend humour with horror. The thing is, I don't ever actually try and do this - that's just how the stories come out. I didn't want this one to have a trace of 'funny' in it and once it was written I spent a lot of time going over it to make sure it wasn't the victim of 'inadvertent wit'!

6) Is there a theme running through it?

We are all truly doomed if we keep living the way we do now.

7) If you had to sum this story up in three words, what would they be?

Angry. Political. Downbeat. Three words I never thought my fiction would be. And who knows? It may never be again. Because you see I don't actually enjoy writing this kind of thing, it doesn't make me feel better and if anything it just makes me feel worse, whereas the whole point of my fiction is that I want it to be a pick-me-up, both for me and the reader. But every now and then you just can't help what comes out, can you?

8) Where can we get hold of it?

It got picked up by Richard Chizmar's Cemetery Dance, which I was both pleased and bewildered by, as it's the first major sale I've had to a US print magazine. God help people who like this and seek out some of my other stuff, because it won't be what they're expecting at all! Although I will add to that something Joel Lane (one of my writing heroes) said about Robert Bloch (another one), that people who thought Bloch was just being funny hadn't realised that beneath his entertaining approach was actually quite a bleak and bitter view of humanity. So maybe it's been there all along. I promise I'll keep it lighter for next time, though.

Probably.

What's New? with Kristi DeMeester

Welcome to a new feature, What's New?, where I interview authors about their latest projects. We kick off with the fantastic Kristi DeMeester, author of the novel Beneath and the story collection Everything That's Underneath, discussing her new novel...

1) So, what’s new from you?

I’m currently working on edits for my next novel. Hopefully, it will go out on submission soon!

2) How did it come about?

I read about Jazzland, the abandoned Six Flags amusement park in New Orleans, and couldn’t get it out of my head. This novel came out of that.

3) Tell us about the process of how you created it.

Bit by bit. Draft by draft. Slowly and all in a rush. Revision and revision and revision. Lots of pondering and creating rules. I can’t say much more than that.

4) What was your favourite part of the process?

Finding the first true thread of the story and seeing how it could unravel.

5) What was the toughest part of it?

Revising when I felt I’d picked the novel into so many pieces there was no way it would fit together again.

6) Is there a theme running through it?

The chain around your neck is usually bought with imposed silence.

7) If you had to sum this book up in three words, what would they be?

Beasts. Jazzland. Daughters.

8) Where can we to get hold of it?

That remains to be seen, but I hope soon! In the meantime, you can find all of my other work at www.kristidemeester.com

The Harrowing

Something new's starting on my Patreon page: I'm going to be writing a story in daily instalments, in real time. Straight from my brain into my Patreon posts. It'll be available to all Patrons, and you can become one for just $1 a month.

This is something brand new - and I have to admit it's a bit scary - but the plan is that every morning I'm going to spend 20-30 minutes writing a new Patreon post, which will be the next instalment of an ongoing serial called The Harrowing. It's a horror story with a mediaeval setting, taking place in the winter that followed the Norman Conquest. I think I know where this story's going, but there are a lot of questions that will need to be answered along the way.

Hopefully it's going to become part of a bigger project called Ravenshore - which I'll telling my Patrons more about soon, along with the historical background to the story - but in the meantime, the first instalment will be up at 11 o'clock this morning GMT.

Hope to see you there.

Here's a quick taste of what to expect:

Twenty of them moving over a dull winter beach of muddy, rusty brown. A few men - two or three village greybeards and half-a-dozen monks in hoicked-up robes - and the rest women and children. Two monks pushed a handcart, bent double by weariness and hunger.

Above, against the empty white sky, crows wheeled. Inland, plumes of smoke hung black above the land. A bitter wind blew in from the sea.

A horse nickered, and hooves drummed. Out of the woodlands that lay up ahead broke a dozen horsemen; they spurred their mounts along the flat beach towards the procession.

Foam flew up in short-lived crystal white webs from where the horses tore through the grey-brown surf.

The group stopped. One of the younger monks stumbled forward and drew himself up, arms outspread to make himself a futile shield for the rest. One of the horsemen brayed a laugh; it echoed briefly, metallic and cruel, above the clamour of the hooves.

Then there were only the hoofbeats, and the brittle crash of the waves upon the strand. The line of men and women didn't move; the two who'd been pushing the handcart leant on the handles, heads bowed, as if taking pleasure in a rest that would soon become eternal. They'd all been marching a long dark time, seen friends and family slaughtered, homes burning, fields sown with salt. All that, and worse: it seemed a time of beasts and devils, from which death could only be a release...

To read the rest, click here.

The Lowdown with... Nicholas Kaufmann

Nicholas Kaufmann is the critically acclaimed author of numerous works, including the Bram Stoker Award-nominated General Slocum’s Gold, the Thriller Award-nominated and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated Chasing the Dragon, Still Life: Nine Stories, Dying Is My Business, Die and Stay Dead, In the Shadow of the Axe, and 100 Fathoms Below, co-written with Steven L. Kent. In addition to his own original work, he has written for such properties as Zombies vs. Robots and The Rocketeer. His short fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, Dark Discoveries, and others. His non-fiction has appeared in On Writing Horror (Writers Digest Books), Dark Scribe Magazine, Annabelle Magazine, Fantastic Metropolis, Hellnotes, Rue Morgue, and others. He has also served on the Board of Trustees for the Horror Writers Association and is a member of the International Thriller Writers.

You can also visit Nick on LiveJournal, Twitter, and Facebook.

1. Tell us three things about yourself.

1. I've been writing since 4th grade, when I wrote my first illustrated story about a boy and his father who are stranded on another planet filled with monsters and dinosaurs. As you might imagine, I had some issues about how little time my father was spending with me!
2. I was the founder and president of my college's Godzilla Film Club, in which I showed a different Godzilla film every other week from my own personal VHS collection. Frequently, I was the only one there.
3. I don't like avocado. I just don't. You can have mine.

2. What was the first thing you had published?
I had a few things published in my high school and college literary magazines, although nothing I would want anyone to read today. My first professionally published piece was the short story “La Bête est Morte” in the anthology BELL, BOOK & BEYOND, edited by P.D. Cacek.

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of?
I'm very proud of the story "The Fire and the Stag," which appeared recently in BLACK STATIC #63. I think it might be the best thing I've written so far!

4. …and which makes you cringe?
Oh, man. Any number of my early stories make me cringe. It's hard to choose just one. Maybe "Better Off with the Blues," which appeared in the charity anthology SCARS, edited by Gina Osnovich, in 2001. The anthology was for a good cause, the Red Cross, and it raised a lot of money, but looking back at that story...ugh. It was my first attempt at writing something voicey, and all the cliches and forced folksiness just make me cringe now.

5. What’s a normal writing day like?
I tend to write in the afternoons, rather than the mornings, so I'll grab some lunch and then do my writing in the New York Public Library's main branch (the Ghostbusters branch, I call it). It's a beautiful building and being there inspires me. Being around other people also keeps me honest. I can write at home, too, but I usually get less done. There are too many distractions at home.

6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first?

It depends on the reader, of course, but most people seem to recommend CHASING THE DRAGON to their friends. My most recent novel, 100 FATHOMS BELOW, co-written with Steven L. Kent, is another I'd probably tell people to read first.

7. What are you working on now?
I'm working on a new horror novel, tentatively titled THE HUNGRY EARTH, in which a new residential and commercial development is being planned on a capped landfill where something happens to be living underground, something that used to eat the garbage, but now that no more garbage is coming it has to find a new source of food.