'22 in Review

Phew. Well that was quite a year.

A fair bit happened, just for me personally (I'm not even going to try to summarise the year's political upheavals or all the cool people we lost.) It went something like this:

I got an agent (properly speaking, I signed with the Ki Agency last year, but couldn't officially announce it, for Reasons, till well into this year.) I'm still with Ki and looking forward to more excitement in 2023, but now represented by agency founder Meg Davis, as Anne Perry has moved on to become the new commissioning editor at Jo Fletcher Books. Anne has been an absolute star and I hope we get to work together again in the future.

I had a novel published under a new pen name, to excellent reviews and pretty good sales. 

I wrote two complete novels in 2022, and am partway through a third. That took up the bulk of my time and energy work-wise this year, but I also managed to place three stories with publications due out in 2023: 'Are We Going Under?' will appear in ParSec Magazine, 'Kingbreaker' in Shakespeare Unleashed, and 'The Flight Of Ravens' in Unknown Superheroes Vs The Forces of Darkness. 

On top of all that, I started a podcast, No Darkness But Ours, with my friend and colleague Gemma Files, in which we discuss horror in all its forms. Topics so far have included snowbound horror, the work and legacy of M.R. James, and Folk Horror. We're currently in the middle of a discussion on Queer Horror, with more to come. You can check our work out here.  

Under my own byline, the following was published this year:

Short Fiction:

Nemesis of Wire (Phantasmagoria #20, ed. Trevor Kennedy)

Bait (Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories, ed. Maxim Jakubowski)

Mummy Calls (Classic Monsters Unleashed, ed. James Aquilone)

Work published on Patreon:

Short fiction:

This Life, This Death

The Night of the Dog-Headed Man

The Death of Norma Lake (fragment from early draft of Bonewalker)

Low Over Water

The One You Feed

Adaptive Evolution In The Lancashire Grindylow: A Report By Alexandra Thraves Ph.D

The Bactrian

Verse:

Submariner

Beacon 46-A

The Christmas Kiss

In addition, my story 'Redwater,' from The Alchemy Press Book Of Horrors 3: A Miscellany Of Monsters, was reprinted in Ellen Datlow's The Best Horror Of The Year #14, making three years in a row that my work's appeared there.

Thank you to all the editors who've published me this year, to Anne and Meg, to Gemma for her support on the podcast, and to all readers and listeners who've supported my work by reading or listening to it.

Finally, and most of all, to my lovely wife, Cate, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Good luck for 2023.

Simon x

 

Things of the Past Week: Body Shocks, Best Horror of the Year #13 and the return of Black Mountain

'Mynydd Du will rise again,' I promised my blog readers all the way back in 2016, when I withdrew Black Mountain from Spectral Press. And, at last, it has.

But more of that anon.

Last week saw the release of Body Shocks, Ellen Datlow's anthology of body horror fiction, in which my story 'Welcome To Mengele's' appeared alongside fiction by Richard Kadrey, Seanan McGuire, Nathan Ballingrud, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Tananarive Due, Carmen Maria Machado, Priya Sharma, Cassandra Khaw, Brian Evenson, Cody Goodfellow, R.C. Matheson, Christopher Fowler, Terry Dowling, Ray Cluley, Livia Llewellyn, Alyssa Wong, Lisa L. Hannett, Tom Johnstone, Michael Blumlein, Angela Slatter, Edward Bryant, Pat Cadigan, Kij Johnson, Lucy Taylor, Genevieve Valentine, Kaaron Warren and Kirstyn McDermott, along with cover art and design by the brilliant John Coulthart.  

'Welcome to Mengele's' was written in 1998, when I was twenty-four years old. The story is now almost as old as I was when I wrote it. One of those realisations that makes you stop in your tracks for a moment.

The reviews for Body Shocks have been great so far: 

"Brings outstanding narratives about pain and transformation together to offer a great introduc­tion to a subgenre that’s here to stay." (Locus)

Body Shocks "delivers... epically on its promise to deliver 'extreme tales of body horror'," says Sadie Hartmann in her review for Tor Nightfire, and adds of 'Welcome to Mengele's':

"You are not ready for this story. Nobody is ready for this story. It’s best to just walk in blind and let Bestwick blindside your sensibilities in the best possible way."

"The definitive body horror tome," says Horror Obsessive. "Long live the new flesh."

And Publisher's Weekly concludes their starred review of the anthology with: "Simon Bestwick’s bizarre alternate history “Welcome to Mengele’s” takes readers into a Nazi doctor’s movie theater where patrons watch their sickest fantasies play out on screen. These wholly original and truly chilling tales are not for the faint of heart." 

This week saw the release of another Datlow anthology, the thirteenth in her annual Best Horror of the Year series, which includes my tale 'A Treat For Your Last Day'. It marks my fifth appearance in the series. It also boasts an outstanding cover by Reiko Murakami.

Finally, as promised, we return to Black Mountain.

The original eleven-part ebook serial has been revamped into a single-volume edition from the superb Italian imprint Independent Legions Publishing, charting the eerie and unexplained happenings of the 'Bala Triangle', centring on the mysterious crag known as Mynydd Du, or Black Mountain. Those who probe its mysteries too far often come to grief - including, perhaps, the readers of the book...

"I had to put the kindle down at one point, so effective - and downright scary - was the imagery being presented," said Dark Musings of the original serial. The new edition is available both in ebook and in print from Amazon.

I'm hugely grateful to Alessandro Manzetti of Independent Legions for giving Black Mountain a new lease of life. Alessandro's work, incidentally, also grace the pages of Best Horror of the Year #13, in the form of his poem 'Bloody Rhapsody'. Thanks also to Karen Runge, who edited the new version for publication.

I hope you'll want to visit. If you're undecided, here's a taste of what to expect. As well as the stunning new cover art by JumalaSika Limited, it also features some of Neil Williams' artwork from the original series. I'm enormously grateful to both of these artists for helping bring my work to life.

Now settle back and watch the trailer...

 

  

Things of the Week 12th March 2021: Breaking the Hundred, Redwater, Contributor Copies and Out of the Darkness

I've had an up-and-down couple of weeks in mental health terms, which hasn't been much fun, but I've managed to keep writing throughout, although at times it's been a case of grinding it out. Nonetheless, stuff has got done, and stuff has happened.

The last novel I completed in first draft, Tatterskin, was finished on 24th November. Since then I've been trying to complete the next novel. I've started two and ended up having to lay both aside as I ran into blocks and problems. Hopefully I'll be able to go back to them, figure out where I was going wrong and pick up the thread again at some point in the future.

Meanwhile, though, the new book is coming along. I have no idea what it's about, or if it's any good, but I'm doing my best not to think about that and just write the next right thing in the story. I recently broke the hundred-page mark, which always feels like a milestone. But I've got that far before with at least one of the projects I've laid aside by now, so I'm trying not to be overconfident. So, we'll see.

I'm taking a break from the novel in any case, for a couple of weeks, as there a couple of short stories I want to get written. With any luck, it'll still be there when I get back.

Other news: well, I'm delighted to say that my story 'Redwater' has been accepted for The Alchemy Press Book Of Horrors 3: A Miscellany Of Monsters. More information on this anthology when I have it.   

Also, I was delighted to receive my contributor's copy of The Best Horror Of The Year #12, which includes my story 'Below' from Terror Tales of North West England. Many thanks to Ellen Datlow, and to Jason Katzman at Skyhorse Publishing. It's got stories from amazing writers like Catriona Ward, Joe Lansdale, Laura 'Bricklauncher' Mauro and Gemma Files (with 'The Puppet Motel', which also appears in her storming collection In That Endlessness, Our End.) Along eith many more. I've only savoured a couple of the stories so far, but I'm looking forward to reading the rest.

Finally, I'm glad to finially be able to announce my involvement in Out Of The Darkness, edited by the most excellent Dan Coxon and published by Unsung Stories. In one way or another, all the stories in the anthology tackle themes of mental health, and are written by authors with experience of those issues. One additional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a massive spike in mental health problems: all author fees and royalties will be donated to Together For Mental Wellbeing.  

I've never made any secret of my own experiences with anxiety and depression, so I was proud to be asked to contribute. My story 'The Hungry Dark' will appear alongside contributions by authors including Laura Mauro, Nicholas Royle, Tim Major, Aliya Whiteley and many more. 

The anthology has already met its initial Kickstarter goals, but it's now chasing new targets, hoping to add more authors to the anthology. If you'd like to support Out Of The Darkness, you can still contribute to the Kickstarter here. 

You can read more here, at Ginger Nuts Of Horror, where Dan talks about the background to the anthology.

Have a good weekend, folks.

Simon x.

Hunker in the Bunker: 2020 in review.

2020 has been, I think we can all agree, a bloody weird year.

I'm not even going to try to summarise all the weird shit - the political shit, the pandemical shit, the insane screeching on social media shit, the stupid conspiracist shit - that went on. Or to list the number of people - writers, actors, artists, musicians, not to mention, in many cases, friends - that we lost this year.

It's been a fucker. But at least Trump's finished. That's one thing.

This really was the year of 'Hunker in the Bunker' for me. Anxiety and depression kept me off work and confined to the house for most of the year, so the first lockdown didn't really come as much of a change. Plus which, after the General Election last December, my attitude was basically 'we're fucked and there's not much point trying to change anything for the better because the UK, at least, is locked into an insane death spiral largely of its own making, so I'm just going to stay home, read, watch Netflix and snuggle with my beloved.'

Well - that, and write.

Which seems absurd, I know. But at least it kept me sane. Well, sort of.

This quote from Natalie Goldberg's wonderful book Writing Down The Bones kind of summarises it for me: "Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write. In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the centre of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write. Say yes, stay alive, be awake. Just write. Just write. Just write."

So yeah. That.

1000 words a day. 

There's a great video where someone's talking to Idris Elba, and he has two pieces of advice: don't be afraid to fail, and keep your head down. The second one, in particular, strikes a chord with me at this time of the year, when I try to look back and take stock. Elba talks about when he's swimming, trying to do 25 laps a day - there's always the temptation to look up and see how you're doing, to be constantly checking your progress. And if you do that, you're never as far along as you'd have hoped, and the work lasts longer and feels harder. But if you keep your head down and focus on just doing what you need to do, moment to moment, getting into the rhythm of your work, before you know it you're almost there.

I did my best, this year, just to do that. Hunker in the bunker, and keep my head down, and work.

So what do I have to show for it?

Well:

Novels

I was past the 100,000 word mark on The Teardrop Girl at the end of 2019. I finished the first draft - 170,000 words all told - at the end of February this year. And then started a new book.

Following The Teardrop Girl I've completed not one, but two new novels in first draft this year, and am (touch wood) 36,000 words into another. The Teardrop Girl has been redrafted and sent out to agents, and I'm at work on the others.

Stories

I've written sixteen pieces of short fiction this year (seventeen if you count my previous blog post!) Some of them very short. Finding homes for most of them proved harder: a lot of them are over on my Patreon. But some saw the light in other places.

Published This Year:

And Cannot Come Again was rereleased, in a gorgeous new edition from Horrific Tales, courtesy of the excellent Graeme Reynolds. It contained two previously unpublished stories. 

Also reprinted was my story 'Below', from Paul Finch's Terror Tales of North West England, in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year #12.

Stories

Not counting stuff that appeared for the first time on Patreon, four stories were published for the first time this year:

'In The Shelter', in new edition of And Cannot Come Again

'Black Is The Mourning, White Is The Wand' in new edition of And Cannot Come Again

'Kanaida' (on the Unsung Stories website, ed. Dan Coxon)

'We All Come Home' in After Sundown, ed. Mark Morris

Novella

Roth-Steyr, Black Shuck Books. 

Patreon

The following stories were published for the first time on my Patreon this year. Those marked with an asterisk were written this year 

 A Story Of Two And A Bit Halves *

A Treat for your Last Day *

Hell Is Children *

I Am The Man The Very Fat Man *

In The Service Of The Queen *

The Book Of Shadows *

The Book Of Spiders *

The Garden *

Truth And Consequences 

Winter Fruit 

Childermass Grove 

Slatcher’s Little Mates 

The Forest You Once Called Home

The Cabinet of Dr Jarvis

Hooded.

On top of all that, I stayed alive, stayed married and managed to get back to work at my day job.

So that was 2020. I didn't take the world by storm, but I'm still here and I'm still writing.

That's good enough for me.

Have the best New Year's you can under the circumstances. Be safe, and take care. Next year looks as though it may be another tough one; let's hold together, keep our heads down, and get through it. 

Things of the Week, 21st August 2020: Best Horror of the Year #12, Black Shuck Novellas, After Sundown, These Foolish And Harmful Delights

The strangeness that is 2020 continues.

I'm still off work, as I have been all year, trying to find a way back through the anxiety maze. It's bloody draining; that's the most frustrating thing about it. One day you can schedule a series of tasks and stick to them, and think you're progressing - the next it all falls apart, with panic attacks, random general anxiety or general debilitating knackeredness kicking in. I do not recommend it, at all.

Most of last year was spent completing the final draft of one huge novel I've been revising on and off for the better part of a decade; my then agent enthused about it, but then took a job as a commissioning editor. Still, the Huge Novel was ready to be sent out in the hope of securing new representation, so towards the end of last year, out it went...

...at which point I should probably mention that it's about a devastating global pandemic that collapses civilisation. I have a certain knack of timing!

Luckily, one agent liked it enough to ask to see my next book. I've completed two novels so far this year (one begun last summer) and am hard at work on a third. The first one has now gone out into the world. 

Despite everything, I'm managing to write 1000 words every day, with very very rare exceptions, and that ensures steady progress gets made. I used to write a lot more than that per day, and still think it wasn't enough, always in a hurry to get somewhere else; now, a thousand words seems plenty. It frees up time and energy to work on more than one thing at a time, and more importantly, it helps make the book about the journey and not the destination.

Best of all, I'm still lucky enough to have a wonderful and loving spouse who is also a phenomenal author in her own right. Anyone who's not read Cate's collection These Foolish and Harmful Delights really should.

The fantastic illustration at the top of this post is by Reiko Murakami, for the cover of Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year #12.  As always, it contains a roll-call of fantastic authors, including Gemma Files, Laura Mauro, Nathan Ballingrud, Stephen Graham Jones, Sarah Read, Paul Tremblay, Sarah Langan and Joe Lansdale. My story 'Below', from Paul Finch's Terror Tales of North West England, is included therein.

Best Horror of the Year #12 is released on October 6th, and you can preorder it here. 

October will also bring the first of two all-new novellas, brought to you by that fine gentleman Steve 

Shaw of Black Shuck Books. The second one will be out next year; the first, all being well, should see the light (or the dark) on Halloween. More details to follow soon.

So October's looking like a good month, but then so does September, with Flame Tree Press bringing out an original, non-themed horror anthology, After Sundown, edited by Mark Morris. The successor to the Spectral Books of Horror and to Titan Books' New Fears, After Sundown features stories by a host of amazing writers -- too many to list here, but just take a closer look at the cover for a full roll-call! My story 'We All Come Home' is included. 

After Sundown is out on September 15th, and can be preordered here. 

And that's all the latest news from Castle Bestwick. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Simon x

Things of the Week, Friday 6th March 2020: Best Horror of the Year 12, Cate Gardner Collection and more...

It's been a strange week.

I'm currently still off work, and haven't been venturing out much, so the unfolding coronavirus epidemic's had a slightly unreal quality. We had been thinking of going to Manchester this weekend, to meet Catana Chetwynd - we love her comics - but she's cancelled her tour due to the outbreak. There've been so many pandemic scares over the last decade or two that they've taken on a 'cry wolf' quality (although one of the reasons many of these outbreaks haven't been worse will have been prompt action and treating them as an urgent crisis) but it looks as though this one will be the real thing. I hope it's under some sort of control sooner rather than later (although with the kind of brain-donors we have in charge here and in the US, I'm not getting my hopes up too high), and to see old friends and Facebook friends, and maybe make some new ones too, at StokerCon in Scarborough.

On a happier note, this week I received some fantastic news when Ellen Datlow selected my story 'Below' (originally published in the mighty Paul Finch's Terror Tales Of Northwest England) for inclusion in The Best Horror Of the Year #12.

You can read the full TOC here. I'm in some stellar company, including Gemma Files, Robert Shearman, Joe R. Lansdale and Catriona Ward, not to mention friends such as Ray Cluley and Ren Warom. Great to see S. Qiouyu Lu's excellent 'As Dark As Hunger', which I finally read in Black Static the other week (I'm very behind with my reading), included, and special congratulations to Laura 'Bricklauncher' Mauro, for finally ticking one off her bucket list and making a Datlow anthology! (The first of many, I have no doubt.)

I'm absolutely over the moon about this.

I'm also delighted to report that the first review of Cate's new collection, These Foolish And Harmful Delights, is now up at The Eloquent Page. Of it, Paul Holmes says: "There is an introspective, almost intimate quality to each entry in the collection. Gardner’s powerful writing brings together tales of love and loss, rebellion and empowerment. These Foolish & Harmful Delights encompasses the full gamut of emotions. The stories delicately dance that fine line between dark fantasy and psychological horror. If you enjoy your fiction in the short form and are looking for something memorable, I can confirm that Cate Gardner is the author for you."

Couldn't have put it better myself.

e-ARCs of the new edition of And Cannot Come Again are now available from Horrific Tales, including the previously unpublished stories 'In The Shelter' and 'Black Is The Mourning, White Is The Wand' and an updated introduction from Ramsey Campbell. Still can't get over how amazing Ben Baldwin's cover art is... 

My very cool friend Joely Black is leading a workshop: Making Magical Objects: Experimental Archaeology Meets Creative Writing later this month in Manchester. Joely's a fine writer, whose academic background focuses on religious and magical practices in the ancient world, so she knows what she's talking about. I promised to help spread the word about this event, but sadly it's actually sold out already! Nonetheless, any Mancs who like the sound of it should keep an eye out for future ones.

And that's the lot for now. Have a good weekend, all.

The Lowdown with... A.C. Wise

A.C. Wise was born and raised in Montreal and currently lives in the Philadelphia area. Her short fiction has appeared in places such as Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Shimmer, and The Best Horror of the Year Volume 10. She has two collections - The Ultra Fabulous  Glitter Squadron Saves The World Again and The Kissing Booth Girl - published with Lethe Press, and a novella, Catfish Lullaby, forthcoming from Broken Eye Books. In addition to her fiction, she contributes a monthly review column to Apex Magazine, and the Women to Read and Non-Binary Authors to Read series to The Book Smugglers. Find her online here and on twitter there.


1. Tell us three things about yourself.
I'm Canadian. I have an uncontrollable book-buying problem, though I don't really consider it a problem. I think corgis are the best, and the two corgis who live in my house agree.

2. What was the first thing you had published?
The first thing I had published was a short story in a yearly journal of work by students put together by a local library when I was in high school. The first thing I had professionally published was piece of flash fiction printed on a coffee label by Story House Coffee. Sadly Story House no longer exists, which is a shame because I love the idea of fiction on coffee labels. As a big coffee drinker myself, it felt very appropriate for my first professional publication.

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of?

Hmm. That's hard to say. I've always been rather fond of "Final Girl Theory", which originally appeared at ChiZine, back when they regularly published short fiction online. It's since been reprinted in a couple of anthologies, and podcast at Pseudopod.

4. …and which makes you cringe?
Oh, geez. There are any number of embarrassing trunk novels and stories that will never see the light of day and I shudder to think of them.

5. What’s a normal writing day like?
I have a day job in addition to writing, so during the week, my writing is usually limited to whatever I can squeeze in at lunch. If I'm lucky, I can set aside a block of time on the weekend for writing, and it's always lovely to be able to immerse myself versus knowing I have less than an hour to cram in as much work as I can.

6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first?
For a single story, I would say "Final Girl Theory" again, however if someone wanted a broader sample of my work, I would recommend my collection The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories. It's got a little bit of everything - fantasy, horror, science fiction, erotica, and cross-genre mash-ups.

7. What are you working on now?
Just moments ago I turned in the edits for my debut novella, Catfish Lullaby, which is slated to come out from Broken Eye Books this summer. I'm excited for it to be out in the world, and for folks to read it! It's kind of a Southern Gothic, weird horror type thing that's secretly about family/found family. There are also creatures with too many eyes and too many teeth and the end of the world is at hand, so it's got something for everyone!

The Lowdown with... Nadia Bulkin

Nadia Bulkin writes scary stories about the scary world we live in, thirteen of which appear in her debut collection, She Said Destroy (Word Horde, 2017). Her short stories have been included in editions of The Year's Best Weird Fiction, The Year's Best Horror, and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror. She has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award five times. She grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, with her Javanese father and American mother, before relocating to Lincoln, Nebraska. She has a B.A. in Political Science, an M.A. in International Affairs, and lives in Washington, D.C.

1. Tell us three things about yourself.
- I've been stung by jellyfish or jellyfish-adjacent creatures twice, in California and Florida. The second time was actually a man o' war, and I had to rip the tentacles off my leg with my hand while swimming. Suffice it to say, I didn't take any chances when studying abroad in Australia.

- My first dream job was "first female soccer player," until I realized many women had gotten there before me. My second was paleontologist. I still fantasize about that one.

- I'm kind of obsessed with plane crashes, which I realize is very morbid. I find shows like Air Crash Investigation very calming (although I'm still not sure the Hong Kong International Airport should have aired it), because they show how far we've come in aviation safety.

2. What was the first thing you had published?
"The Five Stages of Grief," a short story in Three-Lobed Burning Eye, in 2008. It's about a family that can't let go of their dead youngest daughter, even when her ghost starts going bad. The first stories I published were almost exclusively about mourning and accepting deaths in the family - it was the best way I knew to work through my father's death. It helped a bit, though therapy helped more!

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of?
 Probably "Endless Life," which I reprinted in my collection. It's a story about a hotel that's haunted by the ghost of a maid; except everyone assumes that she's the ghost of a famous dictator who died in the hotel. Writing this story was like standing up a ship in a bottle - it needed such a soft touch, writing from the perspective of a bored and angry ghost in a post-colonial, post-authoritarian society - even my subplots about death tourism and paranormal investigations were tricky issues of power and exploitation. I loved writing it, and the end result was very me.

4. …and which makes you cringe? A lot of my writing, obviously, makes me cringe. Stuff I never finished, stuff I should have taken another editing pass at. I definitely cringe when I read the stuff I wrote as a kid. I think the only piece that I actually regret publishing was a modern magical realism/fantasy story that I think gave people the wrong impression of who I was as a writer. The sad part was that people really liked it! Alas, I was just mimicking a popular style instead of trying to find my own voice. And that's the part that makes me cringe.

5. What’s a normal writing day like?
It involves a lot of walking. I need a lot of "processing" time to write - when I was a kid walking around the playground and talking to myself, it didn't come across so well - and I process best when walking and listening to music (I make playlists for every story). When actually writing, I always have the TV on. That may sound weird, but sound and stimulation are a huge crutch for me - silence actually makes me kinda panicky. I'm a slow writer, but I'm very deliberate - I don't do second drafts.

6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first?
Depends on what they like (is that cheating?). To compromise between out-and-out horror and "softer" horror, I'd say "Intertropical Convergence Zone," about a lieutenant collecting magically-imbued items for the dictator he works for. I think that story was the first piece of mine that a lot of people read, and it's on my web site. However, I wrote that story ten years ago, so for something more recent I'd say "Wish You Were Here," which can be found in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year vol. 9.

7. What are you working on now?
My agent and I are pitching a grief/mental health memoir, written through the lens of being a long-suffering tennis fan. If it gets picked up, it'll be the saddest thing I've ever written, so I really hope it does! I'm also pleased to be participating in a few fun projects I can't talk about yet.

Goodbye, 2018, Hello 2019...

I love this picture far too much not to use it again.

So... whew. It's really strange to think another year's passed already. But it has, and now we're nearing the end of the first day of 2019.

364 of them to go.

Some people are dismissive about New Year's Resolutions. I'm not: this is the perfect time to look back on what you've achieved, and look ahead to where you want to be.

I wrote a novel this year, and a play, and several short stories. I saw another novel into print, plus a mini-collection and (with Penny Jones) a chapbook. I saw a novelette published by Tor.com; I saw my fiction published in major anthologies, reprinted in The Best of the Best Horror of the Year.

Cate and I celebrated our second year of marriage, and our sixth year together.

I got to see Laura Mauro win a totally unexpected (on her part) and hugely well-deserved award for Looking For Laika.

I helped start up something new: Shock Against Racism, raising money to combat racism and the far-right.

I discovered a new sense of purpose in my writing, one I thought I'd lost.

So, for 2019, what do I want to strive for? Where do I want to be?

I still want the dusk. I still want to be able to earn my living doing what I love. Time is short, for all of us. God alone knows what the next year will bring, for the world at large and for the UK in particular. I want that time to count, to be spent doing the stuff I care about and that I was put here to do.

I'm still hoping against hope that we'll find a way to halt the national insanity that is Brexit before this deranged suicide cult screws us for decades to come. (Even if we do, there'll still be divisions, but you know what? Maybe, just maybe, it's exposed the hatred and ugly-mindedness that's festered so long in our country. We can't be in denial about those things any more. And yes, I know that not every Leave voter did so out of bigotry, but don't tell me that there isn't a sewer of racism, small-minded, mean-spirited spite and cruelty running through our public life and our national culture. Maybe, now it's publicly on display, we can hope to recognise it and drain it. Crazily optimistic? Yes, but you've got have some hope.)

I want to see a change of government too. So I'm going to try and be more politically active in both those causes in the coming year.

This year, I'm going to write the final book in the Black Road series. I'm going to rewrite the one I drafted in 2018, and try to complete, or at least begin, another book after that. I want to start learning how to draw. I want to lose more weight and become fitter and healthier. I want to find more ways to turning what I love to account, so I can spend all my time doing it.

One step I've taken in that direction is to launch a Patreon account. Among other things, I'll be serialising a novel, The Mancunian Candidate, there for my supporters to read. There's a free sample available to read, to whet your appetite.

Let's hope we can get through 2019, that the things we fear don't happen and that the things we hope for do. Let's hope we're all still here at the end of 2019, and that things are better for us than they were at the start.

Good luck, everybody.

See you soon.

The Best Of The Best Horror Of The Year (ed. Ellen Datlow)

Since Ellen Datlow began editing The Best Horror Of The Year, I've had three stories published in the series.
Today, I'm delighted to announce that one of those stories, 'The Moraine', has been selected, from all the tales published in the first ten volumes of the series, for
The Best Of The Best Horror Of The Year.

I am incredibly proud to be included, alongside authors such as Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Livia Llewellyn, Nathan Ballingrud, Gemma Files, Adam Nevill, Peter Straub and Tanith Lee (to name but a few.)

You can buy the anthology here.

Once again, my thanks to Ellen, and congratulations to all my fellow contributors.














The stories:

Lowland Sea—Suzy McKee Charnas
Wingless Beasts—Lucy Taylor
The Nimble Men—Glen Hirshberg
Little America—Dan Chaon
Black and White Sky—Tanith Lee
The Monster Makers—Steve Rasnic Tem
Chapter Six—Stephen Graham Jones
In a Cavern, in a Canyon—Laird Barron
Allochthon—Livia Llewellyn
Shepherds’ Business—Stephen Gallagher
Down to a Sunless Sea—Neil Gaiman
The Man from the Peak—Adam Golaski
In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos—John Langan
The Moraine—Simon Bestwick
At the Riding School—Cody Goodfellow
Cargo—E.Michael Lewis
Tender as Teeth—Stephanie Crawford & Duane Swierczynski
Wild Acre—Nathan Ballingrud
The Callers—Ramsey Campbell
This Stagnant Breath of Change—Brian Hodge
Grave Goods—Gemma Files
The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine—Peter Straub
Majorlena—Jane Jakeman
The Days of Our Lives—Adam L. G. Nevill
You Can Stay All Day—Mira Grant
No Matter Which Way We Turned—Brian Evenson
Nesters—Siobhan Carroll
Better You Believe—Carole Johnstone

Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year #7: Honourable Mentions List

The seventh volume of Ellen Datlow's Best Horror Of The Year is with us! This is a good thing. Ellen's now published her full longlist of Recommended Reading/Honourable Mentions, which you can read here (A-L) and here (L-Z.)

While I'm not in it this year, I'm delighted to say that four of my short stories appear on the list:

'As White As Bone' (from Matter #13)
'Night Templar' (from Black Static #44)

'The Battering Stone' (from Horror Uncut)
'The Lowland Hundred' (from Dead Water)

Best of all, these were the only short stories I had published in 2014! I'd call that a pretty good success rate. :)


That's one of three things that's got the week off to a very good start at my end. The other two? Well, one was the story about David Cameron and the dead pig (I spent a great deal of Monday morning when I should have been working crying with helpless laughter) and the other? Well, watch this space for another announcement, coming later this morning....

And A Dizzy New Year

Happy New Year, everybody, and welcome to 2012.

The year has got off to a fairly exciting start. The last few days have brought a blizzard of good things- so many it's actually almost scary.

In a week or so, I should be signing contracts with my new agent (full details after the event.)

I've also been invited to contribute to a couple of new anthologies, including a big one in the US.

Matthew Fryer at Welcome to the Hellforge listed Angels Of The Silences as one of his top 10 genre reads of 2011. Alongside Where The Heart Is and End Of The Line, both of which I appeared in. Which is lovely as I'm very fond of them all, but Angels in particular.

My story 'The Churn' will still be appearing in a forthcoming issue of Black Static magazine.

My author copies of The Faceless still look gorgeous.

But over and above all that...

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from the wonderful Ellen Datlow in New York, informing me that she was taking 'The Moraine' (from Terror Tales of the Lake District) for Best Horror of the Year 4. Alongside stories by Peter Straub and Stephen King.

This was rather good news (Stephen King! STEPHEN FRAKKING KING!!)

Fast forward to earlier this week, when a further email arrived, this time imparting the information that 'Dermot' (from Black Static #24) had also been selected. So I will have two stories in Best Horror of the Year. Alongside Peter Straub. And Stephen frakking King. And many more besides (see the full TOC here.)

In addition, a new novel is underway, and next Monday, all being well, I start the first stage of my training as a counsellor.

In other news, I now have a Kindle. And I rather like it. Much is happening in these early days of 2012, and it's good. I'm hoping this will set the tone for the year. 2011 was a bittersweet affair, a very tough year in places, but out of it, good things have come. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me- online or otherwise- for the journey, and onwards and upwards. Sod the Mayan prophecy; here's hoping 2012 is a great year for all of us.