What's New? with... Jonathan Oliver

Jon's the one in the middle.

Jonathan Oliver is an award winning editor and writer. Once a former 2000 AD droid, he is best known as the former commissioning editor for Solaris and Abaddon Books. He lives in Oxford with his family and fixes words for money.

1) So, what’s new from you?

Well, apart from continuing to heal from two years of a deeply damaging office job, after deciding to leave genre publishing for a bit (great decision, Jon!), I’ve just about managed to pull myself together in 2020 – with slight sanity wobbles due to, you know, a global pandemic – and that lovely chap at Black Shuck Books, Steve Shaw, agreed to publish my debut collection, The Language of Beasts.

2) How did it come about?

The collection comprises around 10 years of short stories, most of them previously published. I’ve been writing for a lot longer than that, but these tales feel to me like the strongest I’ve written to date. Originally the collection was picked up by ChiZine, but then… you know, things happened, and I had to get my rights back. Thankfully that wasn’t too big an issue. I remember Steve saying to me at Fantasycon in Glasgow that he would have been pleased to have published the collection, so I offered it to him, and we were back in business. Steve is wonderful to work with and hugely accommodating, especially as I chose the cover design. I used to hate it as a commissioning editor when authors would say, “I have this mate who’s great at covers…” Fortunately my mate is Simon Parr who used to be Head of Design at Rebellion, so I knew he would knock it out of the park.

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

It got to the point where I realised I had enough for a collection, and that some of it was good enough for a collection. So, I looked at the stories on my PC and winnowed it down to the best ones. Then I put them together, got the brilliant Sarah Lotz to write an intro, managed to gather brilliant blurbs from authors I loved, and then sent it out and waited... and waited… It took about 3 years for it to finally find a publisher. Then that publisher had its… issues, and then Black Shuck came along, and I couldn’t be more delighted to be in such fine company.

4) What was your favourite part of the process?

I’ve never found writing easy. I always have to drag myself away from life’s distractions, and then it’s a fairly drawn-out process. I’m terribly undisciplined. My favourite part is having written and having something I’m pleased with. Also, seeing the finished book in your hand is a big thrill. Getting Simon to design the cover and the ease of working with Steve made the publishing aspect all rather easy and agreeable.

5) What was the toughest part of it?

The self-doubt, the anxiety – all the usual author quibbles. The deal with ChiZine turning sour was a bit of a bugger to say the least, especially as so many good friends were wrapped up in the messy fallout. Choosing a running order is a bit of an art too, I think, and took a while. Really, though, I have very little to complain about.

6) Is there a theme running through it?

Those who know me well will be fairly unsurprised that religion, issues of faith, and vicars crop up more than once. It’s hard to pick apart what the major themes are, though, as I don’t analyse myself to that extent. That’s the readers’ job.

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

Strange dark stories.

8) Where can/will we be able to get hold of it?

You can get the lovely hardback from Black Shuck Books, and in all the usual online book retail venues (which don’t have to include Amazon).

(More) Things of the Week 22nd April 2016: The Feast Of All Souls Reveal!

As you know, I've another novel due for release this year, this time from Solaris: The Feast Of All Souls (formerly known as Redman's Hill.)

As you can see, it also boasts an awesome cover by Ben Baldwin.

The suburb of Crawbeck, on a hill outside Manchester, overlooks the woodlands of Browton Vale. Alice Collier was happy here, once; following her daughter’s death and the breakdown of her marriage, she’s come back, to pick up the threads of her life. 

378 Collarmill Road looks like an ordinary semi-detached house. But sometimes, the world outside the windows isn’t the one you expect to see. And sometimes you’ll turn around and find you’re not alone. John Revell, an old flame of Alice’s, reluctantly comes to her aid. The hill is a place of legends – of Old Harry, the Beast of Crawbeck, of the Virgin of the Height and of the mysterious Red Man – and home to the secrets of the shadowy Arodias Thorne.
Alice’s house stands at a gateway between worlds. On the other side of it, something has woken. And she and John, alone, stand in its way...

You can read Solaris' official press release here, featuring Jon Oliver saying nice things about me.

The Feast Of All Souls will be published in December 2016.

The Lowdown with... Jonathan Oliver

Jonathan Oliver is the multi-award winning editor of End of the Line, Magic, House of Fear,

Dangerous Games and The End of the Road.When he’s not being editor-in-chief of Solaris, Abaddon Books and Ravenstone he tinkers with words. He lives with his family in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

1.       Tell us three things about yourself.

My Dad is a retired Anglican priest and my Mum is a psychiatrist.

I used to be a stand-up comedian.

A glove puppet called Thomas Pigotti lives on my desk at work.

2.       What was the first thing you had published?

Lord, that’s a hard one. I think it was my story 'Punchline', but I can’t remember what the publication was called. It was a while ago now.

3.       Which piece of writing are you proudest of?

I think the last few years I’ve got a lot more focused (though not any more prolific) and I’m most fond, at the moment, of my story 'White Horse' in The Alchemy Book of Urban Mythic.

4.       …and which makes you cringe?

Anything from my teenage years. There were the obligatory years of bad poetry. And I’m sure if I went and looked back at some of the odd stand-up material there may be things there...

5.       What’s a normal writing day like?

There is no normal writing day. I work full time and we have two pre-school-age

daughters, so I write when I can, which isn’t as often as I like,

but then I’m also quite lazy.

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

I’d go with 'White Horse.'

7.       What are you working on now? 

I’m writing a very very gruesome horror story, but also working on a novel collaboration which will be very different to most things I’ve done.

Me And My Shorts

No wait, come back! This blogpost does NOT feature pictures of me showcasing various trouser-related clothing items. No-one needs to see my hairy thighs; Cate suffers enough of that.

No, this is about short stories! There are things afoot, and of course you want to know about them. What? Yes, you do. Stop struggling. Come back here.

Anyway.


First and biggest - My short story Horn Of The Hunter has been included in Mark Morris' anthology THE 2ND SPECTRAL BOOK OF HORROR STORIES, alongside stories by some truly excellent writers. Very good company indeed, and I'm proud to be included. The anthology will be released in October, at Fantasycon 2015.

My story from WORLD WAR CTHULHU, Now I Am Nothing, will be reprinted in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF KAIJU next year, edited by Sean Wallace.

My story The Face Of The Deep will appear in Jonathan Green's upcoming arcade-game-themed anthology, GAME OVER. Basically imagine a cross between Frogger and the Book of Genesis and you're getting there...

Two stories are forthcoming via TTA Press:

The Gaudy, Blabbing And Remorseful Day will be published in BLACK STATIC.

If I Should Fall From Grace With God will be published in CRIMEWAVE.

And, of course, The Judgement Call will be published at the end of the year as a Spectral chapbook, in tandem with the incredible Robert Shearman's Christmas In The Time Of Ennui - a single volume, so I shall be between the covers with Rob, as it were. At least he'll make me look good.

All A Bit Random: Halloween, Books and Stuff, Estronomicon, Love for The Moraine and Where The Chuff Is That New Website Of Yours?

Hello again... just a few odds and sods this time.

Last night was Twisted Tales night up in Liverpool, with Nicholas Royle, Lisa Tuttle and Adam Nevill all reading; I got to sip latte alongside The Awesomeness That Is Cate Gardner and stuff my face with tapas afterwards. Also bagged myself a copy of House Of Fear, Jonathan Oliver's new anthology from Solaris Books. I've read four of the stories so far, all of which have been very high quality indeed.

I was hoping to be getting the new website up and running over this weekend, but my lovely friends Mike and Rachel (who got me the domain as a late birthday present, bless 'em both) are laid up with horrible colds, so I didn't get to see them for the planned tutorial. Sorry. But the new site will arise in the near(ish) future.

In the meantime... Halloween is fast approaching, so how better to fill the days than by catching up on some horror reading? Just finished Gary McMahon's new Gray Friar collection It Knows Where You Live (bleak and brilliant, as you'd expect); before that it was Simon Kurt Unsworth's superb Quiet Houses. And now I'm back to randomly dipping in and out of the aforementioned House Of Fear, and Terror Tales Of The Lake District.





Speaking of which- Anthony Watson over at Dark Musings has posted a review of it, in which he says of 'The Moraine': 'It's tense, scary and exciting, another excellent story from one of my current favourite authors.' Funnily enough, Anthony's one of my current favourite reviewers. :)

Meanwhile, if you're looking for some spooky reading matter, you could do far worse than to pop over to the Screaming Dreams website on Halloween, when the latest issue of Steve Upham's e-zine Estronomicon becomes available. Among its delights will be a story of mine called 'The Psalm', set in the Lancashire countryside.

Anyway, if I don't blog again before Halloween, have a wonderfully spooky time!

Lessons, Liverpool, Loss of Face and Learning to Cope

Well, I finally finished work on The Faceless on the morning of Saturday 15th October- completing the last few edits with virtually minutes to spare before scooting off to Barmouth for a week of unwinding, as well as visiting my late gran's grave to pay my respects. Nearly five ruddy months of rewriting... but we'll come back to that.

Here's a funny thing. Part of the plot of The Faceless is based on the story of the Accrington Pals, who were wiped out on the first day of the Battle of the Somme: 1st July, 1916. As you can imagine, this and related subjects have been on my mind a lot over the course of the year as I pulled this monster together. But at last, so I thought, I could forget all about it.

The second day of my hols, I climbed Dinas Oleu, the range of hills overlooking Barmouth, but went in a different direction from my usual route, climbing a peak I hadn't gone for before. The main thing that marked it out was the Welsh flag flapping atop it.

After a couple of hours of climbing, I reached the summit....








To find this, and set into it...
















...was this plaque.


Some subjects have a habit of following you around.

Anyway; the break was very welcome, but it's fair to say I hadn't expected the work of writing the damn book to go on quite this long. I made a hell of a lot of excess work for myself on The Faceless; it was a pretty big, complicated tale with a lot going on and I outlined the novel only sketchily. Result? A first draft of 160,000 words and a HUGE amount of rewriting to turn the whole mess into something readable.

So for the next one, I'm going to remember the lessons learned earlier this year from writing The Sight and The Children Of Moloch; outlining each story in advance resulted in a first draft that was very close to the finished product and needed very little work. Outlining each chapter as if it were a story might have the same effect on the next book. Hope so anyway: an ounce of preparation, with any luck, should beat a pound of rewriting. We'll see.

But that'll have to wait, as today the book came back from Jon Oliver at Solaris, with various edits. There's work to be done, and in the next week I'll be embarking on the next wave of rewrites... but on the whole, da boss is pleased. Which is nice.

It's been a funny few months. Since mid-August, I've been signed off work (in a call centre) with stress. One day I just couldn't seem to hack dealing with the customers. Looking back, there were a few days' warning of it, but on the whole it seemed very sudden. I always thought of this as something that affected other people, and of course when you hear someone's off with stress there's a tendency to wonder if they're swinging the lead. I'm less likely to do that now. Thanks to all the friends who sent kind words and thoughts, or lent me their ear. It's been appreciated. Had my first counselling session today, and I think it went well; I'm hoping to be back to work in the next month, but the whole episode's made me stop and think and take stock. There may well be some changes in the not too distant future...

Speaking of changes, a proper websitey thing is being put together, which means this blog's days are likely numbered. Thanks to all of you nice folks for reading it over the past three years; I'll still blog, of course, on the website when it's up.

Tomorrow I'm off to Liverpool to attend a Twisted Tales event at Waterstone's Liverpool One, and for coffee with the ever-reigning Cate (TM). So, onwards and upwards...

Facing It

Well, The Faceless is at last complete and has winged its way to Jon Oliver over at Solaris Books. Meanwhile, I'm here in Barmouth, North Wales, trying to relax a little and rest up...

In the meantime, though, that nice Mark West fellow has made a teaser trailer for the novel. Whet your appetites here...

Get your own valid XHTML YouTube embed code

Best of Tomes of the Dead Vol 2- More Love for Tide of Souls

Teresa Derwin over at Terror-Tree has reviewed Abaddon's new omnibus edition of Tomes of the Dead, which squeezes me between the covers (oo-er missus) with Gary McMahon and Jasper Bark. Or at least packs Tide of Souls together with Gary's novel Hungry Hearts and Jasper's The Way of the Barefoot Zombie.

Of the collection as a whole, Teresa says it 'contains three of the most satisfying zombie novels I’ve seen in a while' and 'represents some of the best horror writers today and indeed, three fine examples of classic zombie fiction. More importantly they are particularly diverse so the reader won’t become bored having three books in one on the same theme as they are so intrinsically different. This collection is a must for zombie fans and is great value for money.'

Of Tide of Souls in particular, she says 'With a great grasp of regional dialogue, Bestwick delivers a genuinely creepy zombie story.'

Which is nice. You can read the full review and check out Teresa's website here.

Interview at Read Horror with Jonathan Oliver

That nice Mr Jonathan Oliver, Commissioning Editor of Abaddon and Solaris Books, is being interviewed here at Read Horror, where he says much that is true and worthy, not to mention nice. Tide of Souls gets a mention, as does The Faceless. So do please check it out.

The End Of The Line- The Guardian Review!

Wotcher folks. Just a quick one, this. The End Of The Line has been reviewed for today's Guardian by Eric Brown . It's a short review, in which only four stories are name-checked. These are Stephen Volk's 'In The Colosseum' (one of the most savage and disturbing stories I've read this year), Nicholas Royle's 'The Lure' (a subtle and elliptical psycholoigical... chiller? Thriller? I don't know what to call it, but it's great), Paul Meloy's magnificent 'Bullroarer' (further proof, were it needed, that Meloy is one of the finest, most original and idiosyncratic short story writers working in the field right now)... and 'The Sons Of The City'.

To say that I am delighted would be a dramatic understatement. But I won't say it... no, I won't...

Must... hold... back...

No, it's no use:

SQUEE!

Ahem. Sorry about that.

We now return you to what is laughingly called reality. Unfortunately this includes David C*ntmoron being Prime Minister and Simon Cowell existing. Sorry. It's not my fault.