A Belated Hornblowing

As regular readers of this blog (both of them) will know, each December I usually post a round-up of the work I've had published for the first time that year. Partly so I can pop my head up and take a look at what has been achieved - and, yes, to show what work of mine is eligible for any awards that are going.

Anyway, for various reasons I wasn't in a great place at the back end of last year, so I didn't get round to doing such a post. So here, belatedly, it is now.

Novels

The Sound of the Dark (as by 'Daniel Church) Angry Robot Books.

Short Stories:  

'The Witch of November' in Nightmare Abbey 8, ed. Tom English.

'The Last Train' in Nightmare Abbey 9, ed. Tom English.

'Polodski's Bride in The Joining, ed. Jacob Steven Mohr   

'Nightwatch' (as by 'Daniel Church') in King's River Life Magazine. (Read free HERE.)

'My Soul To Keep' on Patreon. (Read free HERE.)

I wrote one novel last year - my first tie-in book, in fact! - which I think is slated for 2027. Details will be made available in due course. I started and abandoned various novel-length projects; this year will be hopefully be the year of finishing some!  

Nightmare Abbey 8

Hi folks,

Just a quick heads-up to let you all know that my story 'The Witch of November' is the lead tale in the latest edition of Tom English's excellent journal Nightmare Abbey!

'The Witch of November' is another of my tales of Bone Street, that strange little corner of Manchester that appears on no maps of the city, which also featured in my story in the previous issue of Nightmare Abbey, 'The Hadrian Hornpipe.'

It sits alongside stories and articles by John Llewellyn Probert, Stephen Volk, Steve Duffy, Helen Grant, Gary McMahon and many many more.

Go forth and avail yourself of a copy here!

Big thanks to Ben Unsworth and Samuel Forrest, who helped me with my very rusty Latin for this story!

  

Things of the (Last Couple of) Week(s), 6th May 2024 - ParSec, Nightmare Abbey and Fears

Dusting off the blog again, because it seems like a good idea...

So the past week or two has seen one story newly published, another accepted, and an upcoming anthology appearance announced!

The newly published story is 'The Manktelow Timepiece,' which appears in issue 10 of ParSec magazine. It's one of my Bone Street stories; others include 'And You Heard The Rattling Death Train' in Railroad Tales and 'Are We Going Under?' in ParSec #6 (and later ParSec In Print.) This was actually the first of the stories I wrote, but I'd almost despaired of finding a home for it when Ian Whates snapped it up (thanks once more, Ian!) So I'm truly proud and delighted to see it appear at last. You can buy ParSec #10 here. 

The latest acceptance is 'Territory,' a funny tale whose basic premise had been with me since about 2006 or thereabouts till I finally managed to do justice to it. That notched up its fair share of rejections too, but has finally a loving home in the haunted halls of Nightmare Abbey, in which it'll be appearing in the summer! A big thank you to Tom English for taking it on.

And finally, the anthology appearance! I'm honoured to announce that my story 'Bait' is being reprinted by the great Ellen Datlow in her new anthology of psychological horror, Fears, alongside works by Annie Neugebauer, Josh Malerman, Dale Bailey, Steve Duffy, Margo Lanagan, Bracken MacLeod, Tim Nickels, Stewart O’Nan, Priya Sharma, John Patrick Higgins, Livia Llewellyn, Laird Barron, Theresa DeLucci, Sharon Gosling, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Cluley, Carole Johnstone, Hailey Piper, Charles Birkin and Stephen Graham Jones. That's bloody good company to be in. To feast your eyes on that cover in full, click here. If you'd like to pre-order the anthology, here's the link.

All of which is very happy news.

Simon :)