Angels Of The Silences To Return!

Delighted to announce that my novella Angels Of The Silences is to be published in the US by Omnium Gatherum!

Cover art for Omnium's edition is still to be arranged; the image here is Neil Williams' artwork for the original 2011 Pendragon Press edition (long since sold out.)

Angels will be released in 2016. Further details to follow.

Two teenage girls have the kind of friendship we only often experience once in our lives. More sisters than blood sisters, spiky, argumentative but loyal and close, two sides of the same coin. That sort of friendship can’t be broken easily, even by death. And a terrible death at that. Yet, somehow, they are still “alive”, fleshed, clothed, and human in all but heartbeat.

There is a way to move on, but neither are inclined to do so, because, perhaps, there is a reason they’re still here on earth in the land of the breathing, where they go about their daily lives with their status unsuspected by friends and family alike. There is, they suspect, unfinished business.

But when the time comes, when is it right to move on and leave everyone and everything they love behind them?

Angels of the Silences is short, sharp and for me, immensely touching. The two girls are complete, three-dimensional, recognisable. Their plight is utterly realistic, yes, realistic, because there are dilemmas here; who to tell, how to deal with parents and other loved ones, with the possibility that the truth will out and that there will be questions, torment, terrible grief.

A compelling, intelligent and affecting story... Angels of the Silences is one of those brief but startling works that we stumble upon every now and then. Read it and I dare you not to be moved. - Terry Grimwood.

ETA: And here's Omnium Gatherum's official announcement! 

Fantasycon 2011: Brighton Rocked

Be warned: this will be a huge blog post. Once I started, I honestly didn't know where to stop... So ensure you have a stiff one to hand (or even a drink.)

I’ll be totally honest here; when I first heard the 2011 Fantasycon was happening in Brighton, I was not a happy bunny. It was fun for World Horror, but that was a big international event. Say what you like about the Britannia Hotel in Nottingham (and many have), at least it was central. Brighton is a looooooooooong way to go if you’re a Manc. Even when Sarah Pinborough pointed out that publishers and agents wouldn’t make the trek to Nottingham, but would to Brighton, I wasn’t convinced.

So, was my mind changed?

Read on…

It went something like this:

Thursday 29th September. The Con doesn’t start till tomorrow, but see that thing above about it being a looooooooooong way to go. So- the epic journey commences- Swinton to Manchester by bus, Manchester to London Euston by train, Euston to Victoria by Tube and finally a train to Victoria to Brighton. After a brief spell of giddiness at the sheer frenetic vastness that is the capitol, it was pretty plain sailing. Arrive at Brighton, decide to walk from the train station to the hotel. A cab would be a silly extravagance, after all.

Did I mention that the Con managed to coincide with a fairly sizzling mini-heatwave? Well, I have now. Am also humping a well-stuffed backpack and a shoulderbag. And am wearing dark clothes. Feel free to quote the words ‘Serious Tactical Error’ at any time, people…

Arrive (approximately one stone lighter and quite possibly in the early stages of dehydration) at the Strawberry Fields guesthouse, a nice and highly-recommended little place if you’re ever visiting Brighton. Not only do they do breakfast in your room, but they have these seriously cute pillows:

Yes, I was tempted to nick one. No, I didn’t. Yes, Evil Me wishes I had.

Anyway! On to the Royal Albion Hotel, home of the Con. Boozing follows with the likes of Gary McMahon, Rio Youers, Mark Morris, Steve Jones, Mandy Slater and Sarah Pinborough. (Bit dizzying to find myself in such exalted company. :D ) Everyone else goes to freshen up. Potter round and end up helping the host of organisers fill up the last few goody bags. A drink or two with TTA Press’s Roy Gray, plus Paul and Audrey Campbell. Then further boozing- alcohol blurs the recollection here, but I get to meet Sandra Norval, who’s on her first Con. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s lucky- this will be one to remember.

Anyway, a good time is had by all. And so to bed.

Five hours’ sleep.

Friday 30th September
Up bright and early. Breakfast in bed arrives at 8.00 am. Virtuously decide on a brisk hour-long walk- sweat those toxins out! Better still- a walk on the beach! Why not?

Well, as I discover the beach a) appears to have been built on a 45 degree slope and b) is made entirely of loose pebbles which swallow the unwary walker’s feet up to the ankles. Bollocks to that. Scramble back to terra firma. It ends up being a half-hour walk, but ah well. At least some exercise was taken.

Head to the Albion feeling virtuous. Nose around the dealer’s room in the basement although it’s not officially open yet. Am lassooed by Pete Crowther, proprietor of PS Publishing, and given a stack of cover-sheets to sign for the limited edition of Gutshot. Scribble industriously. Escape to the ground floor and find my way to the first panel on ‘Small Press Publishing’. Had planned to stay for the next two- ‘Maintaining Your Web Presence’, chaired by the lovely Adele Wearing, and one on ‘Making A Living As A Writer’- but have almost been boiled to death by the end of the first panel. Apologise to Adele with much batting of eyelashes and seek out something cold and wet. Catch up, among others, with the equally lovely Anna Taborska, writer and film-maker (and maker of the forthcoming book-trailer for The Faceless.)

Later: attend Rio Youers’ reading and finally get to hear some of the boy’s prose. Oh, he’s good, folks; he’s very very good. Read him! Then on to the PS launch, which includes Gutshot. Sit between Pete Atkins and Conrad Williams sweating like Gary Glitter on a schoolbus and quenching a burning thirst with glasses of white wine. Am vaguely aware this may not be a good idea. Am pathetically grateful when a carafe of water appears. Find myself giving Graham Joyce an autograph. Dazedly think that this should be the other way round. Join Mark West, post-signing, in singing the praises of Graham’s novel The Silent Land. (Which is, like pretty much everything Graham Joyce writes, exceptionally good.) Graham takes the praise with his customary grace and good humour.

Curry with Sandra Norval, Jonathan Green and another chap whose name I shamefully can’t remember.

Back upstairs to the reading room for a succession of readings: Simon Kurt Unsworth, Gary McMahon, Joel Lane and (Lord) John Llewellyn Probert. In temperatures approaching that of the sunward side of Mercury. Morituri te salutant.

Somehow survive. To the bar. Further debauchery, the memory of which is mercifully blurred.

Four hours’ sleep.

Saturday 1st October
White rabbits!

No walk today. My morning exercise consists of intensive groaning and high-speed coffee consumption. Totter to hotel later than intended but sadly miss Reggie Oliver’s reading. Potter round the dealer’s room and am surprised to find I seem to own some new books by the end of it. However did that happen?

Solaris are giving away free books! But before I can join the queue, I bump into the ebullient (and insanely tall) Gardner Goldsmith, singing the praises of ‘Dermot’ in Black Static 24. By the time I remember the Solaris book giveaway, there’s almost nothing left. An object lesson on the price of vanity…

Shortly thereafter sleep deprivation starts to take its toll. Veg out on the sofa, much to the amusement of Gary Cole-Wilkin, John Travis and Soozy Marjoram, who swiftly immortalises the event on camera and posts it on Facebook.

Back to the hotel for a couple of hours’ unconsciousness. Rise and walk, feeling hungry. However, back at the Albion, nearly everyone I know has already decamped in search of an eatery.

Wander the streets of Brighton in search of a Chinese restaurant, or maybe that nice Indonesian restaurant we went to at World Horror last year… after half an hour, on the brink of giving up and heading or Harry Ramsden’s I find myself outside the Indonesian place. (It’s called Warung Tujuh, if you’re ever in Brighton.) Which goes to show something or other, I’m not sure what…

Back to the hotel to read from The Faceless and Angels of the Silences. Pretty good turnout considering it’s 9.30 pm. on a Saturday.

Then on to the Regency Lounge to witness Lord and Lady Probert’s ‘Teatro Proberto’ presenting Blood On Satan’s Claw- The Panto, followed by a reprise of their 20-minute version of the Peter Cushing classic(?!) Corruption.

Then follows the burlesque. Attractive young lady with not much on alternately conceals and reveals her curves with a big black pair of feathery things (my descriptive powers are getting taxed here.) Not sure how well it fits in with the Con as a whole, but hey. Then a fairly terrifying male performer appears in an act that culminates in him disembowelling and eating a (toy) rabbit (with very realistic internal organs) onstage. And garlanding himself with rabbit innards. Before collapsing, apparently dead, and being dragged off to the strains of Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel. (Another childhood memory desecrated.) The crazy train leaves from ‘O….K,’ passes through ‘What the…’ and ends its journey at ‘Sod this for a game of conkers, I’ll be in the bar.’

It takes a couple of stiff drinks and a pint or two of Diet Coke with Sandra N. to get over that one. As a result I miss the panel on 'How To Scare Your Readers' (a description of that bloody burlesque would’ve done it.) Get up to go to Ramsey Campbell’s midnight reading, then discover the chap I’m squeezing past is Stephen Gallagher. Who’s actually heard of me. Chit-chat follows. Midnight reading also missed. Bugger.

Ah well- on to the disco!

This is a new development, but one of the highlights of the convention. FCon’s excellent Mistress of Ceremonies, Sarah ‘Potty Mouth’ Pinborough, intros our DJs, Rio Youers and Guy Adams, and the games begin. It’s actually enormous fun; only sorry not to have caught Year’s Best Horror editor Steve Jones getting down on the dancefloor, or Gary McMahon’s rendition of the funky chicken, on camera, but here’s Joel Lane boogying away with Lord and Lady Probert. This may be the first time I’ve seen Lord P with his tie loosened…




The disco ends amid much cheering and rejoicing. Sarah reminds the congregation that ‘What happens at the Fantasycon disco… stays on the Fantasycon disco.’ Surely she means ‘…ends up all over Facebook come Sunday afternoon’?

Three and a half hours sleep.

Sunday 2nd October
Awake, pack, head back to the Albion for the last time, this time early enough to catch the day’s first reading, from the lovely Ali Littlewood. Interviewed by Gardner Goldsmith for his podcast- Lord alone knows what they’ll make of that across the Pond. A last raid on the dealer’s room. The rest is hugs and goodbyes.

The odyssey back to the rainy North begins. A cab to the station this time; not making the same mistake twice. Sit next to a pleasant Norwegian student on the train home and the weekend gets rounded off with a chat about the brilliant Norwegian horror film Cold Prey.

All in all, it is, truly, the best Fantasycon I’ve been to, ever. Full stop. However…

I left before the British Fantasy Awards were presented. There’s already been a lot said about it and I wasn’t there, so I’ll direct interested parties to Steve Jones’ comment on the whole business here. There are questions to answer and be addressed.

I’ll put my hands in the air and freely admit I was utterly, utterly wrong about the location for this year’s Con. It played a big part in its record turnout of over five hundred people, plus representation from the big publishers, which I haven’t seen at FCon in a while. We need more conventions like this year’s.

I’ve heard that some have said the Awards debacle soured the whole Con for them. I really hope that’s not true. It was a truly brilliant weekend on so many levels.

I’d love to list all the ace and funky people I met for the first time or got to catch up with, but I’d end up missing someone out. You all know who you are.

Finally, a big shout-out to those brave, busy, red-shirted folks who helped organise everything and ran about making everything else happen on the ground: Marie O’Regan, Paul Kane, Martin Roberts, Helen Hopley, Jenny Barber, Pixie Pants and anyone else I’ve left out.

Loving Angels 2: No Exaggeration

More love for Angels of the Silences has been found, this time over at Terry Gates-Grimwood's website The Exaggerated Press.

Terry says: 'Angels of the Silences is short, sharp and for me, immensely touching. The two girls are complete, three-dimensional, recognisable... A compelling, intelligent and affecting story... Angels of the Silences is one of those brief but startling works that we stumble upon very now and then. Read it and I dare you not to be moved.'

That's certainly brightened up my day, anyway. Incidentally, did I mention that as well as the chapbook (for a mere three of your English pounds), you can also buy Angels as an ebook for one pound only? Well, now I have.

I wish I could claim credit for the title, but sadly I cannot tell a lie: it's from a Counting Crows song. This one, to be precise. Rock on!

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Angels Of The Silences is unleashed...

...well, almost. It's now about to go to print, as a tasty little chapbook from that nice Mr Chris Teague's Pendragon Press. A mere three of your English pounds, or whatever that translates to in dollars, euros, yuan, yen, galactic groats, Martian money, Cthuloid cash or (insert currency unit of your preference here.) Fan, dabi, and not forgetting dozi.

So, what's it all about, Alfie? Well, without revealing too much (i.e. nothing you won't learn on the first page) here's the publisher's blurb:

Emily and Biff are seventeen and best friends. They have also been dead for nine months.

Compared to certain stuff I've written, such as The School House or The Narrows , Angels is almost cuddly. Almost. Or as close to it as you can get. And, as you can see, it also has a truly stonking cover by Mr Neil Williams.

Come on- what else can you get for three quid that's this much fun? (Don't answer that.)

Pendragon are also doing an offer whereby if you order a copy of the limited hardback of We Fade to Grey (which features the aforesaid The Narrows- selected by Ellen Datlow for The Best Horror Of The Year, shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award... I've probably banged on about that so much you probably know this better than me by now :D ) then you will receive a copy gratis. So there you go.


WSAHD!

My Fantasycon Timetable...

If you're attending Fantasycon this year, and you want to know what to attend/avoid, here's my itinerary...

Friday night (17th September)
6.30 pm. I shall be reading... and I've only just realised I'll be the first one up for the whole Con! Eek! So please show up and make a scared man a bit more relaxed. Currently planning to read an excerpt from the new novel I'm writing plus a short story.

Also on Friday night:

10.30pm. I'll be on the panel 'Get Real: Looking at how weird fiction can often be the best tool to address issues in the world around us.' Co-starring with: Joel Lane, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Lisa Tuttle, Stephen Volk and Allen Ashley. I'm truly not worthy.

Edited to add...

Saturday (18th September)
1.00pm. Launch for the Solaris Books anthology The End Of The Line, edited by Jonathon Oliver and featuring my story 'The Sons Of The City'. Co-starring with Ramsey Campbell, Joel Lane, Paul Meloy, Rebecca Levene and many, many more. It's gonna be a good 'un, this.

2.00pm. Launch for Never Again, edited by Allyson Bird and Joel Lane and featuring my story 'Malachi'. Also involving Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale, Rob Shearman, Tony Richards, Lisa Tuttle, Nina Allan, Rosanne Rabinowitz, Kaaron Warren and Thana Niveau- among many other authors.

Sadly Chris Teague at Pendragon Press tells me that Angels Of The Silences won't be ready for the Con. That's a pity, but what the hell, it'll be out sooner or later anyway. Thanks anyway to Chris for publishing that little tale.

And once that's out of the way, I'll just have fun. Including forays to the Metal Karaoke that's also going on...



See you all there!

Taking Stock; a long and self-indulgent post

It's been a busy week, what with a job interview to prep for and Angels Of The Silences to proofread (that one has to be finished today- luckily the brave and awesome chap that is Chris Teague of Pendragon Press knows no fear when it comes to cutting things a bit fine), but writing-wise things are on a bit of a pause.

I've put aside a half-finished novella and a new raft of changes to The Song Of The Sibyl to help put together a comedy series pitch for Radio Two, and after that found myself at a loose end. Whereupon the thought of new story collections came to mind. After all, there were a good few tales lying about loose, after thirteen years in the game. (Jesus, that pulls me up short every time I write it. Where the hell does the time go?)

So this meant (ulp) it was time to make an inventory of the uncollected stuff.

You have to picture: there are three computers in chez Bestwick- my laptop, the trusty and nifty little Netbook I'm writing this blog post on and my old desktop. If they were members of the cast of Dad's Army (pause while American readers google that one) the Netbook would be Private Walker (the spiv and wideboy who always got results), the laptop would be Corporal Jones (determined and thinking he was the bee's knees but prone to malfunctiong- that's what you get with Windows pigging Vista) and the desktop would be Private Godfrey (the doddery old one who looked like a strong breeze would knock him over.) The main reason it's still around is that it can still handle floppy disks and there might still be some useful stuff on some of them. Oh, and because that's where a lot of the old material is.

And so, the trawl began. Exporting stories, novelettes, novellas, nearly all unpublished, onto the pen-drive. Quality control was not a factor, just getting them all into one place.

That Protestant Work Ethic thing is securely embedded in the Bestwick brain, if noting else. When I started writing properly, in 1997, I aimed for a story a week. There are 26 stories listed from that year on the inventory. That doesn't include the completed novel, the two unfinished ones and the 20,000 word novella from that year, plus half a dozen lost stories (mercifully, in the case of several that spring to mind) and the ones that need retyping.

Most of the ones from that year and 1998 were published somewhere, but many of those that followed are yet to see print; back at the end of the '90s (I refuse to write 'the turn of the century', except that I just did) the small press scene imploded, losing a lot of markets. My brain seized up at the prospect of actually trying to work out how to post stuff outside the UK and the internet left me decidedly confused. And shortly thereafter there was a several years-long phase of hating nearly everything I wrote. The reasons for that are long and complicated and for another time, but a lot of stories were written and then thrown aside, convinced they were rubbish. There are thirty-odd unpublished stories from 2001 alone, and nearly as many from 2000. Those were two of the years I had the least confidence as a writer, and kept churning out tales in an effort to feel proud of one of them (thanks to Chris and Barbara Roden at Ash-Tree Press/All Hallows Magazine, who were one of the few markets I placed stories with at the time- that boost to the confidence was very welcome)

2002 saw twenty-odd so-far uncollected stories written, but after that short-story production slacked off. Longer projects beckoned, forays into script-writing, a number of novels that are damn well going to stay in their bottom drawer.

But anyway- the final count?

Over a hundred and ninety.

I'm not saying this to brag (well, OK, maybe a bit.) But it did come as a bit of a shock. And that's not counting another dozen to twenty that only exist in hard copy form and need typing up or scanning. Plus some only written in longhand that still haven't been typed up. Oh, and a couple of short novels that might be worth trying to place...

Obviously, there are a lot of stories here that don't merit publication; they're in the bottom drawer for a bloody good reason, and there they shall stay. But even so... there should be enough material for four or five other collections there. It's quite a sobering thought to see that much stuff accumulated.

One reason for writing: a kind of insurance policy against oblivion. A light that glows in the long darkness after your own's gone out (Christ, that's pretentious. But it's also true, so I'll let it stand.) There's a substantial amount of insurance there.

But bloody hell, 190+ stories? After thirteen years?

God, I feel old.

And so now back to Angels Of The Silences. And prepping for the job interview. And the meeting later today. I used to have a life...

Angels Of The Silences

I'm delighted to announce that my novella, Angels Of The Silences, will be published by Chris Teague's brilliant Pendragon Press this September. I.e. next month. Crikey! Full details and cover will follow in the fullness of time, but I believe the cover price will be a mere three of your English pounds.

It should be out just in time for Fantasycon, then. In fact that's probably where it'll be launched. So if you want a signed copy you know where you need to be on the weekend of 17th to 19th of September. There's still time to register and enter the wonderful world of FCon for the first time. That's not addressed to anyone in particular, honest. And certainly not Cate. Noo, not at all. ;-)