Tag: Books

Origin Stories continued: 11/15, On Midwinter Hill

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Let’s climb to the top of Midwinter Hill.

In the book, The Hidden Life of Trees (pub. Greystone Books, 2015), Peter Wohlleben talks about how trees are connected to one another: that beeches for instance “are capable of friendship and go so far as to feed each other”; trees become friends that “communicate by means of olfactory, visual, and electrical signals”, and “warn each other using chemical signals sent through the fungal networks around their root tips.” Despite being an enthralling read, this didn’t really surprise me – after all, the entirety of the natural world is interconnected – but with every page I turned, something stirred in the rich soil of my imagination.

By writing these short introductions, it struck me how there’s usually at least two unrelated things that unite to create my stories. For instance, while reading Wohlleben’s book, I overheard a work colleague discuss his plans for the coming Christmas. His mother had passed away that year, and, as she had loved the holiday so much, the family were keen that she still took part in that year’s celebrations. They agreed that they would decorate her grave with a Christmas tree.

Before I knew it, On Midwinter Hill was drafted. Since then, the story has had multiple title changes, been a tale told in reverse, then finally the version found in the book.

If you’d like to read it, and the other stories, you can buy Corpse Road Blues here.

Origin Stories continued: 10/15, The Memory of Hannah Babinski: Revisited

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We’re two-thirds of the way through, but has Corpse Road Blues from Demain Publishing manifested into your shopping cart yet, or is it still a gruesome and terrible absence haunting your periphery? Whatever you’re going to do, thank you so much for staying with me, I hope you’ve enjoyed the posts so far.

I can’t really say much about this story, not because there isn’t anything to write, but for fear of giving too much away. Suffice to say, Revisited was written after my partner read The Memory of Hannah Babinski. She put the manuscript down and, after some hesitation, said, “What would be great is if…”. She was right. But you knew that. Adding that extra something changed the story completely for both of us. At the time, I didn’t realise the epilogue would become a story in its own right. The decision to separate it from the original tale in the collection and give it a name was taken to emphasize time passing, and increase the story’s impact.

If you’d like to read The Memory of Hannah Babinski: Revisited, you can buy Corpse Road Blues here.

Origin Stories continued: 9/15, Love Notes from the Damned

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Have you bought Corpse Road Blues yet? If you have and enjoyed it then consider leaving a review somewhere, they really do help authors.

If you’ve stayed with me thus far, thank you so much! It means a lot. We’re now past the halfway mark, and are peering over the edge toward the inevitable end, just like Joel in Love Notes from the Damned, the ninth story in the collection.

Have you ever been home alone at night and felt like someone was watching you? The feeling so vivid, so visceral, it gives you gooseflesh? Maybe something odd happens, you spot an item in an unusual place, and for the life of you, you’re unable to remember moving it there. Or you hear a noise, maybe heavy footsteps in the loft space above your head—there it is again! Things that, at the time, you might dismiss with logic, and a wave of your hand. But these explanations you tell yourself aren’t neat. I mean, you’re not an expert so you don’t know for sure. Doubt niggles at the back of your head. Love Notes from the Damned is about frightening yourself silly.

Are you still brave enough to buy Corpse Road Blues?

Origin Stories continued: 7/15, Wounds are Lips Waiting to be Kissed

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One of my favourite areas in London that I’ve found so far is Southbank, along the river Thames. This cultural hotspot and tourist thoroughfare bustles with the sounds and sights of buskers and street performers, the area boasts theatres, an open-air book market, and a sheltered skatepark. It’s the setting of Wounds are Lips Waiting to be Kissed, the seventh ghost story in my collection, Corpse Road Blues, out now from Demain Publishing.

The main character, Swann, savours the sights along Southbank on his way to meet up with his girlfriend. He pauses at each street performer, mingling with the crowd, but what holds his attention is the mysterious living statue that appears to be following him.

In his article, Finding Beauty in Horror: Objective Observation and Personal Taste, writer and artist, Chandler Bullock says that “what makes horror able to be beautiful is the genre’s profound ability to make us feel.” In Wounds are Lips Waiting to be Kissed I was looking for contrast, to look at beauty and horror together, like what I feel Poppy Z. Brite explores in Exquisite Corpse, or Stephen King in his exceptional story, Herman Wouk is Still Alive (in the collection, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Both certainly ‘make us feel’.

Wounds was about capturing the magic of Southbank, while doing a deep dive into one person’s pain. It is both a love story and a body horror, along with a haunting, and remains a tale that is close to my heart.

If you’d like to read the story, you can buy Corpse Road Blues here.

Corpse Road Blues origin stories continued: The Memory of Hannah Babinski

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Welcome back, and if you’re here for the first time, thanks for joining us. The Memory of Hannah Babinski is the sixth story in my collection, Corpse Road Blues from Demain Publishing, and influenced by the coast, kissing gates, and the 2020/21 Lockdown.

I recently did a workshop about Psychogeography and Flow, led by the wonderful Kerry Hadley-Pryce (author of The Black Country) in which she talked about how walking feeds creativity. I often wander through both urban and rural landscapes giving my brain space to digest current projects or find inspiration for new ones. In rural settings, I often come across kissing gates which I find quite charming. As you probaby know, this type of gate doesn’t require a securing latch, and swings back and forth within a framework, gently knocking or ‘kissing’ both sides of the enclosure. And… the awkward navigation of the gate can also provide lovers with an opportunity to kiss.

Like all gates, these weathered, wooden posts are liminal spaces, crossings from one place to another. When The Memory of Hannah Babinski was beginning to form, I considered the consequences of something getting caught in a kissing gate, not a tangible object like a piece of clothing or a limb, but maybe an echo of a kiss, maybe a memory.

The story takes place on a clifftop. The coast has always had a hold over me. I regularly feel the pull of the sea, and often end up riding my motorcycle to greet the waves, or travelling parallel to them throughout the seasons. Standing on the edge of a country, overlooking the vast body of wild and surging water, the howling wind whipping around you, brings with it a sense of wonder and a humbling of the spirit. I hope I’ve captured a little of that in this story.

And Lockdown? That time that means different things to different people: silence, the beauty of it, or its unsettling quality; Nature’s reclamation of the streets; grief, anger; the fear of being trapped at home with a violent partner—a real horror faced by too many people.

If you’d like to read The Memory of Hannah Babinski, you can buy Corpse Road Blues here.

Corpse Road Blues countdown:1, What the Dead Fear

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It’s PUBLICATION DAY!

and the wraiths are loose.

This piece has had a few reincarnations. First it was known as Leave the Living Alone, a humorous tale that boasted a lean two thousand, six hundred words. After a rewrite a further three thousand words were added. Another rewrite slashed two thousand off the word count, and provided it with a new name: Elsie and the Psychopomp. One more rewrite, and another trim, and I had the fourth story now in Corpse Road Blues from Demain Publishing. Please welcome the newly retitled, What the Dead Fear.

The antagonist’s viewpoint has always intrigued me. What makes the monster or the ghost tick? What drives them? Getting into their heads and knowing their story is vital, even if the writer doesn’t utilise that knowledge. What the Dead Fear is all about the ghost’s story, not necessarily the antogonist.

For a long time, I had no plot, only an image of a character: that of the ghost of a young boy, brushing his teeth, toothpaste spilt on his too-tight Marvel pyjamas. Then I started writing of his escapades in the family home. I then pieced together another character using what I knew about my fortune-telling grandmother.

What the Dead Fear did not come easily. Like its characters, it’s a story with a troubled past, a fiction that was sweated and toiled over, hammered and bullied in a wordsmith’s furnace. For that, it remains a dear friend.

If you’d like to read the story, you can buy Corpse Road Blues here.

Corpse Road Blues countdown: 2, King of the Hill

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King of the Hill, the next story in my collection, Corpse Road Blues, is a tale of past lives and things lost and found.

One Spring a few years back, I rode over to West Kennet Long Barrow, which is a ceremonial construction dating back to the Early Neolithic era that had often been used as a tomb. For me, this place has an ancient vibe of magic and reverence that almost hums through the earth, the stones, and the air around the site, providing a deeply calming effect. As it’s not far from where I live, I managed an early morning trip in the hope of avoiding other visitors. It paid off. And I was treated to a good hour sitting on top of the burial chamber overlooking a low-level mist shrouding Wiltshire’s rolling landscape, letting the atmosphere seep into my bones, before taking a peek inside the barrow.

When my internal mystic fuel tank was topped up, I followed the long track back to the road. It was here that I passed a group of around ten to fifteen people, some of whom were dressed in robes, with two black dogs padding along beside them. I raced to the assumption that they were a local coven. Who knows? Did they make it into the story? You’ll have to read King of the Hill to find out.

If you’d like to read the story, please pre-order Corpse Road Blues here.

Corpse Road Blues countdown: 3, Her Saving Grace

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Welcome back! And if you’re new to my origin story posts, thank you for joining us.

Her Saving Grace is for anyone who has a little voice whispering doubts inside their head. You know the one. You’re trying to convince yourself that you have a handle on things, sure, but the quiet mutterings are tiny sharp teeth gnawing at your nerves. They coat that frayed network with acidic spit, and dissolve your self-esteem, your fragile confidence, what little self-worth you have left. The terrible voice is there 24/7, taking everything and giving nothing, not even the briefest respite from its unhurried consumption of you.

Probably like yourself, that voice stays with me. So this story is a little bit of a ‘fuck you’ to anxiety.

For those still out there in the dark, Corpse Road Blues is my short fiction collection, due for release on 28th February from Demain Publishing. The fifteen stories in the book look at what it means to be haunted; what drives an apparition to cling to this earth, to those still living; is there a way to be rid of a tortured soul, and is that what we really wish for?

If you’d like to read Her Saving Grace, you can pre-order Corpse Road Blues here.

Corpse Road Blues – ebook available now

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My first collection of short stories published by the amazing team at Demain Publishing is now available as an e-book. The paperback edition complete with a wraparound cover is due out in April.

Corpse Road Blues features fifteen original and previously published stories that explore what it means to be haunted; fifteen spectres, wraiths and shades lost on the old corpse road; fifteen chances to find peace. It highlights social issues including homelessness, domestic abuse, hate crime, and the rise of Nationalism, philosophical viewpoints such as free thought, while discussing themes of grief and loss.

Take the Corpse Road to find someone’s daughter lost in a puddle; a young artist struggling with their inability to feel pain; a niece resorting to an unusual form of exorcism; and a Christmas tree helping the dead with terrifying results for the living.

The damn creepy cover? Illustration is by the man, Mutartis Boswell, cover design by Adrian Baldwin, kind words courtesy of the wonderful Rosemary Thorne.

It’s time to join the Corpse Road.

Tales From The Graveyard

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(some thoughts on my editorial role for North Bristol Writers)

The third North Bristol Writers anthology, Tales From The Graveyard, had its launch on Saturday 2nd March at the cemetery that inspired many of the featured stories. If you came along, thank you, if not, you missed a couple of relaxed and insightful hours.

Way back during October 2017, we held a storytelling evening, entitled Tales From the Crypt (yeah, I know – we’re working on originality, I promise), in the Anglican chapel at Arnos Vale Cemetery as part of the Bristol Festival of Literature, and from that sold-out evening the anthology was born.

TFTG launch promo

The editorial team was agreed and consisted of myself (Acquisitions Editor), Pete Sutton (Senior and Copy Editor), and Ian Millsted (Assistant Editor, better known as Devil’s Advocate). Though one can argue how much acquisitioning is active in a submission call sent out to members of the NBW group and a few other Bristol writers, at times the use of a third editor in tipping the balance proved vital.

It was never the intention for the anthology to be horror-specific – yes, Pete and I both write in the horror genre, but there aren’t many more in the group who do – so the writers’ brief was kept suitably broad: the story must be set in a graveyard and contain a ‘weird’ element. And while the book contains ghosts, the Gothic, and a splattering of gore, it also has surrealism, pulp, humour, fantasy, and dystopia.

The content and individual word count of the accepted stories ended up so varied, that creating a TOC with enough momentum to keep pages turning filled me with a Lovecraftian dread. However, with a little research and a little more determination, the task turned out to be highly enjoyable. One could even suggest that the stories organised themselves.

The important first slot went to Kevlin Henney’s quick story for its strong opening that provides a philosophical slant which really works for, and certainly does no harm to, a book full of dead people. This bled into a murd’rous stab of fiction penned by the chilling Clare Dornan. The epics (of which there were a few) I spread throughout the book so their length would hopefully go unnoticed. The first of these, Chrissey Harrison’s fantasy action/adventure contrasts perfectly with the preceding stories. Next, two ghostly tales with child protagonists: Jon Charles’s simple tale followed by Louise Gethin’s wandering child which then ties into the gruesome wandering husband in Grace Palmer’s piece. I thought the reader now ready for a change, thus Darkfall by Dev Agarwal submerges all who feast upon it into a truly bleak dystopia. Then up for a gasp of putrid air with Amanda Staples’s creepfest, followed by the two more unusual stories of our anthology courtesy of Ken Shinn and Jay Millington. Placing both centrally highlights the differences between the two, and the rest of the book. They also act as “tentpole” stories (John Joseph Adams, source below*). Of course, what type of graveyard fiction does not contain Gothic? Behold, Chloe Headdon’s contemporary and Scott Lewis’s traditional tale. Both make an appearance in the latter part of the book allowing the reader to experience other aspects before this ubiquitous theme. Shock horror, courtesy of Grimdark queen Maria Herring, felt a natural follower-on from this, partnered with Tanwen Cooper’s seedy tale of rotten humanity. The last stories mirror the two openers, and are intended to leave positive flavours lingering on the reader’s palate; Piotr Świetlik’s humour and multiculturalism (both much needed in the world at present) and Alex Ballinger’s hopefulness. Ballinger’s ‘Messenger’ is philosophical and resonates with Henney’s opening story.

With the publication of the book, we now have a sexy little bunyip of a product that has been presented beautifully by the Typesetter (and writer), Harrison, and all wrapped up in a classic cover designed by Fabrice Mazat. And, of course, my editorship has come to an end. I’d like to thank North Bristol Writers for the opportunity to become part of this terrific book, and the insights into the other side of publishing.

*With thanks to John Joseph Adams and Cat Rambo for their articles on editing.

You can purchase Tales From The Graveyard on Amazon UK

Previous North Bristol Writers anthologies are:

the DH

 

The Dark Half of the Year, AmazonUK  (Both Dornan and Shinn had an honourable mention from Ellen Datlow for their stories in this book.)

 

 

North by South West

 

North by Southwest, AmazonUK