Tag: short story

Origin Stories continued: 13/15, A Safe Place

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Back in 2007, twenty-year-old Sophie Lancaster and her boyfriend were brutally beaten on the streets of Britain. Sophie later died of her injuries. They were attacked for being different, for being part of a subculture. After this tragedy, her mother started the Sophie Lancaster Foundation to “combat prejudice and intolerance” and has been fighting tirelessly against hate crime. They do a lot of excellent work in schools and the community. I think about Sophie and the Foundation a lot, especially as I still consider myself part of that subculture, and as a teenager experienced some of that hatred.

Police Recorded Hate Crime figures have increased by over 100,000 in the decade between 2013 and 2023 (source link). Whether it’s for being a member of a subculture, like Sophie, being a member of the LGBTQ+ community, or being a different race or religion, victims of hate crime are everywhere. We have a problem. Be kind. Educate yourself.

A Safe Place is a reaction.

To know more visit Stop Hate UK, the LGBT Foundation, The Sophie Lancaster Foundation.

Origin Stories continued: 12/15, The Body in Deer Leap Woods

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Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but my collection Corpse Road Blues is out now 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, and those still living; and the ways to be rid of a tortured soul if that’s what we truly desire. Thanks for sticking with me.

If we had another shot at life, would we grab it? Is it possible for our consciousness to live on after death? If we have souls, would they mourn their expired bodies? We’re nearly at the last three stories, but first we have The Body in Deer Leap Woods. A truly scary tale – I hope – waiting to be unearthed.

Whilst researching another project online, I spotted pictures of a curious and evocative statue entitled The Shout, that’s housed in Margam Country Park. The artist is Glynn Williams, and the statue depicts a mother holding her child.

The statue had such an impact on me that it inspired The Body in Deer Leap Woods. The story concentrates on the emotion that the statue captures, rather than the scenario. In Deer Leap Woods, a soul (or a consciousness) has replaced the mother figure; its empty body the child that the mother holds.

At the same time as the story was brewing in my head, I’d been taking regular walks near my home in a patch of ancient woodland known as Vallis Vale. On one of those trips, I spied a clearing through the mossy branches, and in my mind, clear as day, the statue sat there among the fungi and ferns. The soul had chosen the setting—who was I to argue?

If you’d like to read the story, and the others that I’ve talked about, it’s here.

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: 8/15 We Are Gathered

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The next story in Corpse Road Blues, my short fiction collection from Demain Publishing that explores what it means to be haunted, is We Are Gathered. It was originally written for the North Bristol Writers’ story-telling evening held at the Anglican chapel at Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol. The story is centred around a wedding, where the narrator guides the reader through the events of that day.

One thing that’s on my wish list – probably on the wish list of every horror writer – is to come up with a story that, not only stays with the reader long after reading, but gives them chills whenever they think about it. This was the inspiration behind We Are Gathered. And for me, ghostly tales have the very real potential to do this, much more so I think than tropes like vampires and werewolves. We’re superstitious as a species, a lot of us wish to believe – or we hope that – there is something else after death, and ghosts deliver that evidence.

The piece was devised during a trip my partner and I took to Arnos Vale – a sort of reconnaissance mission – to check out the vibe of the place. As we sat amongst the headstones and crypts spying on the chapel and the other visitors, We Are Gathered crept from the shadows into life.

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

© B Anne Adriaens

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.