So, I'm very pleased to say that a story of mine called
Calligraphy is out now in a new anthology from
Omnium Gatherum Books. The book is called
Little Visible Delight, a phrase taken from one of my favourite dark 'classics'
Wuthering Heights. It's an anthology based on the theme of the obsessions of writers and
Calligraphy itself is an odd story (even by my standards) that I'm very proud of. I hope people like it.
I was also particularly chuffed to be asked by SP Miskowski to contribute - regular readers will know how much I rate her work, especially this year's amazing Astoria, so to have a story of mine feature alongside hers is absolutely fantastic. There's a ton of other great authors in it as well.
Little Visible Delight -
ebook (
UK |
US) and paperback (
UK |
US).
Often the most powerful and moving stories are generated by writers who return time and again to a particular idea, theme, or image. Obsession in a writer's imagination can lead to accomplishment or to self-destruction. Consider Poe and his pale, dead bride; his fascination with confinement and mortality; his illness and premature death. Or Flannery O'Connor's far less soul-crushing fondness for peacocks. Some writers pay a high price for their obsessions, while others maintain a crucial distance. Whichever the case, obsessions can produce compelling fiction.
Little Visible Delight is an anthology of original stories in which eleven authors of dark fiction explore some their most intimate, writerly obsessions.
The Receiver of Tales by Lynda E. Rucker
Needs Must When the Devil Drives by Cory J. Herndon
A Thousand Stitches by Kate Jonez
The Point by Johnny Worthen
Calligraphy by James Everington
This Many by S.P. Miskowski
JP by Brent Michael Kelley
Kestrel by Mary Borsellino
An Unattributed Lyric, In Blood, On a Bathroom Wall by Ennis Drake
Black Eyes Broken by Mercedes M. Yardley
Bears: A Fairy Tale of 1958 by Steve Duffy
Obviously, the main event in terms of my own writing was the publication of Falling Over - a move away from self-publishing, Falling Over was released by the stupendous Infinity Plus. The reasons I wanted to try and get this book published by someone else were as much psychological as practical or monetary: for a long period of my adult life, although I was writing I did very little in regards to trying to get published, and the reason was simply I was scared to. I was afraid to find out what reaction my stories would get. And I don't think it can be good for you, psychologically, to have not done something in your life that you want to because of fear. So in 2013 I did it. (Thanks to Iain Rowan who gave me a valuable shove when I was dithering.) And I'm exceptionally pleased with how it turned out: the artwork by Keith Brooke is great (lots of people have told me how much they like it) and the reviews from readers and sites such as Amazing Stories, Dark Musings, and Horrifically Horrifying Horror have been uniformly positive. And just being published by a publisher like Infinity Plus seems to have got me some attention and invites to write stories for people, which is all to the good. So I was stupid to be scared after all (mind you, that fear wasn't 100% misplaced: I'm very glad some of my earliest stories have never seen the light of day!)
Gary Fry’s new novella from Darkfuse is called Lurker and it’s a typically twisted and multi-faceted tale. It has a simple horror story set up: after a family tragedy, Meg and her husband move to the Yorkshire coast (obviously they’d never read Fry’s The Respectable Face of Tyranny else they would have known this was a bad idea). At a loose end whilst her husband travels back to the city for his job, Meg explores the local landscape and history, particularly that concerning an abandoned mine. She reads stories in the paper about a tourist who has gone missing, and another tourist turns up claiming to be lost one night at Meg's home. And then there’s the hand-prints all over the white wall of her cottage of a morning, and the disturbing dreams, and...
