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The Twelve Days of Dismemberment

For those of you who like your Christmas a little more macabre than most, here’s a little something to keep you in the horror spirit over the festive season:-

The Twelve Days of Dismemberment

On the first day of Christmas, my true love’s stalker sent by mail …
A ransom note written in blood.

(Not being rich or serious folks,
We paid it no heed and thought it a hoax.)

On the twelfth day of Christmas, he sent her back to me…
Twelve clumps of hair,
Eleven yards of skin (freshly flayed)
Ten sautéed toes,
Nine gnawed at fingers,
Eight extracted molars,
Seven threads of sinew,
Six pints of blood,
One finger through a wedding ring,
Four hacked off limbs,
Three bones with no marrow,
Two jellied eyes,
And her severed head in a box.

Cursed Contents

Haunt Jaunts have now released the Table of Contents for their upcoming Shadow People & Cursed Objects anthology, which you can find below. After a couple of reschedulings, the book is currently due out on 1st February next year, and you can find all the latest updates on the project over at the relevant page on the Haunt Jaunts website, here.

  1. Alice J. Black – “The Busby Chair”
  2. Carl Barker – “Murder for Dummies”
  3. Ken Teutsch – “The Storm on Promised Land Road”
  4. S. Mickey Lin – “Lady Winter’s Mirror”
  5. Sean Ealy – “Fatty and the Nothing Man”
  6. Keith Karabin – “The South Will Rise Again”
  7. Bary Charman – “The Black Flowers”
  8. Evan Dicken – “Doomsday, Every Night at Five”
  9. Emerian Rich – “Bye, Bye, Blackbird”
  10. C. Le Mroch – “The Gypsy’s Curse”
  11. C. Le Mroch – “Comeuppance”
  12. C. Le Mroch – “Pedro”
  13. C. Le Mroch – “The Mannequin in the Middle of the Road”
New Haunts

Just heard that my story “Murder For Dummies‘ has been accepted for inclusion in the upcoming inaugural anthology from the Haunt Jaunts travel website, due out at the beginning of February 2016.

For those interested in visiting haunted buildings and locations, Haunt Jaunts functions as a dark travel guide of sorts, providing information and guides to a variety of paranormal hot spots around the globe, as well as collecting first hand accounts from those in the know.

The anthology collects together 13 terrifying tales centred around ghosts and haunted objects, which may or may not be based on true stories.

A preview of the cover is available on the Publications tab above, and I’ll update here with more details once I have them as to where and when the book can be ‘possessed’.

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In the running

 

Great to see that The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic 2 has been shortlisted in the Best Anthology category for this year’s British Fantasy Awards.BFS_Logo_red_gradient-128x300

The full details of all nominees can be found here, and winners will be announced during the Awards Ceremony which takes place on Sunday 25th October, at this year’s FantasyCon in Nottingham.

Not sure yet if I’m going to be able to attend this year’s event yet, as some substantial day job orientated changes have taken rather more of a toll on my free time than I’d expected. Hope springs eternal though, so you never know.

Good luck to Peter, Jan and everybody at Alchemy come October, and thanks again for the opportunity to contribute to Urban Mythic 2 (which if you haven’t already gone out and bought [shame!] is still available from all the usual stockists, and well worth your time and your money.

 

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Demi Double

My recent reviews of the last two books in Rod Rees’ Demi-Monde saga are now available over at the British Fantasy Society website. Links can be found here and here, as well as in the BFS tab above as usual.

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Terror set loose and TOC

As of yesterday, Terror Tales of The Scottish Highlands has been set loose upon an unsuspecting public, so I thought I’d share the table of contents for Terror Talesanyone wishing to know who the contributors are to this latest volume in the series:-

Skye’s Skary Places – Ian Hunter

Phantoms in the Mist

The Dove – Helen Grant

Prey of the Fin-Folk

Strone House – Barbara Roden

The Well of Heads

Face Down In The Earth – Tom Johnstone

The Vanishing

The Dreaming God Is Singing Where She Lies – William Meikle

The Curse of Scotlan

The Housekeeper – Rosie Seymour

From Out The Hollow Hills

The Executioner – Peter Bell

Saurians of the Deep

You Must Be Cold – John Whitbourn

Glamis Castle

The Fellow Travellers Sheila Hodgson

Daemonologie

Shelleycoat – Graeme Hurry

Evil Monsters

The Other House, The Other Voice – Craig Herbertson

The Mull Plane Mystery

Myself/Thyself – DP Watt

The Bauchan

Broken Spectres – Carl Barker

The Big Grey Man

Jack Knife – Gary Fry

Tristicloke the Wolf

The Foul Mass At Tongue House – Johnny Mains

The Drummer of Cortachy

A taste for Terror

It’s been a bit quiet on the old writing front of late, what with some sizeable changes going on in various aspects of my life. But now that I’m finally finding some time to get back into the swing of things, I’m very pleased to finally be able to announce that my story “Broken Spectres” will be appearing shortly in the Terror Tales of The Scottish Highlands anthology, edited by Paul Finch and published by Gray Friar Press later this month.

I’m a big fan of this series of location themed horror anthologies and was overjoyed to be invited by Paul to contribute to this latest release.

The Scottish Highlands are a spooky place at the best of times, offering a veritable smorgasbord of eerie locations from which to draw inspiration, and I had huge fun on this one from the first page to the last.

The anthology is out in a few weeks time and I’ll add details of where you can get hold of a copy once I know more. Until then, here’s a sneak peak at the cover art and some of the writers involved.

Terror tales of the Scottish Highlands - final full cover

UPDATE (2015/06/15): The anthology is now available for preordering @ Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk or directly from the publisher @ Gray Friar Press.  Pricing and links also added to the Publications tab above.

A Wolf in Sheafed Clothing

itsagrimmlife_cover1smOut this month is Tacitus Publishing‘s inaugural anthology “It’s A Grimm Life”, which includes my story “Who’s Afraid?”.

As you may be able to guess from the title, the anthology collects together various modern reworkings of classical fairy tales, each one based on a Grimm tale and each embracing the darker side of humanity and the world that we know to exist in the shadows, just out of sight.

So if you’re in the mood for a bedtime story, why not huff and puff your way over to Amazon, where you can purchase the paperback or download a copy of the anthology right now. Full details can be found on the Publications tab above as usual.

Amazon.com: Paperback / Kindle

Amazon.co.uk: Paperback / Kindle

Goodnight children, everywhere.

Starting the New Year at a canter

After a somewhat sparse publication schedule last year, it appears that 2015 is already shaping up to be a tad busier, with not one but three imminent publications on the horizon:-

First up, my dark fairy tale piece, ‘Who’s Afraid‘, will be appearing in Tacitus Publishing‘s inaugural ‘It’s A Grimm Life‘ anthology, currently due for arrival at the beginning of March.  Previously known primarily for their gaming support products and resources, this is Tacitus’ first foray into the world of anthologies via their Guilds network, so it’s great to be involved with them on this first project.

In addition to this, I’ll also be one of the contributing authors to a fairly high profile UK-based anthology, due out around roughly the same time. Other than the title of the story, I can’t tell you anything much about the project right now as I’m currently sworn to secrecy, but suffice to say, I’m a long-time fan of this series and am hugely excited to have been invited to contribute. I’ll announce more details as soon as I’m able, but for now you’ll just have to wait.

Finally, after the completion of their merger with Ragnarok Publications last year, Angelic Knight Press‘ publishing schedule will be recommencing with a glut of titles, including their long-delayed No Place Like Home anthology, which features my near-future piece ‘Lemming Revolution‘. Although a relatively new outfit, Ragnarok are definitely a small press to watch, and I predict great things from this newly-formed partnership in the months to come. To find out more about both companies, you can head over to Ragnarok’s Imprint page and check out the press announcement in full.

So that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. 2015 is categorically up and running, so check back for further updates soon and I’ll see you around.