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Horror wants women to scream, but not talk
This weekend the British Fantasy Society (BFS) is hosting its annual convention, Fantasy Con. Last night while on Facebook I noticed a news item, which constitutes an electronic “flyer”, about the convention. I immediately noticed the cover of a new book the BFS is launching at the convention: a collection of interviews with writers (the first in a trilogy) in which they discuss their genre. It’s called In Conversation: A Writer’s Perspective. Volume One: Horror. It’s edited by James Cooper, and is composed of 16 interviews with horror authors Ramsey Campbell, Tom Piccirilli, Greg F. Gifune, Conrad Williams, Joe R. Lansdale, Gary McMahon, Brian Keene, Stephen Gallagher, Jeffrey Thomas, Peter…
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blogging screenwriters
I’ve been busy lately working on a new project. This coming November the first World Conference of Screenwriters will be taking place in Athens, Greece. I’m running the official blog for the event on behalf of the Federation of Screenwriters Europe, who are co-organising the event with the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds. I’ll also be liveblogging from the conference. It’s already been a fun challenge, and I’m looking forward to travelling to Athens, a city I’ve never visited before. Although, I suspect I’ll be too busy working at the conference to sample many of the city’s phenomenal historic attractions. I would love to see the new Acropolis Museum, however.…
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a weekend of horrors
I’m back from my trip to London for the horror film festival FrightFest, and I had a lovely time. The weather was great, mostly, and I avoided the occasional showers. When I wasn’t watching movies, I strolled around Soho in the sun, bought a bowler hat, and met up with mates who’ve moved to the city. This year I tried a new strategy in relation to the festival: don’t watch everything. There have been FrighFests in the past where I have attended every single screening over the five days. It’s not recommended, and impossible now since there are two streams of programming. This year I skipped all the late films,…
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words on foot
I’ve been reading Nietzsche today. As thinkers go he’s clear and reasoned. In fact, he’s a little too perceptive for those who like their self-delusions, so sometimes his surgical excision of unpleasant human motivations can make for glum reading. He’s a bit of a grump at times too, especially when it comes to young people. In Human, All too Human he has an entire section called “From the Soul of Artists and Authors”, which had me laughing, nodding, and sometimes grimacing. He has high standards: Speak not of gifts, or innate talents! One can name all kinds of great men who were not very gifted. But they acquired greatness, became…
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try out a diet
Issue three of the electronic magazine Arkham Tales has been published, and it contains my short story “The Diet” – a tale in the Lovecraftian tradition. It’s available for download in two formats: .pdf for web viewing or .pdf for printing. I enjoyed writing “The Diet”, partly because I love this type of horror story, and because its characters are Irish, and it’s set in Dublin. I set stories all over the world (or invent worlds for them), but I’ve noticed that my stories which are most influenced by the work of Lovecraft are often set in Ireland. I’ve another two stories in this style, both located in this country,…
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d day
On this day in 1897 a book called Dracula was published for the first time. In a strange bout of synchronicity my screenwriting group is looking at three screen adaptations of Dracula: Dracula (1931), the BBC mini-series Count Dracula (1977), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). Afterwards, we’re going to a screening of the marvellous Swedish vampire film, Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In – 2008). I’d been tipped off about the 1970s BBC version while doing research for the public interview with Kim Newman last month. Everyone who’d seen it heaped the adaptation with high praise, so I was interested in watching it. The series was…
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happy and sad: a Paradox
First the good news: issue 13 of Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction is now available. It contains my short story “Beautiful Calamity”. There’s a snippet on the magazine’s web site from the beginning of the story if you want to get a feel for it. I can’t wait to receive my contributor copies (which are navigating the postal system to me), so I can read the story in print. I’m proud of this one. The sad news, however, is that issue thirteen will be the last edition of the print incarnation of the magazine. Editor Chris Cevasco says that there are plans for future book anthologies through…
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get some direction, quick
Before I inflict my weekly tiny piece of prose upon the web I’ll mention a couple of items that might be of interest to some of my readers. First off while perusing the films appearing in the forthcoming Spanish and Latin American Film Season at the IFI in Dublin I noticed that on Monday May 11th it’s showing a Mexican science fiction film called Sleep Dealer. We don’t often get opportunities to see sf films from other countries in Ireland, and it looks like it will be at least entertaining. Also, I’ve posted an entry over on the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild’s Blog about a new screenwriting conference, called…
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"walk on air against your better judgement"
Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet, author and playwright Seamus Heaney has been awarded the £40,000 David Cohen Prize for Literature. Every two years the David Cohen Prize is bestowed upon a writer, novelist, short-story writer, poet, essayist or dramatist in recognition of an entire body of work, written in the English language. Previous winners include Derek Mahon, Harold Pinter, Doris Lessing, and V.S. Naipaul. By strange coincidence I happened to read Heaney’s new poem called “In the Attic” a couple of days ago. It was published in The New Yorker last month. Because Heaney has enjoyed a long and successful career as a poet, and many of us studied him in…
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spirits lifted
A couple of days ago I heard from Tim Deal, the editor of Shroud Magazine, that he’s buying my short story “The Tamga” for issue number six. It will be the first edition of Shroud to be distributed throughout the USA via the Barnes and Noble bookstores. I’m delighted to sell another story to Shroud, and to find a welcoming home for “The Tamga”, a story for which I have tremendous affection.
