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Splinister on Substack
I have migrated my old newsletter to Substack, and you can sign up there to hear from me directly.
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Hello!
Welcome to the web site for Maura McHugh - an author of science fiction, horror and fantasy fiction living in the West of Ireland.
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Jennifer Wilde Game Out
At last! The point-and-click Jennifer Wilde video game from Outsider Games is out on Steam.
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Womanthology
I’m sure many of you reading this blog have heard about the Womanthology project: it’s the brainchild of artist Renae De Liz, and is an all-woman anthology comic book that will be published by IDW Publishing this December, with all proceeds going to the charity, Global Giving Foundation. You can read a long interview at Bleeding Cool with Renae about the project and its evolution. With the aim of raising $25,000 Renae set up a Kickstarter campaign for the project, and by the end of the first day that goal had been achieved. Now, with just five days to go until the campaign ends, the amount of money pledged stands…
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not at Bristol, alas
This weekend the Bristol International Comic & Small Press Expo is taking place and I can’t attend, alas. Luckily, my compatriots in crime, Rob Curley and Stephen Daly, will be at Bristol, giving away preview issues of RóisÃn Dubh. Drop by the Atomic Diner stand, say hello to them and claim your copy! As long as the Icelandic Ash Miasma doesn’t change direction of course. It’s like a fickle supervillian who specialises in ruining holidays. “Ha! You are grounded! Fear my engine-clogging abilities! Cry over your unsigned collectible art!” I’m inundated with work at the moment, and tomorrow I have to attend the AGM of the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters…
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year’s best
Horror editor Paula Guran has announced the Table of Contents for the Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2010, which is being published by Prime Books in October. I’m delighted to confirm that my short story “Vic” has been selected for the anthology. “Vic” was first published in Black Static, issue 10, so a big thank you to editor Andy Cox for taking a chance with the story. It’s a thrill to see my story listed in the company of so many writers whose work I admire. The anthology will be 500+ pages featuring 38 stories (about 250,000 words) so there will be plenty to read. Quite appropriately the volume…
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ghost runner up
CZP has announced the winner of its Cities of Night photograph contest: the evocative “Dark Passenger” by Ania Bibulowicz. The image was shot in Queens, New York City. My photo “Soho Ghost” was selected as one of the three runners-up, so I’ll still get a trade paperback of the book. Plus, author Philip Nutman liked all the images so much he wrote a a piece of flash fiction for each of the top ten entries.
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Irish Free Comic Book Day 2010
This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day in Ireland. Free Comic Book Day started in the USA in 2002, and as the name implies, is a day when participating retailers hand out copies of comic books to their customers for free. Here is the list of shops involved in Irish Free Comic Book Day: Easons book shop in Heuston Station Forbidden Planet in both Dublin and Belfast Other Realms in Cork Sub-City Comics in both Dublin and Galway The Winding Stair in Dublin There will be five titles available: In Dublin City – preview Formation 7 – preview Freak Show, issue #1 – full copy RóisÃn Dubh – preview Vampire…
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Soho Ghost finalist
I can now mention that my photograph, entitled “Soho Ghost”, is a top ten finalist in the Cities of Night contest, being run by ChiZine Publications. The contest was created to celebrate the release of Philip Nutman’s short story collection Cities of Night, and the brief was to supply a subtle, creepy, evocative photo of a city at night. Since May 6 CZP began announcing the finalists, one per day, and my photo “Soho Ghost” went up last night. The overall winner will be announced on May 15, Cities of Night‘s official launch date. The winner receives: A free, signed, limited edition hardcover copy of Cities of Night Twenty-five postcards…
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long live the new flesh
A year and a half ago I started a project to migrate my blog onto WordPress. This past week I got a tiny gap between projects that allowed me to turn my attention back to it, and the results are now live. I didn’t have much time to dedicate to the re-design, but I’m pleased with the results. As usual I owe a debt of gratitude to my husband Martin, who tackled the the most difficult job: the importing of six years of posts and comments from my old content management system, Bblog. He also added a couple of tweaks that will be entirely uninteresting to most people, but are…