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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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a jaunt in the UK
I’m off to Brighton tomorrow morning to attend the World Horror Convention, which should be fun. I’ll be moderating a panel on Saturday at noon, in the Russell Room, called Femme Fatales: How Can We Get More Women in Horror?, where I’ll be in the distinguished company of Ellen Datlow, Tanith Lee, Allyson Bird, Sarah Pinbourgh and Suzanne McLeod. I suspect there might be some interest in this panel. Rob Curley, my co-conspirator on RóisÃn Dubh, received copies of our preview issue today. Alas, it’s too late for my early flight tomorrow, however he’s posting copies to me, so I should have them before the weekend, and in plenty of…
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graphic preview
I’ve established a web site for the RóisÃn Dubh graphic novel I’m working on. I’ve been blogging intermittently about the project for the past couple of months. There’s also a twitter feed and a Facebook fan page, if you like either of those media. Artist Stephen Daly has been working flat-out, lettering and making tweaks to the final cover of our ten-page preview issue. It went to the printers on Tuesday, and I’ll be taking copies of it with me next week to World Horror Convention and then on to Odyssey 2010, so those of you attending the events should be able to get a sneak-peek I’m looking forward to…
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give us your fear
Chris and I are already receiving submissions for the Campaign for Real Fear, so keep them coming! We say: “Give us your terror, your fear, Your horrid tales yearning to alarm, The wretched stories of your teeming brain. Send these, the disturbed, nightmare-tossed to us, We lift our laptops to behold their forms!” With homage to Emma Lazarus and The New Colossus. Also, it pleases me no end that the Australian Horror Writers Association has announced its finalists for the 2009 Shadows Awards and three out of the five entries in the Long Fiction Award are women. There are also three women out of five in the short fiction category,…
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Campaign for Real Fear
Christopher Fowler and I have launched the Campaign for Real Fear: a horror short story competition. Send us your best 500-word story that explores horror in the 21st century. We want diversity of characters and themes, and beginner or pro can enter. The top ten stories will be published in Black Static, and podcast by Action Audio. The deadline for entry is 5pm GMT, on Friday the 16th of April. If you want change, you better write it. Information on how to enter is available on the Campaign for Real Fear web site.
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a terrible treasure
I decided to pick a work to feature in a “Horror’s Hidden Treasures” section of my own since SFX failed so spectacularly to ask women to promote an under-rated horror gem. I’d encourage other women to do the same. There’s no pressure to pick a woman’s work, but I’m doing so because this writer hugely impressed me with her work. Since the debacle last year about the lack of representation of women in horror I’ve been paying more attention to the subject. Even I was under-educated in the variety of women working in the field, but I’m hardly immune to a system that promotes men’s fiction and accidentally forgets to…
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podcasts and plans
The podcast of my story, “The Tamga” is now available as issue 178 on Pseudopod, read by the talented Cheyenne Wright. It’s always a thrill to have my work podcast, because it gets it out to such a wide audience. Plus, the Pseudopod team produce excellent recordings. Cheyenne does a great job with the story. He’s not only a talented voice actor, he’s also the colourist for the fabulous web comic Girl Genius, which is one of my personal favourites. My own graphic novel project, Róisín Dubh, is proceeding well. Last week I had a meeting in Dublin with Rob Curley of Atomic Diner and Sub City fame, as well…
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news for the new year
I’ve some news I’ve been sitting on for no good reason, other than my motivation for blogging suffered a sap across the forehead late last year. In December I sold the audio right to my story “The Tamga” to Pseudopod. I’m delighted I’ll soon have another story up among their fine catalogue of spoken works. “The Tamga” was originally published in issue 6 of Shroud Magazine. My story, “The Secret Names of Buildings” is now available in M-Brane SF, issue 12, which is guest edited by Rick Novy. It’s another of my Clarion West stories, and this was written for week 6, when the brilliant sf writer Vernor Vinge was…
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BFS apologises for forgetting women
It’s worth mentioning that Guy Adams, Chair and Special Publications Editor for the British Fantasy Society (BFS), has issued an unreserved apology over omitting women from its latest collection. I’m sure he will not chastise me for replicating it in full here: Our new book, In Conversation: A Writer’s Perspective, Volume 1: Horror, edited by James Cooper, has come under justifiable flak for its all-male line up of interviewees. When James brought the manuscript to me with a view to our publishing it I know he intended no sexism in his selection of the authors but I feel deeply sorry that I didn’t flag the omission at the time. It…
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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,…
