CATE GARDNER

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: The Thirsty Man

2012-01-25T16:55:00.000Z

For the next stop on my blog tour we head over to Gef Fox's blog with a cautionary tale: The Travelling Theatrical Tour: The Thirsty Man. Please ensure you are fully hydrated before clicking the link.

As well as allowing me to invade his blog, Gef kindly reviewed Theatre back in November. Gef's blog is not just a wonderful resource for book reviews, you'll also find movie reviews and movie marathons. You should bookmark it.

Other stops on the blog tour:

Diary of a Horsewoman at Mark West's blog
Things That Will Never be Again at Anthony Rapino's blog
Dreaming the Impossible at Aaron Polson's blog
Interview by Mary Rajotte
From a Single Thing at Jim McLeod's blog
That November Spell at Ray Cluley's blog
Interview by Simon Kewin
Twitter Rules at Bloody Bookish
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Diary of a Horsewoman

2012-01-24T07:37:00.000Z

We're entering the last days of the blog tour (who yelled, 'Thank God' at the back?), and today I'm sneaking over to Mark West's blog Strange Tales with 'The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Diary of a Horsewoman' which pretty much does what it says on the tin.

I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing one of Mark's stories last year in a collection titled 'Ill at Ease' - how awesome is that cover? And I really need to check out his latest story 'The Mill' which is getting rave reviews.

Also, when I'm feeling less lazy, I'm determined to check out my old collection of small press magazines from the 1990s and see if we shared any TOCs.

Other stops on the blog tour:

Things That Will Never be Again at Anthony Rapino's blog
Dreaming the Impossible at Aaron Polson's blog
Interview by Mary Rajotte
From a Single Thing at Jim McLeod's blog
That November Spell at Ray Cluley's blog
Interview by Simon Kewin
Twitter Rules at Bloody Bookish
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

Shaking the Six Demon Bag

2012-01-21T10:13:00.001Z

The amazing Josh Reynolds invited me over to his blog for a wee interview. You can read it here...if you are so inclined.

Josh's book 'Knight of the Blazing Sun' is released by Warhammer this March, and you can read an extract over at The Black Library website.

It's been a week of interviews, with others over at This is Horror and Bloody Bookish. The blog tour continues this week with posts at Gef Fox, Mark West, Simon Bestwick and Chris Gerrib's place. Guest blogs will be on the way to you wonderful folk this weekend.

Today, after the dreaded supermarket visit, I shall edit a short story and then get back to the novel. Of course, that's if I ever get dressed.

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Things That Never Will Be Again

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000Z

And so the blog tour continues and this time I'm visiting Tony Rapino's blog with a post titled, The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Things That Never Will Be Again, in which I talk about all the madcap things that once inhabited my novella, Theatre of Curious Acts. If you've ever participated in NaNoWriMo you'll understand how madness can creep into a first draft (and possibly stay around longer than it should).

Tony's first novel 'Soundtrack to the End of the World' is released this year by Bad Moon Books. Really can't wait to read it. I mean, seriously, seriously, looking forward to it. In the meantime, Tony is releasing a collection of short fiction titled 'Welcome to Moon Hill'.

And today, there is also an interview with me by Michael Wilson over at the wonderful This is Horror site.

Other stops on the blog tour:

Dreaming the Impossible at Aaron Polson's blog
Interview by Mary Rajotte
From a Single Thing at Jim McLeod's blog
That November Spell at Ray Cluley's blog
Interview by Simon Kewin
Twitter Rules at Bloody Bookish
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

WIP Wednesday - Starlings, Kidnap and Libraries

2012-01-18T18:16:00.000Z

After a year of thinking about the book, a handful of weeks working on a plan, and several minutes staring at the blank screen, I've finally started work on my next book, provisionally titled 'Cobweb Strings of The Rotting House'. I say provisionally titled because as much as I love it and am sure it would make a kick-ass short story title, I'm not certain it's memorable enough for a novel. I wonder about this after...

...hearing a couple of people in real life trying to remember the name of my novella, Theatre of Curious Acts. Maybe I need something shorter next time. More direct. Something you can't forget. Or perhaps they just never remember anything. I appreciate that last sentence.

I've left my WIP with HausStarlings fluttering about my Pearl and Miranda, and one of them is about to be stolen and forced onto the stage. I do wish the floorboards would stop creaking but I guess we'll save that problem for the next draft.

And in awesome news, a library in Columbus, Indiana has a copy of Theatre of Curious Acts. As a kid, I loved going to the library and never could have imagined I'd have an actual book in one. It would be bloody fantastic if my local library had a copy on their shelves, of course it would also be bloody fantastic if it still had shelves and a viable roof. The place is home to weeds and rats now. Boo! Hiss!

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: On Dreaming the Impossible

2012-01-17T13:40:00.000Z

Today's stop on the blog tour is Aaron Polson's blog where I talk about aiming for the seemingly impossible and never giving up despite the odds. One of Aaron's latest publications is 'This House was Never a Castle' which appears in Shimmer magazine - a hard won and much deserved achievement. The post is titled "The Travelling Theatrical tour: On Dreaming the Impossible."

I've known Aaron for a few years now and I'm a huge fan of his work. In fact, once upon a time I started the Aaron Polson Fan Club (you will find the proof on the bottom right of this blog). I'm still the president and I'm sure Natalie Sin is the treasurer. I don't think we have any funds though, or cool things like badges or bookmarks. He should sack us. Aaron has a ton of books available to buy at Amazon (and possibly other fine retailers) - my favourite is The House Eaters.

Thanks again to Aaron for allowing me to invade his blog.

Other stops on the blog tour:

Interview by Mary Rajotte
From a Single Thing at Jim McLeod's blog
That November Spell at Ray Cluley's blog
Interview by Simon Kewin
Twitter Rules at Bloody Bookish
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

A Bloody Bookish Interview

2012-01-16T18:29:00.000Z

Over at Bloody Bookish there's an interview with me conducted by Mary Rajotte. We talk about British horror, titles and Swan Ecklund (the cad!). I hope you'll check it out, Mary asked some wonderful questions. We even play a little violin.

The blog tour continues tomorrow, when I'll be heading over to Aaron Polson's gaff, and then on Friday I journey on over to Tony Rapino's blog. I've never travelled so much in all my life.

And don't forget, there's also a competition over at Bloody Bookish, where you could win a copy of Theatre of Curious Acts.

A Season in Carcosa

2012-01-15T15:49:00.001Z

First story acceptance of the year.

"Yellow Bird Strings" will appear in Joseph S. Pulver's A Season in Carcosa an anthology of The King in Yellow tales to be published by Miskatonic River Press this summer.

Other folk in the anthology include Gary McMahon, Simon Strantzas, Michael Kelly, Ally Bird, Joel Lane, Joe Pulver, Richard Gavin, Don Webb and many others.

And of course, the stunning cover art is by Danielle Serra.

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: From a Single Thing

2012-01-13T07:59:00.000Z

Day six of the blog tour journeys to Jim McLeod's Ginger Nuts of Horror blog where I talk about prompt words and how we all interpret the world in different ways, thus making our fiction unique (we hope). The post is here: The Travelling Theatrical Tour: From a Single Thing.

Jim's blog is an excellent resource full of author interviews, horror news and reviews. He kindly interviewed me back in November in which he persuaded me to talk about rats, pirate ships, and my first published short story.

And Jim doesn't just interview (and review and share horror news), he allows folk to also probe him. Here's an interview with Jim by various horror writers. And, I believe this interview with Jasper Bark is one of Jim's favourites.

Other stops on the tour:
That November Spell at Ray Cluley's blog
Interview by Simon Kewin
Twitter Rules at Bloody Bookish
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

And in some *breaking news* (which is a cheat as the news broke yesterday and it's possibly not news news, but I thought it was superb): Peter Tennant of Black Static magazine has chosen Barbed Wire Hearts as the best novella of 2011. Theatre gets a mention too.

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: That November Spell

2012-01-11T10:18:00.000Z

Day five of the blog tour finds us at Ray Cluley's blog, Probably Monsters with a post titled 'The Travelling Theatrical Tour: That November Spell' in which I talk about the genesis of my book, Theatre of Curious Acts. I hope you'll check it out.

Ray is a fantastic and fantastical writer whose stories regularly grace the pages of Interzone and Black Static. His story Fata Morgana (bloody awesome title) is in the current issue. The first story of Ray's that I read was Beachcoming (Black Static 19), a gorgeous tale of loss in which a boy feels other people's emotions through the things they leave behind at the beach.

He has also stories forthcoming in Darker Minds and Shadows & Tall Trees. And I suspect in many more issues of Black Static and Interzone. Definitely someone to watch.

Other stops on the tour:
Interview by Simon Kewin
Twitter Rules at Bloody Bookish
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Interview with Simon Kewin

2012-01-10T08:20:00.001Z

The Travelling Theatrical Tour continues over at Simon Kewin's blog where Simon kindly offered to interview me. Thanks, Simon.

Simon is one of the inspirational geniuses behind Write 1 Sub 1 where the ambitious sign up to write and sub a story a week (or a month). I watch them from afar. Simon's stories have appeared in Kaleidotrope, Daily Science Fiction, Brain Harvest and many more places. His latest short story 'Her Long Hair Shining' is available to read online at Abyss & Apex. A collection of his short stories, Spell Circles, is available from Amazon.

Other stops on the tour:
Twitter Rules at Bloody Bookish
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Twitter Rules

2012-01-09T13:22:00.000Z

Day three of the blog tour takes us to Bloody Bookish run by Social Media Queen™, Mary Rajotte. Considering Mary's trademark, today's post is the apt "The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Twitter Rules", in which I waffle on about what Twitter means to me, some rules for twittering (that I follow, not that you have to follow) and confess to maybe being addicted to tweeting. Most of you will have already guessed the latter.

Although a relatively new site, Bloody Bookish has already devoured and reviewed books by Ian Rogers, Lee Thompson, Barry Napier and Simon Strantzas. It's definitely the place to watch. Its founder, Mary Rajotte's stories have appeared in Shroud and Northern Haunts (we shared a TOC in the latter).

Other stops on the blog tour:
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

Charles, Me and Books

2012-01-07T18:40:00.001Z

I've spent part of this week answering interview questions (many thanks to the interviewers) and one of the questions was 'what inspired/who influenced your writing'. I had a whole list of things and people who I thought probably influenced me, but until today, I'd forgotten Charles Addams. Luckily, thanks to Google celebrating his birthday, I remembered him just before I finished my final interview.

Phew! No one wants the ghost of Charles Addams rising up, hunting them down, and strapping them to an electric chair. Well not at the weekend anyway.

Along with the Pan Horror Books, The Addams Family was my introduction to horror. And in The Addams Family's case, my introduction to quirky horror. My first weird influence. So Happy 100th, Mr. Addams.

In other news, Deborah Walker's story Chit Win is up at Daily Science Fiction. I'm going to save it for my Sunday morning read. Everyone should read a short story on a Sunday morning. And it's accompanied by stunning artwork by Alan Bao.

Over at Bloody Bookish, I'm this months' Into the Bloodlight author. They're hosting a competition where you can win either a signed hardback or a signed paperback of Theatre of Curious Acts. It's really easy to enter - you only have to comment. During the month there'll also be a guest post from me, an interview, and a review.

The guest blogs will continue on Monday (ooh, the suspense), but here is some linkage to any you may have missed:
Freedom at TTA Press
Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Freedom

2012-01-06T05:38:00.000Z

It's day two of the Travelling Theatrical Tour and the second stop on our journey is the Black Static Blog over at TTA Press.

In today's post "The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Freedom" I talk about every procrastinating writer's best friend. Well my best friend. I hope you'll check it out.

Black Static (and its sister magazine Interzone) are two of my favourite magazines. In fact, my favourite short story of 2011 is Black Feathers by Alison Littlewood which appeared in issue 22. They've also published work by Ramsey Campbell, Ray Cluley, Simon Bestwick, Christopher Fowler, Simon Clark, Barbara A Barnett, Sarah Pinborough, Gary McMahon and a gazillion others. Though you probably already know that.

Note to self: subscription is due next month.

Many thanks to Peter Tennant who made the TTA visit possible. I'm a huge fan of Pete's personal blog - one of the funniest on the web. Or maybe I have a similar sense of humour. If you haven't got it bookmarked already, you should do so now.

In case it got lost in my ramble, the link to the guest blog: The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Freedom

Other stops on the blog tour:

Inspiration at Deborah Walker's blog.

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Inspiration

2012-01-04T07:46:00.000Z

It's day one of the Travelling Theatrical Tour in which I travel across the superhighway to places wondrous and far and offer advice, inspiration and madness.

First stop on the tour is Deborah Walker's blog with a post titled "The Travelling Theatrical Tour: Inspiration". Today we talk about titles and notebooks. I'm sure we all like notebooks. Although, I suspect some of you don't like them quite as much as I do.

I chose 'inspiration' as the topic for Deborah's blog as she inspires me. Deborah is a relentless creative genius who is racking up pro-pay acceptances. Two of the many are Ezra's Prophecy at Daily Science Fiction, and Looking Good at Cosmos Magazine. She also has a story forthcoming this Friday at Daily Science Fiction. As I said, racking them up.

I'd love it if you could read my guest blog and check out Deborah's work.

Cujo, Books & Touring

2012-01-03T16:02:00.003Z

The year may be new but the chaos continues...

Thanks to gale force winds a portion of the garden fence came down overnight (again!) and we've had an Alsatian roaming our garden for most of the day. Gave my poor little mum an awful fright as it came bounding at her this morning. To make it even more annoying, it turns out our neighbour knew the fence had come down and went out leaving it to roam our garden because she didn't want it in her house. The air is several shades of blue.

My brother attempted to fix my office chair, because it has a weird tipping motion, only the fool that is me didn't check the chair until he'd left and now... It's determined to tip me all the way out. I'm sitting by the strength of my thigh muscles. They're going to be like steel by February.

Or not.

Some excellent 'other people' news. Remember those two books that I couldn't wait to read in 2012. Well, Alison Littlewood's 'A Cold Season' has made it onto Richard & Judy's book club list. If you're in the UK, then you know how huge that is. And, Simon Bestwick has super awesome news that is making him happy dance across Manchester. You can't say you weren't warned. (Sorry, dude)

My Travelling Theatrical Tour (to celebrate Theatre's release) starts tomorrow when I'll be heading over to Deborah Walker's blog. The second part of my blog journey will be at TTA Press on Friday courtesy of Peter Tennant. I'll be taking in various other sites across the month and I hope you'll follow my trail. I'll leave chocolate breadcrumbs.

So Long 2011

2011-12-31T18:12:00.000Z

I've completed all the work I need to complete in 2011. Or all the work I'm going to complete at any rate. I've spent the last few days redrafting blog posts for my Travelling Theatrical Tour which is coming to several blogs near you in January. Thanks to everyone who offered me a spot on their blogs. Much appreciated. And, I love you all. Well, most of you. Okay, some of you. (Don't want to scare off the blog hosts)

Tonight I shall watch Rise of the Planet of the Apes, maybe take the top off the bottle of wine in the fridge and sniff it, and then hopefully not drunk tweet. (Hey, I had Lucozade at work this week and nearly spun clean off my chair). No doubt I'll then jump into bed, grab a notebook and let that magical 'it's a new year' take over my senses for at least an hour and write, write, write. It really is the most magical time of the year (and we're all nuts for falling for it year after year after year). On that note, may you have many more years. 2012's End of the World - load of bollocks. I hope 2012 brings you everything you want. Unless you want the world to end that is.

I shall call a close to this year's bloggage with my favourite song of 2011...

The Weaving of a Fictional Year

2011-12-30T11:40:00.001Z

This year's fiction has included...

Sandstorm Monsters, Ghost Butterflies, a Paper Man
Lost People, Peeling Wallpaper, Messerschmitt Fighter Planes
Smelly Motels, a Terraced Street, Grandfathers
Broken Pocket Watch, a Goatish Man, Mysterious Doors
Empty Classrooms, An Imaginary Girl, Kidnap
Spiders, a Rag Doll, Sleepmakers
A Forgotten Clown, a Perfume Maker, Monstrous Words
Sea Shells, a Frozen Girl, Hellish Graffiti,
Fish, Bottles of Happiness, A Fleeing Preacher
An Empty Birdcage, Flies, Psychadelic Lollypops

Can't wait to see what this coming year brings.

Everything but the End of the World

2011-12-28T20:46:00.000Z

Things to look forward to in 2012...

Is it here yet?

Something Rotten This Way Comes

2011-12-27T09:16:00.000Z

Popping in from a mad Christmas in which I haven't eaten much chocolate at all because I have a cold. Atishoo. Spent Christmas Day with the family in a whirl of chaos, got fabulous presents - 3D picture of a New York Taxi for my office, Fringe Season 3 DVD, Jack Skellington mug, Radley Watch, CDs so that I can rock 2012, book voucher, the prettiest notebook in the history of notebooks, lip gloss to make me sparkle and chocolate - drank wine and stole my middle nephew. Middle nephew is now with us for the rest of the week. Plus, eldest nephew, middle nephew and eldest nephew's wife were all here yesterday and it was games, games, some pouting when people didn't win, and more games.

And now on this less chaotic Tuesday morning, I wake to find my story Six Feet Above is live over at the Something Wicked site. If you're in the mood for some zombies this Christmas then head over there and have a read. There's also an interview with me.

Merry Christmas, Dudes!

2011-12-24T11:56:00.000Z

May your little ones get everything they wish for (and may we too)

In the words of Bill and Ted, Be excellent to each other.

See you around New Year

I ❤ Delivery People

2011-12-23T15:28:00.004Z

Overnight I received an email from my publisher saying the Theatre hardbacks would be delivered today and after several seconds of twirling in my chair, I decided not to get too excited as UPS let us down when Eric sent the ARCs. But this time....

...in retrospect the delivery couldn't fail because the UPS man who brought it turned out to be my brilliant, wonderful UPS man from work - thankfully I'd changed from my pj's and sorta brushed my hair - who was on a different route for the day. Dude!

I think he's still confused that I opened the door (you know when you see someone out of their usual environment) and trying to figure out the garbage I gabbled at him for five minutes. Although he's used to my garbage.

In other news, and proving that December is the most awesome month of all, I have a few links for you...

Theatre appears on Gef Fox's top five novellas of the year list and Strange Men appears in his top five anthologies/story collections. Bloody Hell.

At The Crow's Caw, the staff listed their favourite five books of the year and Nowhere Hall appears on Jassen Bailey's list and Theatre on Lee Thompson's list. Dudes!

Jennifer at The Book Den reviewed Theatre... "The mix of Gardner's intelligent prose and her dark, visual tale had my brain all delighted."

Philip Harris reviewed Strange Men over at Solitary Mindset... I love how he started his review... "There’s something wrong with Cate Gardner." True. True.

A bloody awesome review from Glynn James for Nowhere Hall... "Cate’s ability to describe the indescribable is exceptional here." ...and Alan Baxter reviews Nowhere Hall at his blog... "This is a beautiful story, haunting and powerful. It’s superbly written, with rich, stirring language and an excellent sense of place."

I think that's all the linkage. That has to be all the linkage because.... Bloody Hell! Any more goodness and I might explode. Okay, that could happen from the amount of Christmas chocolate we have in the house too... We have far, far, far too much.

Oh, wait... And apparently (news just in) if you read and liked Nowhere Hall and Strange Men you can vote for them in the This is Horror awards... Or If you've read Simon Bestwick's Angels of the Silences you can vote for that instead, which is what I'm going to do. :D Voting closes December 30th.

(The Man with) Two Yellow Shoes

2011-12-20T18:55:00.002Z

My nephew has turned me into an aunt who buys slippers for Christmas (he asked for them, he asked for them). I suddenly feel like I should be wiping marks off his face with my spit and ruffling his hair. By next year, he may have turned me into someone who buys socks and hankies. Maybe used hankies. Yes, that will be my revenge.

Said slippers, an example of which are to the left, are gigantic. He's going to be bandy for the rest of his slipper wearing life. Maybe I should buy some waterproof pants for his little brother and sister because when they see these... Oh boy, there's not going to be a dry anything in the house.

I estimate thirty minutes after middle nephew opens them on Christmas day, that littlest nephew will be walking around with both feet in one slipper and his sister will be wearing the other. Possibly as a hat.

Maybe we'll all be wearing them as hats. Now that's an image.

It's HERE!!!

2011-12-18T15:45:00.000Z

So by now you may have guessed that Theatre of Curious Acts has been published... OMG! I have waited for this moment for so long. Christmas 2009 Theatre was hibernating with another publisher who had me on the edge of my seat for most of the book's duration with them (about a year) and I was really hoping that I would get a yes before Christmas. I switched off my computer as late as possible (without getting yelled at) on Christmas Eve. I didn't hear of course, but now, two years later the book is real and published and I love, love, love it.

Now for the infomercial... Here are some other people who loved, liked, enjoyed the book:

"Gardner (Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits), a rising purveyor of high literary strangeness, offers a fresh slice of phantasmagoria densely packed with striking images.." ....Publishers Weekly

"This book is amazing, Cate's writing is intelligent, lyrical, emotional. evocative and totally engaging..." ...Jim McLeod, Ginger Nuts of Horror (Jim also listed the book in his top fifteen reads of the year)

"From the battlefields of Europe, to the end of the world, this novel is a seamless blend of physical and psychological horror that will leave a distinct impression..." ...Pablo Cheesecake, The Eloquent Page (Pablo also picked it as his book of the month for December)

"The aesthetic of this 40,000 word novella evokes theater and circuses and other strange, false places that tell true stories. It’s a cross between Gaiman’s Neverwear, Maguire’s Wicked and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, and if you enjoy any of those, you will enjoy the “Theatre of Curious Acts." ...Caroline E Willis at Tangent Online.

And there are more reviews on Theatre's page and you can find it on Goodreads here.

It's available in..

Hardback: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble
Paperback: Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon Canada Barnes & Noble Book Depository
eBook: Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon France Amazon Germany

The Amazon UK & Canada paperback isn't live as of this moment, but should be soon. It will also be available for the Nook soon and Eric has kindly added Theatre to the Hadley Rille Books eBook sale so it's cheaper at the moment.

That Place

2011-12-17T19:22:00.001Z

It's a weird old world that you can walk past something a thousand times (more than, I suppose, if I were to calculate) and then one day you look at it with fresh eyes, despite battling hailstones and you think, man what used to be in there, what's that for and I could do something with that.

I love those moments.

Now it'll never be a dirty, grey building that seems to go on forever ever again, it'll either be the story I wrote, the story I considered writing, and probably the I know what the freak lives behind those black windows and I should run.

Almost Christmas folks. Eat, drink, be merry. I hope 2012 is a beautiful year. Or just a fun one. God, I need some fun.

Top Five of Other Things...

2011-12-16T19:05:00.001Z

My favourite novellas/novelettes of 2011 were...

(again, not necessarily published this year but read by me this year)

My favourite collections / anthologies read in 2011

My favourite Short Story writers of 2011

Robert Shearman

Alison Littlewood

Ken Liu

Amanda C Davis

Ray Cluley

Top Ten Novels 2011

2011-12-16T18:47:00.003Z

Here be my top ten favourite novels of 2011 - well that I read in 2011, some were published way before this year. I catch up eventually. Next Post... my favourite novellas/novelettes, collections and anthologies, and short story writers of 2011 (coming as soon as I've formatted the post)

A Shameless Post

2011-12-15T16:17:00.001Z

Apologies, this post is full of braggage. If braggage offends look away now...

First thing this morning, I discovered that I'd made Jim McLeod's Top Ten Discoveries of 2011 along with John Hornor Jacobs, Graeme Reynolds, Ian Rogers, Paul D Brazil, and Jasper Bark. Flabbergasted. And then, on a day that decided it would be good to me, Jim also posted 8 of his Top Fifteen Reads of the Year and Theatre of Curious Acts and Nowhere Hall (along with the other Spectral chapbooks) made the list. And I hadn't even had time yet to link to Jim's excellent review of Theatre... "This book is amazing, Cate's writing is intelligent, lyrical, emotional. evocative and totally engaging..." and you can read the rest of the review here.

And then (because it's one of those days - I should check my lottery numbers), over at The Eloquent Page, Pablo Cheescake has a year in review post and he picked Theatre as his book of the month for December. Hey, who shouted 'you only had to fight half a month's worth of books'? I'm watching you. I may faint now. Oh, and again, Spectral Press gets a mention. Dude!

And... (sorry!!!)

Theatre is now available to actually buy (not pre-order) at Barnes & Noble (hardcover) and at Amazon US (hardcover). And, it's available to preorder at Amazon UK (hardcover). You can't buy it at The Book Depository yet, but the paperback is listed there. I ❤ The Book Depository.

I also ❤ almost everyone in the known universe today. Heck, I'll even save a hug for those extraterrestrial dudes.

Pardon me while I faint.

Some Theatrical Belly Flips

2011-12-13T19:04:00.002Z

You may have witnessed a wee bit of butt-shaking excitement last night when I discovered that Theatre of Curious Acts (the hardback) is available to pre-order on Amazon (just the US site at the moment). Oh my!

The book will be available as a hardback, paperback, and ebook and they'll all be released (fingers crossed, things going to plan etc etc) on December 21st or thereabouts.

And there was more butt shaking this lunchtime when I read Pablo Cheesecake's review over at The Eloquent Page..."From the battlefields of Europe, to the end of the world, this novel is a seamless blend of physical and psychological horror that will leave a distinct impression..." It's a seriously awesome review. Me and my boys can battle anything now - dragons, war, death.

Theatre means so much to me - I love Barbed Wire Hearts and Strange Men but both those books had easy rides to publication (or at least that's how it felt - or rather, a magical ride) whereas poor Theatre often felt like the book that would never be until it landed on Hadley Rille's shores. Have I said how much I love the book. And my boys, especially Daniel & Swan and poor, poor Ken. Ken breaks my heart so don't you dare hate him (okay, you can if you want). Assuming you read their story that is. I hope you do. And if you do, let me know if you love Ken (and if you don't, it's all my fault and not his).

Sometimes you just have to say...

2011-12-10T18:32:00.000Z

...guys who wear black eyeliner are so pretty....

I think I shall paint it on all the bird boys in my current work in progress. I'm still at fever pitch with the plotting - dancing in my seat with every new idea, it's excellent exercise. Well, excellent exercise for the girl who just unwrapped a few clothes from her exercise bike (they make for excellent hangers) and a layer of dust. Oops! I decided to go on a diet today - two weeks before Christmas and with so much chocolate in the house (well that's for other people of course). I have a fabulous sense of timing. Or maybe, I just like things that are doomed to fail...

In other news, in last night's dream everyone's eyes turned black and there was something to do with trains in Tokyo and pyramids. I think it may have freaked sleeping me out, but waking me sure wishes she could remember it.

And in further news, have you seen this...

...it's been all over my blog feed this morning (okay, I slightly exaggerate - I'm prone to that). Looks cool though. It's a collaboration between Aaron Polson (I may have started his fan club once upon a few years ago), James Everington, Alan Ryker and Iain Rowan. The first issue's stories are reprints but the following issues will be original stories.

I bet those boys would wear black eyeliner.

Well, I suspect tomorrow would be a good day to start the whole dieting thing since there'll be a gazillion children running about my small house. I should hide my copies of Barbed Wire Hearts before they scribble in them and maybe hide the crayons too... and the black eyeliner.

No Rot Here

2011-12-09T19:15:00.002Z

Sometimes a story haunts for a few years. Then when you finally allow it space, it rushes at you from every which way because it's afraid you'll forget it again.

I've missed this rush. I'm looking forward to burying myself in this story for months to come (though I wouldn't mind one of those madcap six week novel things that sells for millions - or a fiver - they exist right?)

Dear World, let this be the one...

WIP Wednesday: Something Borrowed, Something New

2011-12-07T16:41:00.002Z

Today's blog post is sponsored by a writer's afternoon of procrastinating. For your reading pleasure here are some awesome and informative blog posts:

Sarah E Olson offers some short story advice from a slush reader's POV.

Deanna Knippling's post is about guest blogs. Very appropriate given that my last post was a plea for people to allow me to spread my intellect (okay silliness) on their blogs in January. And to everyone who invited me along I offer a major thank you. I expected dust to mount on the post rather than to have filled every slot and gained a few more within an hour. Now I just have to make sure I don't dent your reputations.

...and Chuck Wendig writes about the seduction of self publishing and why he's glad he didn't have the option five years ago. This isn't a 'don't self publish' post, rather an 'if these are your reasons for self publishing then they may be the wrong reasons' from someone who has self published. He makes some good points.

Personally I'm glad my unpublished novels (of which there are a few and some) are hidden from public view. In fact I almost shredded the earliest manuscripts a couple of months ago - only I'm far too lazy to spend all that time shredding. I hid them away instead. Does that mean I'm anti self-publishing? God no.I read stories that catch my interest whatever their provenance. I'm just anti my self-publishing because I know what a mess those books are in and I like someone to hold my hand. Actually, I might be swerving off topic there (muahaha)... As to my later novels, I like to think they're valuable lessons that I learned something from (with the help of beta readers) - I'd go mad otherwise. And so...

...today I began (finally) making notes for my Cobweb Strings story which has been sitting on my memo board for so long the character pictures are beginning to curl. I'm surprised to find I had far less notes for this story than I thought I had, but decided that's all for the good. I can start afresh. I like starting afresh. Only, I guess that means in 6 or so months I'll be back on the agent/publisher hunting gravy train which I've managed to avoid all year (bad me).

Unless Cobweb Strings turns out to be a novella-length story. Shush! Don't tell the person downstairs, who keeps telling me I need to get back to work on a novel.

Some Wicked Requests

2011-12-06T14:43:00.006Z

Check out the artwork for Something Wicked's December issue of which my zombie tale Six Feet Above is the cover story. This month's issue has stories from the following people on the following dates:

Domyelle Rhyse (6th of December)
Sheila Crosby (13th of December)
Tom Jolly (20th of December)
Cate Gardner (27th of December)

And you can read an interview with cover artist Pierre Smit here.

The holiday season is now officially cancelled or I own it, one or the other. And if I own it, does that mean I get to have triple the amount of presents I'm expecting?

As most of you who visit here already know, my book Theatre of Curious Acts (which will be available in hardcover, paperback and ebook - I've seen the awesome wraparound cover for the hardback and it's to die for) is released this December. In the next week or two. Flap, flap, panic, panic. I'm hoping to do a mini blog tour covering about six blogs in January - I figure December will be an internet wasteland -and was hoping it would be okay if I popped over to some of your blogs with one of my silly posts****. I mean, one of my awesomely brilliant posts that will bring in thousands of readers (I only lie on Tuesday's). Plus, I'd love to set up some interviews if you want to ask me any silly questions. I do answer intelligent questions too but cannot guarantee that the response will be intelligent.

So ends this plea.

****An update (otherwise known as one hour later) - the awesome Mark West, Jim McLeod and Chris Gerrib have offered to host my madness in January - I mean my highly intelligent blog posts that will make them famous throughout the world. Looking for three more awesome folk. And the fabulous Pete Tennant over at the TTA Press blog, and Ray Cluley - I can see I'm going to have to be intelligent now. And add Simon Bestwick and Anthony J Rapino to the list.

Thank you all, I've now I have a fabulous wealth of blogs on which to spread my madness.

In Retrospect

2011-12-04T16:44:00.001Z

"This year did not fail me, I failed it."

...quote by me

Okay, the above may sound like I'm seriously kicking my own ass but truthfully, that quote made me pick up my pens, my laptop, a wealth of notes and put my butt in the chair. Last month I'd been bemoaning how 2011 had sucked and that hopefully 2012 would be much better. (You know the whole 'woe is me' deal - two fingers to that.) Well it will because 2011 didn't suck because of some weird cosmic force, it sucked because of me. I let 2011 down and not the other way around.

Sorry 2011.

Still, when I realise I'm in the wrong I do try to sort things. To make amends I've written two short stories - The Familiar Buzz of Gone and Where Lost Words Gather, the Comic Strip Boys Fall - and blown lots of kisses at the calendar. The calendar is now shaking but I don't think that's from fear, it must be the photo of the little girl with wings who's lying beneath. She's eager to escape. And I am so about to throw away the cakes we bought from Asda (come on willpower).

Plus 2011 gave me lots of pretty gifts: it gave me two books so far - don't count your chickens and all that especially as my next book doesn't hatch until December 21st and that's dangerously close to the end of the year, I met awesome writer folk, I lost 16lbs (and then put them back on again - oops!), my little niece and nephew came more into their own and are growing into awesome little dudes and my office transformed into the most delightful writing space ever (I will fight you for that title).

2011 we are so going to rock these last days together.

The Competition Results

2011-12-02T16:41:00.000Z

Drum roll please...

The winners of my competition (details of which you can find here) are:

Theatre of Curious Acts (Arc) - Ross Warren
Nowhere Hall (contributor's copy of chapbook) - Jamie Lackey
The Best of Necrotic Tissue anthology - Phil Shepherd

and an extra prize (also known as the booby prize :O)

Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits (paperback) - Deborah Walker

Thanks to all who entered - the response was tremendous - and look out for another competition celebrating the release of Theatre later this month.

'tis the season to be jolly

2011-12-01T08:55:00.000Z

I feel this needs to be said at this most wonderful time of the year.

If you only buy one book this Christmas make it a Rob Shearman collection. His stories made my 2011 much more fun and I am eternally thankful to whoever recommended his collection Tiny Deaths. I just wish I could remember who you are.

That is all.

The Latest

2011-11-28T16:00:00.000Z

Some news this delightful Monday (I'm trying to fool Monday into believing I like it)...

Jim McLeod interviewed me over at his Ginger Nuts of Horror Blog. The interview contains smelly socks, Lemony Snicket, chocolate and commas. You can read it here.

Last week, Gef Fox reviewed my forthcoming novella Theatre of Curious Acts. Here be a short excerpt: The first page of every Cate Gardner story is a rabbit hole, through which you find yourself falling into a wonderland of her design, and Theatre of Curious Acts offers a deeper plunge into the abyss of Cate's imagination than anything of hers I've read yet. And you can read the rest of the review here.

Go here, go there, it's like I'm trying to get rid of you.

2011-11-26T12:17:00.000Z

Attended another Twisted Tales event last night (I blogged about the last one here) at Waterstones in Liverpool One. This time the guys at Waterstones were celebrating the release of the PS Publishing anthology Gutshot.

First off there was an introduction by anthology editor, Conrad Williams followed by readings from Gary McMahon, Joel Lane and Amanda Hemingway. After the readings there was a question and answer session which my pal Simon Bestwick joined because he's also in the anthology.

How cool is my city?

Before the event I met Simon Bestwick, Gary McMahon and Joel Lane in the cafe opposite Waterstones. Never mind my city, how cool am I? I've met Joel before (briefly), but it's the first time I've met Gary and as expected he's super awesome as well as being super talented. Picked up Gary's The Concrete Grove and of course Gutshot. The anthology is available from PS Publishing.

The next Twisted Tales event has readings by Ramsey Campbell and Pete Crowther. Again, how cool is my city?

A Week in the Life of a Writer of Weird: The Comeback

2011-11-18T11:40:00.001Z

Rediscovered how much I love writing and how much I hate eBay. I had a feeling that diverting my attention elsewhere would bring my want to write to the boil. Normal service has resumed. Although, I'd quite like to slip into abnormal service and avoid the glorious distractions of the internet. I'd also like to be able to do that without employing my pal Freedom--not that I've employed him this week. Oops! And wait, who knew Freedom was a man.

Oh for the glory days of my old FontWriter. But, oh man, I would not want to go back to the days of using a typewriter. Actually, I wouldn't really like to go back to no internet and no you guys, and I've made a wealth of new friends this week because….

Putting my email address (competition post) without adding the (at) (dot) business has of course led me to enjoy a wealth of spam. Note to spammers: I'm a writer. Writers don't have any money.

And further news on the contest: To all the Entrants, you are wonderful. Thank you all. And a special extra thank you for buying my little Barbed Wire Hearts and joining in my joy. I have a pretty little hardback book--squee.

I bought myself two glorious handbags this week thanks to a colleague--said through gritted teeth while battling the moths that escaped my purse--who told me about an awesome sale at my favourite store. Is it odd that I bought one of the handbags because it coordinates with my new book? Thought so.

Bring on the handbag spammers.

Thanks to Barbed Wire Hearts, I've resumed my Amazon stalking which is silly because the god Amazon created sales graphs so that you would know if a book sold. At least I think that's how it works. It doesn't however tell you if a hundred have sold if they all happen to have sold in one day. Although, I can assure you that a hundred have not sold. That would be ridiculous.

Now onto the weekend...

That Wednesday Thing

2011-11-16T16:49:00.000Z

It's Wednesday.

There is work and there is progress.

Thus, this is my first Wednesday WIP post in (cue melodrama) forever. Back on the horse, in the saddle, leaping over the smelly corpse of my writer's block. As I said in 'this post' I knew the writing funk wouldn't last. I think that's the first time I've been blocked and not in the 'I can't think of any ideas' sense (there were still plenty of those) but I didn't seem to know how to construct a story (sarcastic comments appreciated and forgive my urge to pull tongues at you). A bit like forgetting how to tie your shoelaces. Odd. Probably a bit of the blues, but I've shaken them off with a healthy dose of singing far too loudly to the new Steps album and riding a sugar rush of leftover Halloween candy. So what was I doing before I blogged here...

Oh yes, writing.*

*If anyone yells 'twittering' you may be right. Oops!

Monday Madness

2011-11-14T19:01:00.001Z

My contributor's copies of Barbed Wire Hearts arrived on Saturday morning. I was going to take a photograph and display them here for all to lust after but a) I was too lazy and b) the natural light faded so fast (and taking a photo with the overhead light on wouldn't display the books in all their glory. And trust me, they're glorious. The cover is to die for.) As well as being able to purchase the book at the Dark Fuse website (Limited Edition hardback and e-book) you can now also pick up the e-book at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Two more reviews of Nowhere Hall (aka the book that just keeps giving) have crept online... The first from Joshua Reynolds (Her world is one of slippery construction, changing from one thing to the next in the blink of an eye or the turn of a page, with a dream-like haze that lulls the reader down false corridors into nightmare conclusions.) which you can read in full over at Innsmouth Free Press, and the second from Richard Baron (...is her ability to make unnatural events and characters seem as real as the very air we breathe, but this time she has added a layer of melancholy upon each page that is beautiful as it is heartbreaking) and you can read the review in its entirety on Richard's blog.

Next up, I've fallen back in love with my kindle. I suspect I only fell out of love with it because I read a couple of books that I wasn't keen on (or tried to read them) and blamed the kindle where I would normally blame the book. Anyway, Katey Hawthorne's (aka the awesome KV Taylor) book Equilibrium cured me of my kindle hate. I suspect my kindle might explode from the heat the book is generating. Ahem! Buy it.

And as a final note, PS Publishing is venturing into the world of chapbooks and their first release is Holding the Light by Ramsey Campbell. There's a lovely comic book feel to the cover.

P.S. If you've bought Barbed Wire Hearts don't forget to enter my competition.

Barbed Wire Hearts - The Competition

2011-11-10T17:03:00.002Z

First off - a mad happy dance that is slightly more scary than the book to your left.

Barbed Wire Hearts is now officially on sale - hardcover and eBook - and can be purchased at DarkFuse.

Here be the blurb:

Eddie Stock's heart dislodges from his chest, drops to his bowels and dribbles down his thighs when the girl he likes laughs at him. Well the girl he likes and his entire school year. Finding himself in a forest, which has mysteriously sprouted about his town, Eddie meets a man named Ghoate.

Ghoate collects hearts. They hang from his ceiling and they rot within his jars. Ghoate also collects minions and it appears Eddie is his latest recruit.

Elsewhere in the forest, a dead girl is waking. Rose Lovering's heart wasn't strong enough to allow her to live and isn't weak enough to end this living death.

Can Rose help Eddie regain his heart and save their town? And, can Eddie save her?

And to celebrate the book's release I'm running a competition (well that'll make a change) where you could win...

THEATRE OF CURIOUS ACTS - ARC (book is due to be released December 2011)
NOWHERE HALL - one of the contributor's copies of my sold-out chapbook
THE BEST OF NECROTIC TISSUE ANTHOLOGY

And what do you have to do to win - buy Barbed Wire Hearts (hardback or ebook) and send me an email at catephoenix@gmail.com saying you'd like to win one of the above prizes. If you've already bought it - thank you - let me know so I can enter you in the competition. Unless of course you'd rather not have a chance to win an arc of Theatre (are you mad!) (note to self: do not abuse possible readers/entrants).

So a recap.

1. Buy Barbed Wire Hearts
2. Send an email to catephoenix@gmail.com saying you'd like to win one of the above prizes (and if you have a preference let me know - although if everyone wants the same prize it will be on a first, second and third basis - or if you already own one of the above let me know)
3. Closing date is December 1st 2011

Oh and Aaron Polson and Katey Taylor, you guys are already entered as a thank you for being Barbed Wire Hearts first readers - you rock.

Twits

2011-11-09T12:49:00.000Z

Stuck writing your NaNoWriMo book, or a short story, or just feel like scribbling a quick flash tale and need an idea injection fast? Log into twitter (and if you're not on twitter - why not? Okay, time suck, it would bore you, I get it, I get it - sort of and not quite because I love twittering) and write down interesting things from the first 10 or so tweets you read and weave them into something.

The experiment gave me...
Incredibly cold
Only sound was a mouse in the kitchen
Christmas
Craft Fair
Reverential Silence
Different Label

I could weave something fearful from that and I bet you could too.

Spectral Press Competition

2011-11-07T18:26:00.000Z

Spectral Press and Read Horror are running a writing competition where you could win publication in a Spectral Press anthology / chapbook plus a lifetime subscription to Spectral Press. Closing date is 31st January 2012 and they're looking for stories between 7,500 and 8,000 words. Full details are available over at Read Horror.

You can also win a future Spectral Press chapbook of their choice without submitting a story. Again, details at the Read Horror site.

Good luck.

Something Tattooed This Way Comes

2011-11-06T11:33:00.003Z

This week I received my contributor's copies of Necrotic Tissue's Best of Anthology which contains my story The Scratch of an Old Record. Scratch was chosen as the best story in the July 2009 issue by the editor. This is the first ever Best of anthology one of my stories has appeared in.

Other authors include the freakin' awesome Natalie Sin (in fact, she has two stories in the Best of because she's quote 'freakin' awesome') and (possibly no less awesome) Nate Lambert, Doug Murano, David Tallerman, Daniel I Russell, Greg Hall, Jaelithe Ingold, Robert C Eccles, Zombie Zak and many, many more.

Look out for a competition appearing here shortly where you could win a copy of the above and perhaps* a very rare ARC of Theatre of Curious Acts which is due out just before Christmas and I will of course be weaving the competition around the release of Barbed Wire Hearts which is due out in less than 2 weeks. Freak, freak, freak, freak, freak.

In other news, it was Bonfire Night last night and overnight someone stole into the garden, planted a firework in the grass and stole the yard brush. Weird, dude. Very, very weird.

*I say perhaps but I really mean definitely but warn the ARC may come with my hands attached because I'm finding it very hard to let go of.

...Phone

2011-11-02T17:34:00.000Z

Mobile phones (or to visitors to these shores 'cell phones') - Tag line: Have made talking into a dictaphone in public look normal since... well whenever mobile phones became popular.

Unless, of course, someone hears what you're saying.

And the great thing is, if you meet somone you know and they ask you who you were talking to (well if you're me that is) you can say with complete sincerity, "Walter." And if they want to know more, "Oh we don't talk about Walter."

Burp

2011-11-01T18:09:00.000Z

Remember, remember it's the first of November...

I'm glad I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo but I do keep having twinges of envy when I read the status updates of those who are. Especially as I'm in an 'I used to write' funk at the moment which is exasperated by my spending too much time selling things on eBay. We've been down this road before and it led to an accidental* four or five year break from writing. :O Way to freak myself out. (I may have just spun around the room flapping my hands).

*Seriously, accidental. I slid away from writing, left a novel in progress for all those years, and then got a wake up call one day when I was talking to someone at work (who I'd just discovered was a writer) and realised I hadn't been a writer for some time. Although that journey into eBay was to pay off some astronomical debts, I have no such (touch wood) excuse this time.

The thing about not writing is it stresses you out and you end up on a not-so-merry-go-round of achieving nothing. I will get my funk back. Or steal someone else's. Muahaha. (Dear Google Spell Check, Muahaha is spelt correctly :P) Or maybe I'll attack my laptop with a ruler (it's about the most dangerous thing here) and sit in a corner with pen and paper.

By the way, this is not a 'please sympathise with me' post, it's a 'where I'm at at the moment post and I will speed through it and annoy you with how much I've written before we all know it'. Plus life is full of awesomeness thanks to things like this review for Theatre of Curious Acts in Publishers Weekly...

Anyway, I shall leave you with some fantastically sad and fantastically spooky fiction to read if you are so inclined.

Like Origami in Water by Damien Walters Grintalis
and The Psalm by Simon Bestwick (which you will find on about page 138)

and I haven't read it yet, but quite frankly we all know it will be awesome, The Sons of Chaos and the Desert Dead by Aaron Polson.

Now I must check how those things are selling on eBay and see if I can afford a paddling pool yet or maybe I could buy a muse that is Castiel shaped. Oh yes please.

A Haunting Halloween

2011-10-31T07:53:00.000Z

If you haven't seen this video before you're in for a Halloween treat.

Have a horrific one and remember Halloween treats are for big girls and boys too...

What I Keep in My Whisper Jar - Guest Post by Carole Lanham

2011-10-30T19:51:00.000Z

What I Keep in My Whisper Jar by Carole Lanham

Through the garden gate was the hump of an old cat grave and Penny told us to tap our foot on it three times for luck so that’s exactly what we did, tap tap tap, until all the luck was gathered up - luck, in this case, revolving entirely around the hope that we might find the dead body of our elderly neighbor still lying on the floor, or maybe catch a glimpse of a real living ghost. “Don’t open that thing yet,” Penny said, as we tromped over the paint-peeled hatch of a cyclone cellar on our way to the creepy house. “Let’s save it for last.”

Penny was the girl who lived down the street and while I can’t recall whose idea it was to go inside the scary house, I was all for seeing it – every cobweb, every shadow, every bone. There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned scare!

Whenever someone asks what a nice girl like me is doing writing horror stories, I laugh like butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth, wipe my hands on my apron, and offer them a homemade cookie. I have a strong tendency to deny all association with the dark figures who turn up in my work. I want to pretend I don’t know those crazy characters in the least. Then I remember about the haunted house in the neighborhood where I lived when I was a little girl. Truth is, I went through that garden gate once and tapped my foot on the old cat grave, hoping with all my heart to find something scary and grim. I was four years old at the time and I brought my two year old sister along with me. Even though I had yet to begin kindergarten, I already understood that someone must always be along for the ride.

I can’t remember the names of all the kids who were with me that day but bits and pieces of our adventure have followed me down the road of life in the form of clothes-less hangers jangling in empty closets and bare nails poking from scuffed walls. There were ghosts in that house to be sure, though they were not see-through spirits of the usual moaning variety. Rather, they were dents from coffee table legs engraved in the carpet, and cabinet doors that opened on shelf-paper stained with the rings of vanished Comet cans. A dead body would have been one thing, but I had probably never seen a room without furniture before and all that abandoned space was somehow more frightening than the thought of my body keeling over dead. What happened to the old guy’s shoes, I longed to know? Where was the refrigerator where he kept his milk? And where was his milk? He’d been scrubbed and swept and dusted away so thoroughly that there was nothing left to see.

I have no idea what the other kids were feeling but I’m guessing it must have spooked them too. We ran from room to room expectantly only to stop and turn in slow circles, looking. I can’t recall finding so much as a shirt button. Did they bury his toothbrush with him, we wondered? We went into the bathroom to check on this and that’s when we saw the most terrifying thing of all.

It was in the toilet.

“Poop!” someone yelled, and we tore out of the house, yelping with fear and bumping into each other in our effort to escape. After all those empty rooms, that one unexpected sign of life had everyone in a panic.

I’m betting we laughed about it afterwards but it scared me. Even so, I’ve always been a glutton for punishment and I wanted to see more. We made our way to the cellar door and this time I tried to prepare myself for the disappointing possibility that we would find little more than black nothingness when we got the thing open. It stood to reason that the person who had stolen the rest of the dead man’s life had probably stolen whatever was in the cellar too. In any case, we’d lived through the poop, so how bad could it be?

Eventually, with the combined might of our stringy pre-school muscles, we threw the heavy door back on its hinges and everyone peered down in the hole.

Dozens of glassy eyes looked up at us. I squinted. They squinted. Finally we recognized each other and there was a terribly terrible screech. On both ends. “Cats!” someone yelled. I tore across the yard, leapt over the lucky grave, and banged through the gate, giggling my head off even as my heart exploded inside my chest. Boy, did we frighten ourselves! My sister snitched the second we got home, but it was quite a wonderful day.

Thanks to Google Maps, I was recently able to hunt down the very same house I broke into with the neighbor kids all those years ago and visit it again. Fortunately, glimpsing it through the wonders of Street View has not altered the images I carry around inside my head. We moved away from the neighborhood before I started school, but I can still see that haunted house as it once was and this is partly due to the fact that it stood directly behind my own house. As a result, it looms over the Easter egg hunts of my youth in home movies. It’s the backdrop behind kids in birthday party hats and aunts with funny hairdos smoking cigarettes. It’s featured in every photo that involves our swing set. But I also remember that old house because that’s how my weird brain works. I have a photographic memory for things that most people consider to be worthless information, and no. I can’t tell you where I put my car keys last night. One must have their priorities, don’t you know?

What gets kept in my head is dictated by the smallest of feelings behind the smallest of things, the impressions of which tend to become stamped in my memory for all of time like leg dents in a carpet. When it comes to writing scary stories, I love quiet fear. A nagging sense that something is wrong is more worrying to me than a face full of blood and guts. And I’ll take a soft, shuffling sound behind a locked door over an ax murderer every time. I don’t guess the emptiness of that old house would have scared or surprised my mother very much, but then I was a four year old with an over-active imagination. A balled-up sock under my bed was maybe just a sock or maybe a shrunken head that someone had hidden there. Children make for wonderful characters because they’re chock full of all manner of small feelings.

In keeping with my love of wee things, my short story collection The Whisper Jar draws upon the fearsome nuisance that is a secret. I find secrets to be particularly loaded with fun. Hidden rooms, hidden truths, hidden love - the minute you try to steal something from view, it has the potential to grow into quite the proper monster, doesn’t it? As for the sneaking, chicken-hearted, two-timing, wobble-kneed, band of no-good regretters who populate my work, I suppose I ought to go on and embrace them for all I’m worth. When it’s all said and done, I don’t think they can help themselves. Like me, they were born to love a good forbidden romp in the dark.

*******

Carole's book 'The Whisper Jar' is released tomorrow by Morrigan Books.

Twisted Tales

2011-10-29T07:30:00.001+01:00

Last night I attended the Twisted Tales event at Waterstones in Liverpool One. They've been holding these events for a year but this was the first I've attended.

Go me or bad me or something of that flavour.

Met up with Simon Bestwick for a coffee (okay, I had a bottle of water because I was way too hyper) before heading into the event. There were readings by Nicholas Royle, Lisa Tuttle and Adam Nevill, a question and answer session and then a signing.

Picked up the House of Fear Anthology, The Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle, The Ritual by Adam Nevill and Regicide by Nicholas Royle (which when I read the blurb on the back screamed 'I have to read this now' so I guess I'm shoving that one to the front of my towering to read pile which is actually rather neatly organised now).

Oh and I sat behind Ramsey Campbell during the event (yep, you read that right) and of course Simon being Simon (i.e. he knows everyone) he introduced me to Ramsey after the readings. I ran away rather quickly. Better that than subjecting him to a stream of incoherent nonsense.

Not NaNoWriMo

2011-10-28T08:10:00.000+01:00

It's almost November.

It's almost time for NaNoWriMo and this year, I'm not participating.

Thank goodness for that.

Last year's NaNoWriMo book (Museum of Impossible Artefacts or Ghosts of Folding Time or whatever title I left it at) is still an unholy mess of time travel, ghosts, giant robots, abandoned streets, sinister future people, the grim reaper who isn't the grim reaper but does a really good job at being the grim reaper, ghost ships, zeppelins, kidnapping and disappearing houses. I should pick two of the above and start again with the thing and maybe I will, but not on Tuesday in particular, and not to be completed within 30 days. And hey, for fun, tell me which two of the above I should pick and run with. Or not. Or maybe I'll just keep them all.

Off to the Twisted Tales House of Fear event at Waterstones tonight. Maybe it'll inspire me.

Curious Things Afoot

2011-10-25T17:09:00.002+01:00

Some Theatre of Curious Acts news this Tuesday. Although the book isn't released until mid-December we already have two reviews. The first review is from Lee Thompson...

"This is a simply deceiving story, complicated and intricate beneath the humor and darkness. She weaves a strong web and populates the story with quirky and likeable characters" - you can read the rest of the review over at The Crow's Caw.

The second review is by Caroline E Willis...

"The aesthetic of this 40,000 word novella evokes theater and circuses and other strange, false places that tell true stories. It’s a cross between Gaiman’s Neverwear, Maguire’s Wicked and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, and if you enjoy any of those, you will enjoy the “Theatre of Curious Acts." - you can read the rest of the review over at Tangent Online.

I'm currently writing a little collection of flash stories/biographical accounts of events that happened (according to some rather dubious folk including a Mr. Folk) to some rather unfortunate and some wicked creatures who populate the outskirts and the dark unseen corners of the Theatre. I'm hoping to use them for a blog tour in December or January - thinking January may be better being that it is the season of frost and staying-in-ness and plus 2012 has that whole apocalyptic vibe going for it.

And that is all my news, I think... Ooh, except I'm venturing out into the world this weekend to attend a wee event in my home town and then I'm scurrying home to cower back under my duvet.

At the Crossroads

2011-10-18T15:55:00.002+01:00

Well I needed an excuse to post because I've been awfully lax of late and visiting the Delirium Books website gave me an excuse to. The full cover (ie including the back) is now on the website and it's perfect and gorgeous and perfect and here it is...

...how beautiful is that back cover?

And you can read an excerpt on the Delirium Books/Dark Fuse page for Barbed Wire Hearts.

Did I say it is beautiful?

The Girl who Waited (for the hole in her mouth to close*)

2011-10-11T13:47:00.003+01:00

(*as have many people over time)

Things that have happened since my last blog...

Griped and griped some more about my tooth, which developed an interestingly painful, dry socket. Things learned - I'm a dreadful patient or rather an impatient patient - although having toothache doesn't make you a patient at all; that although you may not be able to eat toast (the horror) because it might get stuck in the gaping hole in your mouth, that you can, however, eat chocolate because it melts and can't get stuck (my prescription). I have a hit list containing the names of all the people who said having a tooth removed was easy. They are aware of the list.

There have been a few more reviews of Nowhere Hall that I should have linked to over the past few weeks but constantly linking to reviews does not make for good blog content. Though possibly neither does griping about teeth. The lastest are from Nickolas Cook at The Black Glove, Gef Fox at Skull Salad Reviews, Strange Aeons Magazine (which includes the words 'fucking Jedi'), Jason Baki at Floor to Ceiling Books and Anton Cancre at Horror News Net. If you are of a mind to read them, the reviews are all linked to from the Nowhere Hall page. Simon Marshall Jones has done (and continues to do) an awesome job of getting all the chapbooks he's published before reviewers.

There's also a review in (the first) for Theatre, which I'll link to when I get around to creating a page for the wee thing.

The garden took its revenge on my fence after it staked it x amount of years ago and aided by the wind managed to uproot the thing. I now have half a fence. That's different. And a hungry Alsation lives next door. Gulp! I should stop calling the dog 'dude' and telling it 'you're going to get a sore throat with all that barking'. I suspect I look like a very happy meal (especially now I've stopped griping).

And as a final note, my internet connection at work (or rather work's internet connection) now thinks it's French.

Au Revoir

The Whisper Jar by Carole Lanham

2011-10-04T19:06:00.000+01:00

There are secrets hidden within The Whisper Jar.

These are not the sort of secrets you can whisper into jam jars, twist the lid and know (or hope) they'll stay hidden; these are secrets that spill out across the pages of Carole Lanham's debut collection, which weaves tales that prove just how un-innocent childhood can sometimes be.

There are vampires and maybe vampires, and werewolves and fairies, and macabre torture devices that may or may not kill depending on the flick of a switch. There are the rhyming tales - the title story The Whisper Jar and the tragic The Adventures of Velvet Honeybone, Girl Werewuff - tales of woe, of childhood friendship, and how the magic dies with approaching adulthood. Each story is a delight, and the tales are told in Lanham's unique and compelling voice.

Although some secrets should stay hidden, Carole Lanham's The Whisper Jar should not. The ebook is available to pre-order from Morrigan Books and the book is released on October 31st.

Swimming with Awesome Fishes

2011-10-01T16:21:00.001+01:00

I am delighted to announce that my short story, Too Delicate for Human Form, has been accepted by Dagan Books for their fish anthology.

I am also delighted to say that I managed to keep it a secret for two whole days, no hints or anything. This may be a record and I'm sure I deserve a reward even if it's self-gifted.

I am further delighted to be sharing a TOC with Camille Alexa, Amanda C Davis, Corinne Duyvis, Claude Lalumière, Ken Liu, TJ McIntyre and many other awesome folk. The official table of contents are below and the anthology is due out February 8th, 2012.

Alexa, Camille “The Skin of Her Skin”
Bernardo, Matthew “The Fish-Wife’s Tale”
Blake, Polenth “Thwarting the Fiends”
Darrach, Shaw “I Know a Secret”
Davis, Amanda C. “O How the Wet Folk Sing”
Dixon, Paul “One Let Go”
Duyvis, Corinne “The Applause of Others”
Englehardt, Megan “Anansi and the New Thing”
Fleming, Sam “What the Water Gave Her”
Fuller, Andrew “A Salmon Tale, 2072”
Fullerton, H.L. “The Fish Are There On Land”
Gardner, Cate “Too Delicate for Human Form”
George, Zachary “You, Fish”
Hendrix, Sarah “Never to Return”
Kane, Tim “Vanity Mirror”
Kneeland, Andrea “Becoming Human”
Kwak, Jessie “Needlepoint Fish of Azure City”
L’Orange, April “Quick Karma”
Lalumière, Claude “Xandra’s Brine”
Liu, Ken “How Do You Know If a Fish Is Happy?”
McBride, Tracie “The Touch of Taniwha”
McIntyre, T.J. “Did the Catfish Get a Flat Head?”
Nakayama, Timothy “Fallen Dragon”
Naquin, R.L. “Kisses In the Snow”
Obedoza, Mel “The Fisherman and Golden Fish”
Palmer, Suzanne “Laternfish In the Overworld”
Povey, Jennifer “Water Demons”
Rambo, Cat “The Fisher Queen”
Romasco-Moore, Maria “Fisheye”
Ruby, Jacob “The Talking Fish of Shangri-La”
Shvartsman, Alex “Life at the Lake’s Shore”
Spencer, Ariyana “Fish Tears”
Unger, Vivian “A Fish Tail”
Wood, Mike “The Last Fisherman of Habitat 37”
Zup, Andreea “Maria and the Fish”

Like Pulling Teeth

2011-09-29T13:16:00.000+01:00

I am freaking out...

I have to go to the dentist when I finish work in minus 2 hours and have a back tooth pulled...

I should stop griping because it's a tooth not a limb...

...but I won't, especially as when the tooth was filled a few months back the dentist didn't give me enough Novacaine and it hurt, hurt, hurt. And in case the tooth fairy reads my blog, I'd like chocolate coins please, dude.

And for those who don't subscribe to Daily Science Fiction (and thus didn't receive the email containing my story last week), you can now read Exit Stage Life online. Or maybe read, This Always Happens Here by Richard Larson, because it's awesome and has snow globes.

Butterflies & Frozen Things

2011-09-24T13:12:00.003+01:00

Earlier this week, Lee Thompson (author of Iron Butterflies Rust and Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children) interviewed me for his blog and you can read it here. It was my seventh interview (all of which can be accessed from here) and it was a delightful experience. I quite like interviews. Maybe I'm a Narcissist. I hope not.

Today, I finally uploaded a good portion of my stories to Google Docs. I didn't know it was so easy to do. I'd originally uploaded the odd story and I did each one manually, but it appears I just had to click Ctrl-A to copy my entire flash drive to Google Docs and it did the rest. I may sleep a little easier now. Or I will when I've uploaded my other files. I hope Google Docs doesn't implode.

I finished editing The Menagerie of Frozen Birds this morning and am a little reluctant to leave that icy world behind, but it's onwards and upwards and I have three other short stories with deadlines that I have to get done.

But before I go, if you're of a mind to procrastinate today (well it is the weekend), then check out Draw a Stickman. Although, I chose to draw a stickwoman.

Doors & Bloody Hearts

2011-09-21T16:26:00.002+01:00

My novella 'Barbed Wire Hearts' is now available to pre-order, and you can read an extract here. The limited edition hardcover will be published in November, and will also be available as an e-book. I believe there are only a small amount left available to buy.

In other news, my story 'Exit Stage Life' is tomorrow's Daily Science Fiction story and will be emailed to subscribers before being published on the website on the 29th September. The story is about a door that appears next to someone's desk and coincidentally...

At work, Office Services left a large door (okay, it had a cupboard attached to it) in front of my desk today. Gulp! I didn't open it. (I bet you're disappointed in me now).

And as it's Wednesday, I should mention my WIP - an icy tale called 'The Menagerie of Frozen Birds'. It's been kicking my ass but it's time for payback.

Life of a Writer of Weird: Little Shop of Dentists

2011-09-19T16:43:00.003+01:00

Booking a dentist appointment today was too easy. One) they gave me an appointment for next week (and I didn't even mention my toothache) and two) they gave me one for the magic time of three o'clock which means I don't have to ask to leave work early or hang around until the appointment time. The dentist is so going to greet me with a chainsaw. Maybe I should take my dentist eating plant...

...or my stalker.

On the way home from work I gained a familiar. I stopped to pull an umbrella out of my bag and a black cat crept up beside me. It tried to walk in front of me but I started walking at the same time. So that I didn't trip, I stepped back and told it to go ahead and cross my path. It did, but maybe a cat can't curse (or shower you with good luck) unless it walks in front of you without permission. Which it then did for almost the rest of my journey.

Other Monday news included a desire to add a Glokenspeil to my WIP, an appropriate 'beak' for 'break' typo as my story has a bird theme, a contributor's copy (While the Morning Stars Sing) and payment for an upcoming story, and several sneezes.

It's me, I'm...

2011-09-16T19:07:00.004+01:00

I've slept walked through most of this week, or rather through the parts where I should have been writing and to keep myself awake today (because I'm fed up of snoozing) I've been singing along to You Tube and my newly painted walls and ceiling haven't cracked yet. Although I might have. Anyhow, that led me to this video....

...and to remembering that although Wuthering Heights wasn't the first book I fell in love with (Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree was probably my first) it was the first book where I fell in love with sentences and words and characters and the first where I bookmarked passages to read over and over because they were so beautiful... Okay, maybe not the first character I fell in love with because I was rather partial to MoonFace.

"...heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out, into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."

It also thrilled my teen-heart that the heroine (is Catherine Earnshaw a heroine?) was a Cathy. Perhaps I would have fallen in love with Mr Rochester instead if I was a Jane.

Snippets

2011-09-13T13:48:00.001+01:00

My surreal little tale His Name Carved on Empty Space is available to read at Every Day Fiction. And in other news, apparently ARCS for Theatre have arrived at my house (you are forgiven UPS man), but I can't touch (or lick) them as I'm in work. Is it home time yet?

Beware: You Could Lose Time Here

2011-09-09T17:47:00.001+01:00

Depending on your view the following broadcast is either Link Heaven or Link Hell...

First, Nowhere Hall received three new reviews this week...

"Full of the kind of familiar yet insidious imagery that gives you weird dreams days after you’ve read the book, ‘Nowhere Hall’ made sure that there was no doubt that I’d finish it off and I’ll be sure to look for Cate Gardner’s name on the shelves in the future." Graeme Flory over at Graeme's Fantasy Book Review.

"Nowhere Hall is full of great noirish atmosphere and powerful and bizarre images worthy of David Lynch." Paul D Brazill over at You Would Say That, Wouldn't You?

"Nowhere Hall is an exemplar, a masterclass in writing noir fiction. In particular of a story that creeps up on you using a psychological skewer." Geoff Nelder, and you can read the review at the Spectral Press website.

Secondly, here are some awesome blog posts I stumbled upon this week...

Jay Lake talks about Drafting Speed, and the perils thereof and how the only writer you can compare yourself to is you (excellent quote).

DeAnna Knippling talks about inspiration and your butt here. Not my butt, or her butt, your butt. And the awesome (my favourite non-speculative fiction writer) Harlan Coben writes on the same subject over at The Wall Street Journal. (Second link courtesy of Robert Swartwood).

Gef Fox has an excellent post on buying books at a book store.

And finally, don't forget to check out Jonathan Pinnock's guest post on this here blog...

Guest Blog - Jonathan Pinnock

2011-09-08T08:41:00.000+01:00

Some Answers to 20 Imaginary Questions About “Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens”

1. Basically a sequel to “Pride and Prejudice” with added aliens.
2. Why not?
3. No. Not zombies. Aliens. We do not mention the zombie book. I had the idea long before the zombie book came out. Although I’m sure it’s a very nice book. It is, however, a bit of a sensitive area, as I’m sure you’ll understand.
4. I said no.
5. Oh, you like zombies? In that case, loads.
6. The usual stuff: tentacles, probes, ghosts. And Colin the pigeon.
7. Lord Byron. He’s filthy.
8. “The truth is out there, though it is not yet universally acknowledged.”
9. Pemberley, Whitechapel, Rosings, Bath and Glastonbury.
10. Ek – ek – ek – ek – kk’Ekk!
11. Mars. Although the chances of anything coming from there…
12. Sous-pellisse and Wellington’s Fancy. But don’t ask for “a Prussian”, as you’ll probably get slapped.
13. Look, will you stop going on about zombies?
14. I serialized it for a year online and then it was picked up by Proxima Books just before the end.
15. I was very excited, I can tell you.
16. All the usual online places, and if you’re lucky enough to live in the UK, at all branches of WHSmith, where it’s on promotion and currently at number 54 in their chart.
17. If there’s demand, definitely. I deliberately left a bit of a cliffhanger at the end.
18. Only if I can get David Bamber back to play Mr Collins. Or if he’s unavailable, his hair.
19. www.mrsdarcyvsthealiens.com. And there’s a Wickhampedia at www.mrsdarcyvsthealiens.com/wiki which tells you everything you need to know, as well as a whole load you really didn’t. Oh, oh, and a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/realmrsdarcy.
20. Well, thank you for having me. It’s been fun.

***

You'll find Jonathan Pinnock's blog at www.jonathanpinnock.com and you'll find Mrs Darcy at Amazon and other reputable bookstores (including bricks and mortar stores in the UK).

Where I Work? (Allegedly)

2011-09-05T18:51:00.000+01:00

Here there be photos of my new office. You may note the torture chamber chair. I took these photos before I'd finished constructing my awesome new chair. Actually, I say my 'new office' but it's my old office repainted and refloored and with some new furniture.. Now I should write. Or dust things. Or just marvel at how clean the room is and swivel in my awesome new chair. Did I say it's awesome. I may reveal it to you someday.

To Read

2011-09-04T17:15:00.003+01:00

When I picked a book off my 'to read' pile, I was surprised to find I'd owned said book since 2004!!! So wrong. Thus, I've decided to put all the books currently on my shelf into a 'to read' order, bearing in mind that I've done this before and ignored it.

Of course, I put my most recent purchase (Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens) at the head of the queue because I'm tricky like that. Hopefully it won't take seven years to read any books I currently own, there are only forty-five in the pile at the moment and that's not many at all.

I'm trying not to buy any more at the moment (with the exception of Katey's Scripped, oh and Kate's 'Evil Outfitters, Ltd' when it's published, oh and Anthony Rapino's Soundtrack...). I expect to fail.

Oh, and look out for Jon Pinnock who will be appearing here on the 8th. That is, this Thursday. And pictures of my new office are also forthcoming.

The Haunted Wardrobe (Allegedly)

2011-09-02T10:56:00.004+01:00

To celebrate the release of his novel The Bleeding Room Barry Napier is running a true ghost stories contest. More details can be found here and here is my entry.

What follows is a true account. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent.

Once upon a time, a man and a woman moved into a poky flat in the Kensington area of Liverpool with their baby daughter. One of the rooms was boarded up. The man decided to remove said boards, after all the room was in their flat. Inside the room the walls were covered in Jewish prayers and there was a metal box attached to the wall. The man removed both the prayers and the box and from then on claimed that something (or someone) kept throwing things at him. The woman thought he was drunk. He possibly was.

Not long after, they moved out of the flat in which they'd once watched man walk on the surface of the moon and they took with them one item of furniture - a wardrobe. (They may actually have taken more items of furniture, but the writer is unaware of this and quite frankly it makes the story less dramatic).

The wardrobe and part of the family (the man left) lived happily in their new 'little house' with its leaky roof, outside loo, dodgy electrics and draughty windows. The writer loved growing up in that house and wasn't bothered by anything spooky at all. The rest of her family, which had expanded to include a grandmother and a brother, claimed that things flew off a shelf or some such nonsense once and the brother said that he hated the wardrobe, although he didn't seem to have a problem hiding in it. Just saying.

Time passed, and the family moved to a grown-up house with a bathroom and garden and thought they were oh so fancy (okay maybe not, but it was better than treading around snails to get to an outside loo and hey, the upstairs electrics worked and the window didn't try to decapitate you - win). The wardrobe came with them. Things began to happen.

The wardrobe was in the woman's (the mother's) bedroom and she'd wake to find her bed violently (yes, I did just use an adverb) shaking. Violently. The mother also used to tell her children to stop sneaking in behind her when she was in the kitchen and hitting her in the back when in fact said children were watching Family Ties or Robin of Sherwood or some such thing on the telly. She must have thought her children had super powers. Maybe they do. The brother then saw his grandmother walking along the hallway. She was decapitated. This bothered the grandmother as she was still alive and her head was firmly on her shoulders. The brother wasn't drunk. He was twelve and fond of drawing monsters.

The family left that house and moved two houses down the street (obviously not descended from Gypsies). They kindly left behind the wardrobe because they had a new one and the family moving into their house needed one.

The family who moved into their house weren't happy. Someone kept turning on the lights (a sceptic yelled, 'dodgy electrics' and the sceptic may have been me) and doors slammed ('the house is probably draughty', the sceptic yelled). The new family were unnerved. The writer doesn't know what else happened, she was too busy partying and thinking she was Madonna, but she did witness the murder of the wardrobe.

The new family took the wardrobe into the garden where they attacked it with an axe. They were never troubled by ghosts again. Unfortunately, the brother was not so fortunate. He's, allegedly, had a few more ghostly experiences and does not appreciate when someone says 'is there anybody there' in his new home. He can get quite angry. The writer promises she won't say it again…

September 22nd

2011-08-30T08:27:00.000+01:00

Coming soon to an inbox near you... Here's the line up for this month's Daily Science Fiction stories and the dates they'll be delivered to your email (assuming you're a subscriber), and they'll be available to read online a week after email distribution. I'm especially looking forward to Amanda C Davis and Ken Liu's stories.

1 September: "Dragons" by Mahon Wakefield
2 September: "Now Until" by Jonathan Fredrick Parks
5 September: "Everlasting" by Fran Wilde
6 September: "Losing One's Appetite" by Sarina Dorie
7 September: "Modification or Mutation: 8 Ways a Parent Can Be Sure" by Marissa Kristine Lingen
8 September: "Test Drive" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
9 September: "Requiem Duet, Concerto for Flute and Voodoo" by Eugie Foster
12 September: "HETERO3" by Robert Reed
13 September: "Beauty, Deconstructed" by Adam Colston
14 September: "Spiral" by Sarah Stasik
15 September: "In Vivo" by SJ Driscoll
16 September: "The Ritual of Names in Prague in the Last Days of the New Empire" by Bernie Mojzes
19 September: "In Memoriam" by Amanda C. Davis
20 September: "This Always Happens Here" by Richard Larson
21 September: "Ten Speeds at the End of the World" by Guinevere Robin Rowell
22 September: "Exit Stage Life" by Cate Gardner
23 September: "Volition" by Alec Austin
26 September: "The Last Seed" by Ken Liu
27 September: "Regret Incorporated" by Andy and RJ Astruc
28 September: "Totemkill" by Sean Vivier
29 September: "Her Majesty's Guardian" by Donald S. Crankshaw
30 September: "Wonder" by Matthue Roth

Theatre of Curious Acts

2011-08-25T18:48:00.005+01:00

Theatre of Curious Acts (forthcoming later this year from Hadley Rille Books) now has a cover by the incredibly talented Simone Held...

Nineteen-year-old Daniel Cole returns home from the Great War wanting the world to end. His brother and parents are in their graves. Nothing is the same.

During a performance at the Theatre of Curious Acts, Daniel and his friends, fellow soldiers, are lured into a surreal otherworld. Travelling through this strange land they happen upon the four horsewomen of the apocalypse, dragons, the steam trains of the Anabiosis Station with their ghostly passengers, ancient warriors and a pirate ship waiting to ferry them to the end of the world. Already broken by man's war, these boys are now the world's only hope in the greatest battle of all.

Then there were nine...

2011-08-23T17:05:00.001+01:00

Check out my contributor copies of Nowhere Hall. Ten beautiful copies all for me. Okay, we're down to nine now because my mum snatched the first copy and well... so she should. And I doubt I'll have nine copies for long but I do for now... So that means there are 100 signed and numbered editions out in the wild, my ten and I know a handful of promo copies have made there way to secret locations. That makes me incredibly happy (and possibly incredibly sad). Simon Marshall Jones has done a fabulous job and if you have a copy (or if one is on its way to you) you'll know how superb the quality is.

In other Nowhere Hall news. Three more reviews have appeared online...

The first from Jim McLeod... This is an extremely layered and complex story, that keeps the readers interest, with the use of some extremely good writing... You can read the rest of the review over at the Ginger Nuts of Horror site. While over at Dark Musings, Anthony Watson said... It's a beautifully written piece and absolutely maintains the high standards already set by Spectral Press's previous publications. And finally, Walt Hicks of Page Horrific... If you're looking for a dark funhouse ride through the fragile human psyche, led by a talented and impressive tour guide, NOWHERE HALL is your ticket.

Now I feel like I should wash my mouth out with soap or something because the above seems all look at me, look at me, so apologies for that. I shall shush now. Or maybe I'll just scream rather loudly one more time...

In other news... You may have heard me mention how awesome Robert Shearman's stories are, well you can read some (eventually 100 of them) for free over at his One Hundred Stories blog.

Rain, Birds and Words.

2011-08-21T13:28:00.002+01:00

A fan of productive procrastination (try saying that when you're drunk or, in my case, when you're sober) I spent far too long this morning making a spreadsheet of how many words per day of Grim Glass Vein I would need to write if I want a complete draft by mid September. Not that I have any particular reason for picking September other than it's next month and I'd like to have edited drafts of both Grim and Ghosts by year end so that next year I can reconsider the whole search for an agent thing that I've been conveniently ignoring.

Then I spent the following hour looking at writing desks online and decided that this coming weekend I'd gut my office and rebuild it.

Now I need to construct another spreadsheet. Although actually writing some words might be a more fortuitous plan.

Spent yesterday at the new Museum of Liverpool with the wee ones. Above is a rather rainy view from the second floor window and to the right is an iconic Liver Bird. We are rather fond of them in Liverpool and it's said if they ever fly away that Liverpool would fall into the sea. We're dooooooooomed. Or maybe not because they're all made of solid rather than beating things.

I guess I should write now or look at desk accessories...

Maybe I'll make a new spreadsheet.

Something Wicked

2011-08-18T18:50:00.000+01:00

My zombie short story Six Feet Above has been accepted for online publication in a future issue of South African magazine Something Wicked.

This has definitely been a good week, month, heck I'm quite enjoying the year.

On a different track... I find it ironic that Google Chrome thinks the word online is a misspelling.

Passing through... The Vestibule

2011-08-17T18:36:00.000+01:00

Did you know that before Dante made it into Hell proper he had to pass through the vestibule, a nowhere place? And, did you know that uncommitted souls lie on the banks of the river Acheron? And did you know that my niece starts almost every sentence with 'and did you know?'

Well now you do. Or perhaps, you already did.

In other Nowhere Hall news, the chapbook has been printed and copies are either in the mail or due to go out in the mail. If you bought it (thank you) then the chapbook should be with you shortly and if you ordered a copy via me I'll email you when my copies arrive and send one scurrying on its way to you. Another (fabulous) review has appeared online, this time by Colum McKnight of Dreadful Tales.

Gardner obviously takes her time crafting these images and emotions... A whirlwind of greatness is contained with the pages of yet another brilliant Spectral Press release.

You can read the rest of the review here.

And as it's Wednesday, I should mention my WIP. It's draft number 745 of Grim Glass Vein. I've fallen back in love with the story. I guess we just needed a break.

This may all be a dream...

2011-08-10T16:48:00.003+01:00

The signature sheets for 'Barbed Wire Hearts' (Delirium Books, Nov 2011) arrived today, and the signature sheets for 'Nowhere Hall' (Spectral Press, any day now) should arrive tomorrow. I've pinched myself a dozen times. I'm sure it's a misprint or I'm trapped in a dream or some other such nonsense. This isn't real life.

In other news. Two more reviews of Nowhere Hall have appeared on the web...

Brilliant! I can honestly say I've never read anything quite like this before. It is original, thought provoking, and makes me crave her upcoming Delirium Books release... It is a layered and tightly woven chapbook that has more depth than many novellas I've read this year. You can read the full review by Jassen Bailey at The Crow's Caw.

Nowhere Hall struck me as a very intimate tale. The writer exposes Ron's emotional core, his inner most thoughts and feelings are laid bare...Spectral Press has delivered another classic tale. You can read the full review by Pablo Cheescake at The Eloquent Page.

Thank you to both Jassen and Pablo for reading my wee story.

My short story 'His Name Carved on Empty Space' was due to be published at Every Day Fiction today but the site is moving servers so the story will (I believe) now be appearing in September, which is probably a good thing as I don't think I can take any more awesomeness today. Heck, I even got a free smellies set in work today.

Seriously, pinch me.

Other Folk

2011-08-08T19:16:00.000+01:00

While I was away, awesome people had awesome news...

K.V. Taylor's debut novel Scripped, an Appalachian Faerie Tale, is available to pre-order from Belfire Press.

"In an attempt to escape constant arguing, Jonah Gray wanders away from the family cabin deep in the West Virginia wilderness. But he wanders too far, over the borders to a Faerie land that could only exist in Appalachia.

Faerie-napping, cold knives, underground oppressors, horror stories, and unwilling affections threaten to suck him forever into their desolate Company Town. If they do, he’ll lose himself in every way possible.

You might escape the fae, but you can never go home. Not really."

Jason Sanford's short story collection, Never Never Stories, is available from Spotlight Publishing. Jason is a fantastic and fantastical story teller (and he also runs the storySouth Million Writers Award). I'm one story into the collection (buried ships and secrets and clouds) and am also looking forward to the continuation of his Plague Birds world in an upcoming issue of Interzone.

Issue 4 of Shock Totem has been released and this time it features fiction by Lee Thompson, Jaelithe Ingold, A.C. Wise, Weston Ochse, and others.

You can purchase it at Amazon or find out more at the Shock Totem website.

K.C. Shaw's The Taste of Magic has been released as an ebook from Etopia Press.

"Analefa Miradwen has spent the last ten years avoiding vampires. She knows her blood is a delicacy, but she doesn’t want to share. Not after the last time, which nearly left her dead.

When the vampire mage Magnus begins stalking her, Ana turns to the King’s Enforcer for help. Vincent Ondarr has the manpower and the magic-power to keep her safe. According to him, Ana’s blood doesn’t just taste good, it enhances a mage’s magic.

The trouble is, Vincent’s a vampire mage too. If Ana wants to keep her blood to herself, she’ll have to figure out which one of them she can trust. And what exactly Magnus wants from her..."

For Review

2011-08-07T12:49:00.001+01:00

Nowhere Hall is going to the printers this week and Simon Marshall Jones (Spectral Press publisher and editor) is offering PDF copies to reviewers. If you're interested in a copy, contact Simon at spectralpress(at)gmail(dot)com with details of your blog or review site. And if you do take him up on the offer, thank you.

Also, David Hebblethwaite has reviewed Nowhere Hall. You can read it here...

In other Spectral Press news, head over to the website and check out Neil Williams' cover art for Paul Finch's chapbook King Death. It is a beautiful thing.

Sunbathing on Battlements

2011-08-06T10:30:00.002+01:00

It's time to get back on my hamster wheel and be a productive little critter for the next twelve months, or until Christmas. Christmas sounds good. Actually, Christmas sounds awful--cold and too much food and dark nights. If only it could be summer forever.

I've had a fantastic break from work, been to lovely and sunny places - I ♥ Wales - actually that statement isn't news as I've always loved Wales, but this year the sun shined and actually burnt. Burn is not good, especially when you're at an age were you should know better than to turn lobster red in the sun. Thankfully, the kids returned home pasty. My niece rubbed so much suntan lotion into her skin she was like a slippery eel.

We played in the sea, someone got pooped on by a loose-bowelled seagull, I won a big fluffy chimpanzee and a slightly-less fluffy dog and lost a fair few pounds in the process (the jangling kind), I griped about the price of candy floss (cotton candy) - £2.50 - what!!!! But thankfully, the candy floss on this side of the border was cheaper so I did have a bag or two in almost as sunny England.

I read, read, and read some more. Nearly a hundred short stories (Interzone, Black Static, The Zombie Feed, Never Again, Spook City, BFS Journal, Postscripts), devoured a graphic novel (Anya's Ghost) novellas (Unearthed, The Door to Lost Pages, No Traveller Returns) and novels (Water for Elephants, The Robe of Skulls), meaning I've made a dent in my to read pile. Albeit a tiny dent.

Writing-wise, I edited and edited and edited In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair, I completed a new short story Disregarding Rabbit Holes, started work on another short that is as yet untitled, and cut some words from the unfinished second draft of my novel The Ghosts of Folding Time and started layering in extra spookiness and removing a giant robot. And my story, His Name Carved on Empty Space, was accepted by Every Day Fiction (and will be published this Wednesday). There was Theatre and Nowhere Hall and Barbed Wire Hearts news, one of which involved the posting of signature sheets which I am eagerly awaiting delivery of.

If I owe you an email, I will get back to you very, very soon. My inbox is awash with goodness. Now to twitter... I mean, put my head down and write.

Elsewhere

2011-07-15T17:45:00.000+01:00

I am on holiday. Nowhere exotic or even far or even anywhere (except in my imagination). Books will be read. Short stories will be devoured. My office may be de-cluttered or re-cluttered and possibly ripped apart or left just as it is. There will be candyfloss (even if I have to buy it from the van that occasionally rolls into the estate) and ice cream, maybe some Edinburgh Rock. There will hopefully (rain allowing) be beaches and arcades and arms full of stupid soft toys from those grabby things that will end up in the kids toy box and possibly dissected. There may be museums or I might just brush the dust off my shoulders and pretend I'm an exhibit from the late 1980s sitting in a deckchair beside a sign that reads, Here There Be Weeds. And there will be writing, or planning, or both.

I shall see you all about the 7th or 8th of August. I'm actually looking forward to being unplugged, but I shall miss you all. Now it's time to sever my wireless box (this could take several hours).

The Results

2011-07-15T06:08:00.000+01:00

Thank you to everyone who entered my Nowhere Hall competition (and who bought the book). The winners are as follows:

Competition One:
A Spectral Press chapbook subscription goes to Katie Stubbs.

Competition Two:
Number one of my limited edition chapbook Nowhere Hall goes to Ray Cluley.

Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman

2011-07-10T18:21:00.001+01:00

A one sentence review of Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman would be...

A fekking brilliant short story collection.

A two sentence review would look like this...

A fekking brilliant short story collection. Or to put it eloquently - bloody marvellous.

And a slightly longer review...

I loved this book so much. I never re-read short stories or books, at least not since I was a kid, because there are so many books in my to read pile, and so many books I need to buy, and so many stories online, but I've found myself picking up Tiny Deaths again and again and trying to examine its brilliance.

The thing that stood out for me was the characterisation, sure the stories were weird and brilliant (but I read lots of weird, brilliant stories and write lots of weird stories), but the author had a knack of making me care about the protagonists and antagonists almost immediately, like within a paragraph. A damn paragraph and I'm already rooting for them. Now that's talent. He even made me love Hitler's dog.

Yeah, that's right, Hitler's dog.

Favourite stories were Mortal Coil, Perfect, Ashes to Ash, Stuff We Leave Behind, Favourite and Tiny Deaths. The book shall be leaving my greasy hands tomorrow because I need to pass on its magic. I suspect it's travelling to a worthy home. Of course, that's if I remember to put it in my bag.

Includes Luggage Tag

2011-07-08T19:26:00.000+01:00

Mark West has made a trailer for my forthcoming chapbook, Nowhere Hall...

...I heart modern technology.

And Mark has also added Nowhere Hall to Goodreads. Excellent.

A Barbed Wire Hearts Cover

2011-07-07T05:32:00.000+01:00

This is the cover of my novella forthcoming this November from Delirium Books

I think I'm in love.

The artist is Gak.

Oh my!

WIP Wednesday - Are you done, Kathleen Fair?

2011-07-06T11:54:00.000+01:00

Or maybe that should be titled, 'There's so much missing here, Kathleen Fair'.

The novellette/novella is complete at 14,537 words. Hearts, men and mirrors have broken, but fair Kathleen is the most lost of all.

Now to let it stew while I contemplate what happens in the bits between the bits or decide to lob off other bits.

The above was achieved with a little help from my friend, Freedom. Dude is a pain in the ass at times with his tough love, but in the end, when the universe restores, I appreciate his tenacity.

Goodreads - How do you score?

2011-07-04T15:01:00.033+01:00

I'm a fan of Goodreads - you can find me here.

Goodreads is a great place to get exposure for your books by way of competitions and also to find new books to read. Although, it might be an idea to stay away from the Never-Ending Book Quiz because it quite frankly, never ends. So far I've answered 1448 questions (how sad is that). Anyway, this blog post isn't about time wasting quizzes or discovering what an extraordinary guesser you are, it's about how you score books on Goodreads.

I personally follow Goodreads own markers for each star ie

★ didn't like it
★★ it was okay
★★★ liked it
★★★★ really liked it
★★★★★ it was amazing

...seems sensible to me. When I'm considering buying a book, I tend to check the reviews on Goodreads rather than Amazon, first off checking if any of my friends have read it and what they thought, and I'm constantly surprised by potential readers comments to three star reviews (and I'm not talking about anyone who visits here - that I'm aware of :D), alot of folk seem to think a three star review means the book isn't worth picking up. In my world it is. It means I liked it. Sure, I'm not going to rave about the book like I would a book I awarded five stars too, but hell, I'd sure pick up the author's next book or something from their back catalogue.

Actually, I'm likely to pick up another book from an author whose book I only gave 2 stars too because I rarely like everything an author has written ie I gave Stephen King's Desperation ★★★★★ and Dreamcatcher ★.

So, I was curious, how do you score?

And in other news, another fabulous review of Strange Men has appeared online, this time in Morpheus Tales and by Brett Taylor. Here's an extract (you'll can read the full review over at Morpheus Tales - page 9.

So who is Cate Gardner? A dotty eccentric of the English countryside, roaming the garden in search of fairies and magic moths? Or only a clever young lady amusing herself with her flights of fancy? Either way, Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits and Other Curious Things is worth a look. It shows mixing whimsy and the bizarre can be a higher art than just rewriting old classics with zombie jokes.

Did you notice the word young?

Full Fathom Forty

2011-07-03T07:36:00.002+01:00

My 1920s New York set weird fantasy House of Snowflakes has been accepted by David J Howe for the British Fantasy Society's 40th Anniversary anthology Full Fathom Forty. The anthology will be launched at Fantasycon this September.

Two acceptances in one week. I think I like this summer.

In other news, my lawnmower almost blew up and (it gets worse) I still had to do the garden using our rickety old lawnmower.

WIP Wednesday - The Freedom of Kathleen Fair

2011-06-29T12:40:00.001+01:00

On Monday, I discovered Freedom. Or rather, on Monday, I was brave enough or perhaps tired enough to finally download Freedom. For the uninitiated, Freedom is a computer program that blocks the internet and the only way to override the program is to switch off your computer and restart it (and I'm far too lazy to do that). You can set it for between 15 mins and 8 hours. So far I've set it twice for two hours, although I might go for four or five hours this weekend, and it works a treat. Both days I wrote a little over 2000 words in two hours; I don't think I've done that in years, at least not regularly. Of course, I shouldn't really tempt fate before I've tested it for a month or so, but so far...

...Fan*blinkin*tastic. I might conquer the world after all, or at least my 'to write' projects.

Thus, I am 5034 words into The Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair. So far the story has spun a web of gargantuan furniture, mirrors, Hellish graffiti, Perfume, a dead boy, and a girl who was supposed to be meek and mild yet somehow barraged into the story with her fists raised.

The manuscript currently hovers around the line: You should have run, Kathleen Fair.

In other exciting news, Daily Science Fiction have accepted my story Exit Stage Life. For a moment, I thought I might have amassed enough pro-pay wordage sales to upgrade my HWA membership to Active, but by my rough calculations I'm still about 300 words short. You need three pro-rate stories published amounting to 7500 words, and I have five pro-rate with about 7200 words. Damn my brevity.

Call Me Narcissus

2011-06-26T10:02:00.001+01:00

I am so in love with the title of my new story that I can't stop whispering it. This of course does not make for a productive writer, thus I am currently 654 words into In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair. I couldn't get the story plan to sit right until I found my main character's name, we ran the gamut from Gina to Erica to Erin (okay, not much of a gamut), but none of them fitted and then we came upon the name Kathleen and she is of course very, very fair.

In other news, I may just, eventually, maybe, you never know sit down and finish my ghostly time travel saga 'The Ghosts of Folding Time' which I started writing last November. I mean, we have an entire first draft and part of a second draft and a whole heap of madness. And then of course there are a bunch of grandfathers to deal with. In the meantime though, I should head downstairs and continue babysitting and watching Alvin and the Chipmunks for the hundredth time this weekend.

The Pinstripe Interview

2011-06-22T16:22:00.000+01:00

Angela Slatter, author of The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales, Sourdough and Other Stories and Black-Winged Angels has interviewed me over at her blog today for one of her infamous drive-by interviews.

You can also read her other drive-by interviews here with folk such as John Connolly, Cherie Priest, Catherynne M Valente, Simon Marshall Jones, Amanda Pillar, Nick Gevers, Lavie Tidhar, and many other awesome people.

A Post of Many Things

2011-06-21T14:53:00.001+01:00

I knew the people I followed and interacted with on Twitter were several shades of awesome, but they shone last night throwing a myriad of marvellous advice at this technophobic idiot. I'd downloaded the edits for Nowhere Hall and spent the day commenting on the editor's changes and saying what I agreed with, what I didn't agree with and changing things, then I closed the file and went to email it to the editor. Only wait, I couldn't find the file. I'd saved to the downloaded file rather than creating my own file in Word and my computer swallowed it into its nether regions never to be seen again. Serious panic attack until I gave up the hunt and decided to re-do the edits today. Thankfully, I remembered most of my comments and felt doubly sure about them after a sleep.

Aaron Polson announced yesterday that Amazon had made his book 'We are the Monsters' available for free and that he'd had over 6,000 downloads since. Although, I'd much prefer he was making loads of cash, I know that readers are Aaron's number one priority, so if you haven't previously read any of his work, now would be an excellent time to discover him.

And over at the Fae Awareness site (run by KV Taylor and Mark Deniz) they are running a competition in which you can win a chapbook. The competition is only open for a couple more hours and the link is here... And don't forget there's still plenty of time to enter my Spectral Press competition.

The Grandfather Problem

2011-06-19T16:28:00.000+01:00

My collection of grandfathers are still in the waiting area, just behind the active part of my brain. For those not in my head, I'm referring to my plan to write another MG book. Eventually. I haven't written a middle grade book since I finished tinkering with The Poisoned Apple (may it rest in pieces) and when I'm writing MG I need to concentrate on it fully or my MG voice bleeds into my short stories. Which isn't always bad, but can be a tad annoying (for me). To get me in the mood for writing a childrens' story, I've ordered Kate Milford's The Boneshaker which is almost a cheat buy as I've wanted to read it for ages.

In the meantime, I'm working on building the plan and mythology of the story that I mentioned on Wednesday - the one with perfume, balloons and the devil. I'm hoping I can expand the idea into a novella length story because there's this place I'm desperate to get into. Some of you know what that place is, but most of you don't. Ooh, I have my evil head on which must mean I'm almost ready to work on my kid's book. I'm always extra evil when I write for children.

Other books bought this week (because I've been extra naughty):
Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism by David Nickle
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Warm Bodies by Issac Marion
The Deathday Letter by Shaun Hutchinson
The Door to Lost Pages by Claude Lalumiere
The Faceless by Simon Bestwick (Preorder)

The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2010 - Paula Guran (Kindle)

Ooh, and I added to my to read pile, The Drowning Girl by Margaret Leroy, but I didn't buy that book, it was given to me and highly recommended.

I suspect I shouldn't buy any books for a while. My towering to read pile and my creaking bookcase agree with me. Plus my purse is chattering, 'Have you forgotten you need to redecorate your study and the bathroom and the kitchen isn't quite finished?' Next time, I'm buying a silent purse.

The Spectral Competition

2011-06-17T05:38:00.002+01:00

First off, look at my slightly updated cover and its blurb by Simon Bestwick. Not that I'm showing off or anything. You can read an interview with Simon at the Ginger Nuts website.

Now onto the almost as important bit... The competition. Or rather two competitions. One for those who bought Nowhere Hall and one for those who didn't (because I don't like to leave anyone out).

Competition One

As a thank you to everyone who snagged a copy of Nowhere Hall before it sold out, I'm offering the following prize:

A Spectral Press chapbook subscription, which will include the following books:

King Death by Paul Finch (released Dec 2011)
Rough Music by Simon Kurt Unsworth (released March 2012)
The Eyes of Water by Alison J Littlewood (released June 2012)
What Gets Left Behind by Mark West (released September 2012)

...all will be signed by the respective authors.

Competition Two:

And for those who missed out on a copy of Nowhere Hall because they sold so darn fast (what happened?), I am running a competition that is open to all.

As you may or may not know, Nowhere Hall is a limited edition of 100 and each copy will be signed and numbered. I'll be giving away number one with a special inscription by me but no doodles. I can't doodle.

So how do you enter? Send an email to catephoenix(at)gmail(dot)com saying if you are entering Competion One, Competition Two, or both and you're entered.

Closing date is midnight July 14th and prizes will be despatched at time of publication.

WIP - Building Bricks

2011-06-15T13:37:00.001+01:00

I'm trying a new approach, we'll label it How I Write Method 230. As most of you know, I had a wander along the corridors of Writers Block a couple of weeks ago and to help combat it (and to ensure I don't sit down to a blank screen), I'm building my ideas before I start to write them. And then, in the case of my just completed short story (Glimpses of Beauty through Bleached Bone - 3700 words), I may write some stories out of order. That is, when I'm stuck, I'm jumping to another scene where I know what happens. It worked for Beauty. So today, I am working on building a new short story something to do with perfume and balloons and the Devil.

In other news, there are just 3 copies of Nowhere Hall left. Thank you so much to everyone who has pre-ordered the chapbook. Three copies!!! Scratch that, Nowhere Hall has SOLD OUT! I think I owe quite a few people a drink should I ever meet them.

Nowhere Hall

2011-06-10T10:35:00.007+01:00

You may remember that last October I announced Spectral Press would be releasing my story Nowhere Hall as a chapbook, well that time is almost upon us. The chapbook will be published on September 5th and is now available to preorder. Here are the details:

The chapbook costs £3.50 UK / £4.50 EU / $8.00 US / $12 RoW (all prices included p&p). You can pay via paypal and the payment address is spectralpress(at)gmail(dot)com - please state that you are preordering Nowhere Hall.

If you don't have a paypal address or if you'd rather not pay the overseas postage cost (these things can get expensive) then email me at catephoenix(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll pre-order the book for you at the UK price and mail it to you in September.

Oh and the book is a signed limited edition of 100, but there are only 23* copies left thanks to a subscription deal Spectral Press are offering. More details about the subscription option are available at the Spectral Press website and include chapbooks by Paul Finch, Simon Kurt Unsworth, and Alison J Littlewood.

I've said it before but, gosh I do love Daniele Serra's cover.

*Mr. Marshall Jones (Spectral Press head honcho) has informed me that only 6 are left now. Thank you so much to all who have preordered the book.

The Universe Adores ME (today)

2011-06-09T16:42:00.001+01:00

I am pleased to announce that Jodi Lee has accepted my short story Weird Beautiful Muse for the first print issue of New Bedlam. Jodi invited me to write for the magazine a few months ago and I'm delighted that the story was accepted.

Not only did I find an acceptance in my email this morning, but also two letters from folk who'd read two of my short stories. One for The Forest of Discarded Hearts which was reprinted yesterday, and the other for my story Flying Dutchman which appeared in 'Space & Time.' I was almost speechless. I say almost because I did manage to twitter the fact, but seriously, the mouth flapped open. Totally overawed. A major thank you to them, and also a thank you to everyone who read or mentioned Forest yesterday. Much appreciated.I pretty much ♥ everyone in the world today. Well, almost everyone.

I was so giddy that I almost left the house wearing my slippers.

A Heartless Fairy Tale

2011-06-08T16:33:00.000+01:00

My fairy tale The Forest of Discarded Hearts is available to read over at the Fae Awareness site. The story was originally published in Three Crow Press and reprinted in my short story collection, Strange Men.

And if you've already read the story there's plenty of other Fae and Fairy Tale stuff for you to browse.

Blank Screen Syndrome

2011-06-06T16:47:00.002+01:00

You may have noticed that I've been quieter here and elsewhere, but then again, maybe you haven't. Reason: A demon stole my words.

I don't know what he/she looked like. There was no particular smell attached to them. They stole in while I was trying to compete in Short Story Month, gave me a nasty case of the Blahs and left me with Blank Screen Syndrome. Every day, I'd open my idea file and couldn't figure what the hell I was supposed to do with it. I mean... How do you start writing? It was like a totally alien concept. Even twittering inane things seemed like hard work and yet inane is supposed to be part of my make-up. And I've lost count of the amount of blog posts I read but didn't comment on.

I have never had writer's block like it. I'm not even certain I've had writer's block before. Freaky.

Anyhow, I've managed to steal a few words back. I started a new short story yesterday (Glimpses of Beauty through Bleached Bone) and I'm writing it in disjointed scenes rather than stressing about joining A to B to C and I'll patch it all together when it's done. And hopefully the other is done too.

If you're suffering Blank Screen Syndrome too, trust me, you'll find your way back to completing sentences and paragraphs, it's just a case of riding the wave. At the moment, I'm at dipping my toe in the sea stage and trying to remember how to float (I never could swim).

An Electronic Goodnight

2011-06-04T16:33:00.000+01:00

I've fallen out of love with my kindle.

I still appreciate it's good points, such as...

Reading it in bed. The kindle light (attached to it's fancy cover) means I can switch off the overhead light, so that when I'm feeling sleepy, I can put the kindle down and go to sleep, whereas before I had to get up and switch the bedroom light off and then I'd be awake again. I find it difficult to get to sleep.

It weighs the same no matter the size of the book making it ideal for my handbag. Although (because of the cover) a paperback is generally less trouble to carry.

And that is all. Maybe, I'm a bit thick (you don't say), but when I'm first reading a book I find myself turning to re-read the blurb about a dozen times. I swear no information stays in my brain for long, or I stop and stare at the cover, and I can't do that with the kindle. The book I'm currently reading on my kindle is.... Well, I can't say, because I've forgotten the title. It's one I downloaded on a whim and I can't remember what it's about and quite frankly, the text isn't helping the cause. I can't even figure out who the MC is with all the headhopping. No, that's not going to happen with every book, but still...

I much prefer paperbacks and hardbacks. When my kindle dies I may not replace it.

In other news, the fabulous Richard Baron left an awesome review of Strange Men on the Amazon UK site, and Gef Fox left one on the Amazon US site. Both on the paperback version. Because paperbacks rule.

A Seventies Disaster

2011-05-28T14:03:00.000+01:00

Gef Fox is running a competition over at his blog and one of the prizes is my book Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits, which you can win along with Camille Alexa's Push of the Sky. And if you already have one or both of those books, he's also running another competition where you can win the anthologies 52 Stitches and Courting Morpheus. And if you have all those books on your shelf (I do), then erm... You are extra awesome (except in the case of me, because I'm in two of them).

Hope you're enjoying your weekend. I'm vegging out and watching old movies. Just watched Bell, Book and Candle with Jimmy Stewart and next up is Airport--I love disaster movies. I love old seventies disaster movies.

Villainous Exploits Ahoy!

2011-05-23T18:42:00.000+01:00

A cast of characters are assembling in my room...

Clara Woods - a heroine
Billy Schaffer - best pal
Melville Blue - a villain

and a collection of grandfathers.

I'm in the mood for some silliness. This project is inspired by this post, features a reimagining of the short story from this post, and is taking me back to my poisoned roots.

In other news, I've edited one of my Short Story Month stories (Dreams of a Ragged Doll) and sent her on her merry way...

I'm Delirious (I must be)

2011-05-18T16:05:00.001+01:00

I've felt a little delirious since yesterday evening because (drum roll please)...

Shane Ryan Staley of Delirium Books has accepted my novella 'Barbed Wire Hearts' for the Delirium Novella Series. It will be appearing in November 2011.

Someone pinch me.