Ghosts

Happy to announce that my short story Ghosts of Cathedral Towers has been accepted by Graeme Hurry at KZine for a future issue - at this moment we are looking at January 2021.

First acceptance of the year.

Signal Failure

So I don't post for months and then when I do I'm all look at me. Well not quite look at me because I'm hiding behind a cupboard and refusing to have my photo taken or come out and say hello to anyone. Don't worry, I'm happy there. Just post some cake under the cupboard. Actually don't, too much cake is partially the reason that I'm hiding behind said cupboard and possibly why I'm stuck.

So the reason for my look at me post. I sold a story to POSTSCRIPTS! In the Macabre Theatre of Nightshade Place should appear in the summer/autumn of 2015. 

It will be my third story in Postscripts. The Hollow Framework for the Cotton Man appeared in Oct 2010 and Hand Scratched Note in Dec 2009, back in the heady days of when I used to send stories out all the time. I can't believe how long ago that was. Hangs head in shame and knocks forehead against the back of the cupboard.

The Return

Once upon a time a story appeared in a chapbook all of its own and its author, back then in disguise as her minion Catherine J Gardner, was rather excited about the event. It was the first time her name and only her name had appeared on a book and she never thought that would happen ever...like ever ever...and she still can't believe that it has happened again on four occasions. Of course, she is convinced that is that and she should hug her little books to her chest and never expect any more. Except in her dreams...

...because it never hurts to dream.

Anyway, she loved the story of Olive Lemon so much that she typed it up at the end of last year with the intention of sending it out into the world again as a reprint, only she never did until someone awesome invited her to write something for a magazine and she dared to ask if they'd read Olive's tale, thus...

Joe Pulver read and accepted The Sour Aftertaste of Olive Lemon for Phantasmagorium of which he has recently taken over editorial duties from Laird Barron. It will appear in print this May along with work from Cody Goodfellow, Ann K Schwader, Edward Morris and Michael Cisco.

Excited...some.

That's my third acceptance this month.

Creepy-Crawlies

Bernie Mojzes and A.C. Wise have accepted my story The Familiar Buzz of Gone for The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. Happy dance with added flapping of wings.

The current issue contains a story by the awesome E. Catherine Tobler. And the issue my story is in will have a story by Amanda C. Davis (one of my favourite short story writers - and trust me her story Drift is killer).

The Mechanical Heart of Him

I am delighted to announce that the folk at Daily Science Fiction have accepted my short story The Mechanical Heart of Him.

Third acceptance of the year. Need to write more short stories. Bites fingernails and looks at looming deadlines...no, seriously, I do. Writers should be given special clocks at birth that they can use to slow down time when they have a ton of things to write.

This will be my second story published at Daily Science Fiction. My previous story Exit Stage Life (a very wee flash) was published last September.

A Season in Carcosa

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.

Something Wicked

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.

Full Fathom Forty

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

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.

The Universe Adores ME (today)

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.

WIP Wednesday - Cream Tea, Ashes and Shipwrecks

I'm certain today is Tuesday. I think I have sugar brain due to cake consumption--my friend's birthday; she is now very old as I told her many times during the day. I think she hates me a little now but then she did feed me cake and we all know that is a bad thing to do. I think I have whipped cream oozing from my ears.

So if it is Wednesday, then I should tell you all the wonderful things about my WIP - Of Wrecks, White Noise and Abandoned Beaches. It's a short story. It has a complete first draft that needs an injection of subplot. There are lots of seashells. There are not so many people. It is not as cool as the picture to the right. I must work to make it cooler. Is that even possible?

In other news, my short story 'And, the Bride Wore Ashes' has sold to Phantasmacore. Bride takes place inside a snowglobe (as all good stories must) and is populated by a girl, a jilted Buster Keatonesque groom and a wedding dress made of moths. It should be online in March.

Theatre of Published Books

Drumroll please... (I ask for a lot of these but this time it's appropriate)

Theatre of Curious Acts is to be published by Hadley Rille Books as a novella in 2011.

I am sooooooooo excited.

Theatre is my NaNoWriMo novel from 2008. Originally it sat at just over 50,000 words, but after a recent rejection from a publisher (that story expands a little) I edited it down to 42,000 words.

Last week the original publisher (who shall remain unnamed but I will say, they're an awesome company) contacted me to ask if Theatre was still available, and that if it was they'd like to publish it. I went into a panic. Then I calmed down. Then I contacted Hadley Rille, explained the situation and they offered to read Theatre right away and the rest as they say, is history. Quite literally...

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 old friends, fellow soldiers, are lured into a surreal otherworld. Travelling through this strange land they come upon  the four horsewomen of the apocalypse, dragons, the steam trains of the Anabiosis station and their ghostly passengers, ancient warriors and a pirate ship waiting to ferry them to the end of the world.


Now Daniel must fight to save a world he wants no part of, and worse, he is about to fall in love with Death.

Many, many thanks to Eric T Reynolds and Rob Darnell.

Now I shall have cake.

When Dark Things Escape

Michelle Garren Flye and the other wonderful folk over at Dark Recesses Press have accepted my story 'Events at the Wigwam Rock Diner, Nevada' for a future issue.

Events is the tale of a girl, her dog Bacteria, eyeballs and a Paiute myth.

In other news, I have declared this week officially the first week of the year, well it is Chinese New Year on Sunday. I insist that you humour me.

WIP Wednesday - A Hint of Blue Sky

My laptop is switched on, there are words on the screen and up until a few minutes ago, I was writing - honest. I'm midway through a rewrite of Dead Sharp Tail (kind offer to allow me to fix the story and try again received this morning), I'm 900 words into the first draft of When Orange Lanterns Lit the World (a dystopian short), and panicking that I won't have any ideas/time to write something for 'Retro Spec' which will close to submissions in about a week. Cue palpitations.

And despite God forgetting to send the memo re the permanent change of the sky from blue to grey, there was a quick flash of sunlight from my inbox this afternoon. The Tangled Bank have accepted my short, The Sound of Sharp Voices, for their anthology. Nice.

Flash Friday

Some of you will have read my story Lonesome Pine already in the fabulous 'Northern Haunts' anthology, and for those of you who haven't, the story has today been reprinted in Flashes in the Dark.

I'd love it if you could leave a comment on the site and tell me how wonderful, amazing, talented, fantastic... You get the picture. Of course if you hate it, I have no objection to you saying that either - but I will hunt you down.

First Acceptance of the Month*

The key to getting an acceptance: stop obsessing about them and they roll in.**

Okay, crawl in might be a more appropriate word. After two rewrites (yep, you read the math right) Leviathan's Moving Theatre has been accepted by Every Day Fiction. Publication date as yet unknown.

*Title guaranteed to anger Publishing Gods
**Not guaranteed to work.

Marching On... (Groan!)

Fantasy Magazine have adopted a Clarkesworld like submissions tracker so you can now submit through the site. I find these things addictive. It's a long way from the bad old days when you had to submit everything by snail mail, only it wasn't 'snail' then, just plain old mail. I know things can disappear into the ether with emails, but back then the post office could lose them for decades. At the moment I'm number 7 in line at Clarkesworld for a rejection, I mean consideration.

In other Fantasy news, if you have the time, I highly recommend checking out The Adventures of Petal, the Paperdoll Pirate by Paul Jessup. Wonderful, surreal, and engaging.

And in YAY! news: 'See Saw' - a humorous, dark sci-fi tale - sold to M-Brane SF yesterday. Nice start to the month.

New Bedlam

A couple of weeks ago the fabulous Jodi Lee invited me to write a story for her New Bedlam project. It's a new webzine which opens for submissions on April 1st. I was grinning from ear to ear when I read the invite, until my knees started knocking. What if she didn't like my story? Well she did, and this morning I received an acceptance for 'Insomniac Ink'. I believe it goes live on April 1st, but don't quote me on that.

So dudes, dudettes and serious horror writers start writing something for when they open for submissions in April. Working alongside Jodi are Louise Bohmer, Brandon Layng and Jeff Parish. Now that's a quartet to impress.

Insert Evil Laugh

Two more acceptances this morning - she says in a nonchalant tone as if it's a normal occurence.

Flash Scribe has accepted 'The Man who Climbed out of a Suitcase' and 'The Man who Wasn't a Man at all'. You can probably guess from the titles that the stories are connected to each other. I was having so much fun writing them, I could have gone on writing and writing little stories set in the same universe, but I stopped myself and waited to see if the first two stories were accepted.

Did you believe me when I said I wasn't going to write anymore shorts this month? ::Insert Evil Laugh Here:: Fools!

Picture Me Dancing

You know that little Snoopy smilie that does a happy dance? Well imagine it dancing here. The Scratch of an Old Record has just been accepted by the fantastic folk at Necrotic Tissue for their first print issue, due July 2009. Yep, that's right, first print issue.

Issue 6 (due April) will mark the end of the pdf version and the beginning of a fabulous new era. Subscriptions will be available from March.