Other Folk

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..."

Six Red Pennies

Releasing a major-squee. My short story, Postcard Wings above Blackpool Sands, is to appear in issue one of KV Taylor's The Red Penny Papers - I should book a train seat and celebrate atop the legendary Blackpool Tower.

Beware, champagne corks (or more likely candy floss sticks) expected to tumble down mid party.

*Side Note: When the tower opened in 1893 it cost sixpence to go to the top - I wonder if they were red?

Somebody Else Saturday - KV Taylor

Post Subtitle: Where's Wes Craven when you need him?

After a week of 'look at me, look at me', it's time to concentrate on someone else for the weekend. Drum roll please. The victim this week is KV Taylor, you can call her Katey.

I already knew Katey was super cool, not only does she know a heck of a lot about dead composers and dead artists (for which we could point at her and call her a zombie lover, because although they're dead, their souls continue - did someone just vomit at the back), but our Katey also follows the hippest new bands and is a comic book geek.

Cool, hippest - just set me up a room in the geriatric ward.

Anyhow, when she posted a previously published story, Lime Green Closet, on her blog a few days ago, I figured it would be an enjoyable lunch time read. What I didn't expect was to carry it to bed with me. Now I don't mean I lay there looking at the closet worrying about monsters (or white paper in the dark). For one thing I'm a Brit, we don't have closets in our bedrooms. Well most of us don't (we ignore the rich). The one we do have (we call our closet a cloakroom) lives at the bottom of the stairs and was giving me no cause for worry at all.

A pause for you to digest my rambling. Hope the glass from the computer screen didn't scratch your throat.

While fighting insomnia, I began to replay the story as a Twilight Zone episode and thought it would make a good creepy movie. I mean expand on it, and write the screenplay already. Oh right, she's working on a book (The Resurrectionists - of which you can read snippets every Wednesday on her blog), but I'm sure she has time to ring around Hollywood or some cool Japanese studio and get this story made into a movie for me.

And to end the abuse of Katey, she's also a Morrigan Books twice published author. You can find her short stories in the anthologies, Voices and Grants Pass. I'd say go check her out, but most of you know her already.

Book Trailer Tuesday

Over at Danette Haworth's blog, Courtney Summers has posted an excellent post about how to make a book trailer. Excellent advice. I so want to make one now, even though I haven't got a book. Sigh! How about a trailer for a flash story? How bizarre would that be? And it'd probably be longer than the story. Sorry, wittering on...

Now check out this fabulous trailer for the Grants Pass anthology from Morrigan Books. Featuring a story by the wonderful, KV Taylor. Go buy a copy, now.

Promotion & Relegation

Remember that anthology titled 'The Age of Blood & Snow' with the gorgeous cover designed by Nikki Phillips? There is a Press Release regarding its demise over at the Morrigan Books website. The anthology is to be repackaged with a different title and cover so at the moment it is still all systems go and my story, When the Cloak Falls, should be appearing in the new anthology.

I've known for about a week but had to wait for the official announcement before I blabbed. Jeez, it's been hard holding onto my water. :)

In other Morrigan news. The below books are available for pre-order:

VOICES

In every room, there is a story. In this hotel, the stories run to the wicked and macabre. Well-crafted psychological and supernatural horror offerings await you, each written by a master storyteller. Whether you are looking to be shocked, disturbed or out-right frightened, Voices will have something to titillate your nerves and make your hair stand up on end. Leave the lights on and brew a strong cup of tea, the voices in the room plan on keeping you up all night.

It includes stories by KV Taylor, Gary McMahon, Paul Kane and many others.


HOW TO MAKE MONSTERS by Gary McMahon

Since the dawn of mankind, we have always made our own monsters: the terrors of capitalism and corruption, the things between the cracks, the ghosts of self…terrible beasts of desire, debt, regret, racism…of family ties, and the things that get in the way of our aspirations…the familiar monsters of our own faces, of tradition, rejection, and the darkness that lives deep inside our own hearts…

Can you identify the component parts of your own monster?

Can you afford to pay the dreadful price of its construction?

A good way to start the week

YAY! The fabulous KV Taylor has posted a review of my flash story Burying Sam on her blog.

Katey has stories forthcoming in the Voices and Harvest Hill anthologies. Two books already on my to buy list.