These Foolish & Harmful Delights

Behold the beauty that is the cover art for my collection 'These Foolish & Harmful Delights'. Cover artist is the immensely talented Daniele Serra, and the publisher is the wonderful Fox Spirit.

More news to follow.

The Mute Swan

I am delighted to announce that my story The Mute Swan set in my lovely town of Wallasey and New Brighton will appear in Paul Finch's Terror Tales series, Terror Tales of Northwest England.

The anthology (available to pre-order from Amazon) due out on October 1st features stories by Simon Bestwick, Stephen Gallagher, Ramsey Campbell, Paul Finch, Anna Taborska, Simon Kurt Unsworth and John Travis, amongst others.

Here is an extract from my story:

Carys screamed.

Feathers rained from the costume, carpeting the floor with swan. Carys tore at the dress, at the bodice too tight for her expanding frame. The tips of the feathers pricked her arms, as if inking a message on skin, transforming it. Scream hitched against her throat. She coughed blood onto the bones of the dress. If she snapped the bodice, it would cover her front, her burgeoning chest, but little else. She stretched her neck. The scream would not stop.

So you want to get published?

Adrienne Kress, author of Alex & The Wigpowder Treasure and the upcoming Timothy & The Dragon's Gate, has an interesting blog post about the road to publication, titled: So you want to get published... from agent to publisher. Go check it out.

Oh, and I love the new blogger feature (see right, down a bit) where you can set up your favourite blog list to show when someone has just posted. Saves me clicking down the whole list every morning.