The Shining

The Folio society are giving away 10 signed copies of “The Shining” in a prize draw that closes on 30th June 2016. No purchase necessary. (Music to my ears).

Read more about the edition.

Enter the draw.

Something in the water? Liverpool and the Literary Fantastic

Friday 13th May is Liverpool’s LightNight- an event that takes place across the city.It’s billed as a late night arts & culture festival. You can go to a silent disco at Liverpool Central Library, take your kids to a drumming workshop at the Walker Art Gallery, join a writer’s group at the Liverpool Everyman or watch a live graffiti event.

The full programme :  http://www.lightnightliverpool.co.uk/about/

The University of Liverpool is taking part with:

“An Experimental Extravaganza of Art and Science”– make ice-cream with liquid nitrogen, make a Jaffa Cake battery or watch some Shakespeare.

“Plague Tales- pus, pits and powders” – from treatments by powdered unicorn horn to current plague research.

“Meroe – Africa’s Forgotten Empire”  – a fabled city in ancient Sudan that lay undisturbed for 2000 years before being excavated in the early 1900s.

“Something in the water? Liverpool and the Literary Fantastic” – A lecture by Andy Sawyer, the Science Fiction Collections Librarian at the Special Collections and Archives, University of Liverpool Library. He is responsible for the Science Fiction Foundation Collection, the largest resource of sf and material about sf in the UK. Until 2012, Andy was Course Director of the MA in Science Fiction Studies offered by the School of English, University of Liverpool. He curated the British Library’s sf exhibition, “Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it.”

“The talk and display will discuss Merseyside’s connection with writers of the fantastic:

• the pre-war Liverpool sf fan group out of which a host of British science fiction writers came
• Olaf Stapledon, who whose epic future-history influenced a young Arthur C. Clarke
• modern writers of the fantastic such as Clive Barker, Stephen Baxter, and Ramsey Campbell, winner of the World Fantasy Society’s lifetime achievement award
• The Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool

We’ll also celebrate a new generation of sf and fantasy writers such as Priya Sharma and Debbie Johnson, comic book stars such as Leah Moore, John Reppion, Tim Quinn and John Higgins, and film greats such as Alex Cox.”

Details of the University of Liverpool’s programme: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/lightnight/

 

Shortlisted for Saboteur Awards

Congratulations and good luck to Haunt on being shortlisted for the 2016 Saboteur Awards.

In Haunt’s own words:

“Harrogate is known for its past as a wealthy spa town, and still has a reputation as a genteel place of tea rooms and flower shows.

This is not the Harrogate of everyone. For some people this idealised history is a haunting presence in their lives. In the fabric of buildings where they live in one room, or the parks where they sleep. Their experiences are muffled beneath the dominant voice of Harrogate.

Haunt explores how people who are homeless, or bedsit residents, live inside these ghosts of the town’s past. Haunt gives people a place to tell stories not normally heard within the accepted narrative of the town and bring them to a wider audience.”

http://www.imovearts.co.uk/current-projects/haunt/
https://harrogatehaunt.wordpress.com/

Haunt

This weekend we received the fantastic news that Haunt is shortlisted for the 2016 Saboteur Awards in the category of Best Collaborative Work.

To just get shortlisted in such good company is brilliant, but to win would be amazing.

So many people have collaborated on Haunt, from our lead writers, Steve and Becky (who have both experinced homelessness and vulnerable housing themselves, and Tessa Gordziejko and Elenid Davies from Imove, to Paul Floyd Blake who took the photos for the anthology.

We have also collaborated with Bean and Bud to exhibit Paul Floyd Blake’s photos alongside writing from the project, with Harrogate Homeless Project and Foundation UK to find participants who wanted to be part of Haunt. Bean and Bud, and Corrina’s Homeless and Vulnerable Project let us host pop-up readings. Harrogate Museums have included work from Haunt in their Harrogate Stories exhibition, putting the experiences of our participants at…

View original post 155 more words

The Shirley Jackson Awards

 

I am tremedously proud to be included in the novelette category for the Shirley Jackson Awards 2105 with Fabulous Beasts which appeared on Tor.com in July 2015. I can’t say thank you enough to my editor Ellen Datlow  (who is also nominated for The Doll Collection- see below) and Tor.com for taking this story.

The gorgeous artwork is by Jeffrey Alan Love.

Shirley Jackson wrote the marvellous The Haunting of Hill House and We Always Lived in the Castle, as well as numerous short stories including The Lottery which appeared in The New Yorker in 1948.

“In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards were established in 2007 for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.”  (From the Shirely Jackson Awards website)

Nominees and the final winners are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics and academics.

Massive congratulations to all the 2015 Shirley Jackson Awards nominees:

NOVEL

Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Press)

Experimental Film, Gemma Files (ChiZine Publications)

The Glittering World, Robert Levy (Gallery)

Lord Byron’s Prophecy, Sean Eads (Lethe Press)

When We Were Animals, Joshua Gaylord (Mulholland Books)

 

NOVELLA

The Box Jumper, Lisa Mannetti (Smart Rhino)

In the Lovecraft Museum, Steve Tem (PS Publishing)

Unusual Concentrations, S.J. Spurrier (Simon Spurrier)

The Visible Filth, Nathan Ballingrud (This Is Horror)

Wylding Hall, Elizabeth Hand (PS Publishing-UK/Open Road Media-US)

 

NOVELETTE

“The Briskwater Mare,” Deborah Kalin (Cherry Crow Children, Twelfth Planet Press)

“The Deepwater Bride,” Tamsyn Muir (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July-August 2015)

“Even Clean Hands Can Do Damage,” Steve Duffy (Supernatural Tales #30, Autumn)

“Fabulous Beasts,” Priya Sharma (Tor.com, July 2015)

“The Thyme Fiend,” Jeffrey Ford (Tor.com, March 2015)

 

SHORT FICTION

“A Beautiful Memory,” Shannon Peavey (Apex Magazine)

“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” Alyssa Wong (Nightmare)

“Seven Minutes in Heaven,” Nadia Bulkin (Aickman’s Heirs)

“The Dying Season,” Lynda E. Rucker (Aickman’s Heirs)

“Wilderness,” Letitia Trent (Exigencies)

 

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Stephen King (Scribner)

The End of the End of Everything, Dale Bailey (Arche Press)

Get in Trouble, Kelly Link (Random House)

Gutshot, Amelia Gray (FSG Originals)

The Nameless Dark – A Collection, T.E. Grau (Lethe Press)

You Have Never Been Here, Mary Rickert (Small Beer Press)

 

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas (Undertow Publications)

Black Wings IV, edited by S.T. Joshi (PS Publishing)

The Doll Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)

Exigencies, edited by Richard Thomas (Dark House Press)

Seize the Night, edited by Christopher Golden (Gallery)