Thanks to Simon Bestwick for including me in his mini-interview series, What’s New?, with writers. Find out What’s New? with me.
Other authors interviewed are Damien Angelica Walters, Ray Cluley, Joely Black, Penny Jones, Gwendolyn Kiste, Thana Niveau, John Llewellyn Probert, and Kristi DeMeester.
Shock Against Racism is a group of network of horror writers, artists and fans against racism and the far right. It was started by Simon Bestwick and you can read more about it on his blog.
Two events have been organised and I am delighted to be involved in the one in Liverpool.
LIVERPOOL
“Four of Merseyside’s finest authors of the dark, the frightening and the just plain strange join forces in SHOCK AGAINST RACISM. Cate Gardner, Simon Bestwick, Priya Sharma and the legendary Ramsey Campbell will be here to read tales of the macabre and to talk about their lives and work. Entry on the door is £3.00 and all proceeds from this event will be donated to Hope Not Hate.”
BRIGHTON
“SHOCK AGAINST RACISM, a group of horror writers opposed to fascism, presents an evening of dark fiction in memory of socialist author and poet Joel Lane (1963-2013).”
Featuring readings from Rosanne Rabinowitz, V.H. Leslie and Tom Johnstone.
£3 entry on the door, proceeds to Brighton Anti-Fascists. Hosted by Writers’ Bloc
7.30pm, Sunday 25th November, Cowley Club, 12 London Road, Brighton.
One great thing about visiting the dealers’ room at British Fantasy Con (FCon) is that it reminds me how passionate people are who dedicate their time and energy to the small press and how much people still love the printed page.
I’m proud to have had work in TTA Press– I love it because there’s nothing quite like it publishing short genre fiction in the UK. Andy Cox, the editor, has an eclectic eye for work and high production values. Interzone, Black Static and Crime Wave win awards, as do the stories that Andy chooses.
As a horror fan, Black Static has contained some amazing stories that have stayed with me, such as “White Rabbit” by Georgina Bruce (British Fantasy Award Winner in the short story category) , “Shark! Shark!” by Ray Cluley (BFA Winner short story) , “When the Moon Man Knocks” by Cate Gardner (BFA nominated), “Sunshine” by Nina Allan (BFA nominated), “Lullaby” by Steve Rasnic Tem, “Prespective” by Steve. J. Dines, just to name a few. It features work by a plethora of talent like Simon Bestwick, Stephen Bacon, Stephen Hardagon, Laura Mauro, Damien Angelica Walters, Kristi Demeester, Helen Marshall, Andrew Hook, Ralph Robert Moore, Gary McMahon, Stephen Graham Jones…
The 60th issue is now out and contains excellent work by Ray Cluley, Stephen Hargadon and Tim Lees. It also contains the tremendous “Skyshine (or Death by Scotland)” by Carole Johnstone. I become a fangirl after reading her BFA winning story “Signs of the Times”, which was also first published in Black Static. There was a real buzz around “Skyshine” at the conference and I read it when I got home. It’s early to start talking about next year’s awards but I think it would be criminal if this wasn’t nominated. It’s inventive, clever and wry. Oh, and new subscribers can get Issue 60 free by using “B60 FREE” as their Shopper Reference during the checkout.
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I read “The Beauty” by Aliya Whiteley, published by Unsung Stories last year. It was a stunning bit of work about men in a post-woman society, that manages to be both body horror and an exploration of gender roles. I wanted to buy everything on the stand at FCon. In fact, I was deeply put out to find Malcom Devlin’s debut collection, “You Will Grow Into Them”, was sold out by the time I got there. It’s already garnering praise – see James Lovegrove’s review in the Financial Times, no less.
Did I also mention their books are also extremely handsome?
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Daniele Serra won a British Fantasy Award this year for his artwork. I came home with a copy of “Five Feathered Tales” by Alison Littlewood, which Daniele illustrated. It truly is a thing of beauty and Alison’s stories are delicate and dark. Incidentally, I also bought her new novel “The Crow Garden” after I enjoyed “The Hidden People”.
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Black Shuck Books is a relatively new venture from Steve Shaw that launched an 
anthology at FCon called “The Dark Satanic Mills”. It’s the second in his annual collection showcasing British writers (plus an international one), containing original work by Cate Gardner, Charlotte Bond, Paul Finch, Andrew Freudenberg, Gary Fry, Carole Johnstone, Penny Jones, Gary McMahon, Marie O’Regan, John Llewellyn Probert and Angela Slatter. Steve also launched John Lllewellyn Probert’s collection “Made for the Dark”.
Black Shuck’s catalogue is interesting. I’m thinking of Black Shuck Shadows, micro-collections by Thana Niveau, Paul Kane and Joseph D’Lacey. “A Suggestion of Ghosts: Supernatural Fiction by Women 1826-1897” is curated by the very knowledgeable Johnny Mains, who has scoured periodicals, archives and collections for work that hasn’t been republished since it was first released.
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Another launch that I attended was Titan Books’ New Fears, edited by Mark Morris. It’s a stellar line-up with writers like Ramsey Campbell, Nina Allan, Conrad Williams, A.K. Benedict, Alison Littlewood and Stephen Laws, to name a few.
For an alternative Halloween read, I’d suggest Simon Bestwick’s “The Feast of All Souls”, which pulls off the trick of being a haunted house story, a Victorian gothic novel, flirts with quantum physics and is a study of loss. Another recommendation would be Laura Mauro’s novella “Naming the Bones”. I’ve watched her career with interest as she’s a fine writer.
While at FCon I saw James Everington read from his novel “The Quarantined City”, in which the protagonist’s search for an author takes him deep into the man’s short stories. James Everington’s fiction is quiet and unsettling, having drawn very favorable attention from The Guardian reviewer Eric Brown. I have to mention Kit Power at this point too, who has a very different (set of) voices, all of them convincing, and who is the only person at the convention who could carry off a reading with a hammer in his hand. His collection will be out next year.
Book Trailer for Devil’s Highway, the second novel in the acclaimed Black Road Quartet by Simon Bestwick.
https://theblackroadsite.wordpress.com/
This is Horror features an interview with the legendary Ramsey Campbell by Simon 
Bestwick, which you can read here.
Ramsey Campbell was described by the Oxford Companion to English Literature as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. PS Publishing are about to release his novel, “The Searching Dead”, the first in a trilogy.
Simon’s a regulat blogger and this week his post is entitled 10 Great Modern Horror Stories for Halloween.
Am delighted to be in there with “Fabulous Beasts”.
Andy Cox has celebrated the 50th issue of Black Static with a fantastic line up of fiction by Georgina Bruce, V.H. Leslie, Ray Cluley, Gary Budden, Tyler Keevil and Tim Casson, alongside columns by Stephen Volk and Lynda E. Rucker, DVD reviews by Tony Lee and reviews by Peter Tennant – which includes a feature on Simon Bestwick.
![903_large[1]](https://priyasharmafiction.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/903_large1.jpg?w=212&h=300)
Black Static Issue 50 with cover art by Vince Haig
I’m also very pleased to see the magazine being featured in the mainstream press. Damien Walter’s article The ominous ordinary: horror writers finding scares in the everyday praises Andy Cox’s vision, Georgina Bruce for “undermining our faith in the ordinary” and Simon Bestwick’s work as “the most engaged with ordinary British life of any horror writer working today”.
The Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, based at Manchester Metropolitan University, has launched its second Gothic Manchester Festival. Its programme includes a tour of the John Rylands Library (a neo-Gothic stunner), a Victorian lantern show, an afternoon of Steampunk and panel discussions by the UK’s leading scholars on a variety of subjects around Gothic art, literature and architecture and its influence on modern culture.
Iwent to Twisted Tales of Austerity, an event at Manchester’s Waterstones hosted by Twisted Tales exploring how the Gothic can critique the current mainstream political consensus surrounding poverty and the welfare state. There were readings by authors from Horror Uncut: Tales of Social Insecurity and Economic Unease, followed by a panel discussion and Q&A.
Twisted Tales of Austerity
Left: Tom Johnstone
Centre: Rosanne Rabinowitz,
Right: Lauro Mauro
Tom Johnstone, the anthology’s co-editor, read Joel Lane’s “A Cry for Help”, the final sentence of which packed a hard punch. Rosanne Rabinowitz, a Shirley Jackson Award nominee, read from her affecting story, “Pieces of Ourselves”. My personal favourite was Lauro Mauro’s “Ptichka”, which was a vivid and visceral piece of writing about an immigrant who finds herself pregnant in a post-NHS Britain.
It was also great to catch up with Simon Bestwick, who also contributed to the anthology, Cate Gardner and Roy Gray from TTA Press.
A reprint of my own story, “The Ballad of Boomtown”, is also included in the volume.
A note on Cate Gardner: She quietly gets on and does her thing. And what a thing! Cate’s shy about it though. She’ll never tell you that Damien Walter (of The Guardian) listed her Theatre of Curious Acts in the top five of his Indie Sci-Fi and Fantasy Hunt.
Twisted Tales aims to promote horror across a range of different media, from live events across the North West to critical reviews. It was founded by David McWilliam (a doctoral student and Associate Lecturer at Lancaster University, Liverpool John Moores University, and Manchester Metropolitan University) and Glyn Morgan (Ph.D researcher and tutor at the University of Liverpool) in 2010.
priya sharma fiction 