2008 is already shaping up better than I could have hoped for.

I've just been informed by multi-award-winning editor Ellen Datlow that she's picked up my story HUM DRUM for THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY & HORROR #21. The story features Thomas Usher, my reluctant down-at-heel psychic detective, and first appeared in last year's rather excellent THE FIRST HUMDRUMMING BOOK OF HORROR. Look out for a collection of stories featuring Thomas Usher from pendragon Press in 2009...

Out now: THE SECOND BLACK BOOK OF HORROR, featuring my story BLACK GLASS.

A new ghost story, Road Flowers, will appear in a future issue of All Hallows, the journal of the Ghost Story Society.

It's been a while since the last update but I have several items to report:

SLAP, a supernatural story about the youth craze of 'happy-slapping' will appear soon in BLACK STATIC.

SEEN THROUGH FLAME is scheduled to appear in CITY SLAB later this year.

I've sold a new story called PROOF to an anthology called APPARITIONS. I can't say too much about this project, but it promises to have a cracking line-up. Publication will be early 2009.

WE FADE TO GREY, my editorial debut, will be published by Pendragon Press in September of this year, launching at FantasyCon in Nottingham. Five long stories by Paul Finch, Simon Bestwick, Stuart Young, Mark West and myself, with a terrific introduction by Mark Morris, this will be Pendragon's first hardback release. I'm very proud of it and hope it'll do well.

In 2009 Pendragon will also publish a collection of mine called TO USHER, THE DEAD. This will feature 10 or 11 stories about my reluctant psychic detective Thomas Usher. One of the tales, HUM DRUM, was first published in THE FIRST HUMDRUMMING BOOK OF HORROR, but most of the others will be original to this collection.

And finally, an update on my novel, RAIN DOGS. This is now set for a June/July publication. More news soon.