Darker Companions

This came out a little while ago from PS Publishing but I've only just received my author copy. It's a fine-looking book, and published to celebrate 50 years of Ramsey Campbell's fiction being published. And here's to another few decades of the same!

Ramsey's work has always been a huge inspiration to me, and everything I write carries his influence. he's my favourite writer. His work has always shaded how I see the world.

My story "There, There" combines my personal experiences of house-sharing in London with the influence of Ramsey's short tales upon my own work. I didn't try to ape his prose or literary ticks - I'm not capable of doing so without the result being weak and hollow. Instead, I just sat down and thought about the man's work, how it influences my own writing, and tried to tell my own story but with Ramsey Campbell in mind.

I hope you enjoy the result.

Here's the table of contents:

• Introduction: Hymns from the Church in High Street by Scott David Aniolowski 
• Holoow by Michael Wehunt 
• The Long Fade into Evening by Steve Rasnic Tem 
• Asking Price by S.P. Miskowski 
• Author! Author?  by John Llewellyn Probert 
• Meriwether by Michael Griffin 
• The Entertainment Arrives by Alison Littlewood 
• Premeditation by Marc Laidlaw 
• A Perfect Replica by Damien Angelica Walters 
• There, There by Gary McMahon 
• We Pass from View by Matthew M. Bartlett 
• Meeting the Master by Gary Fry 
• Saints in Gold by Kristi DeMeester 
• This Last Night in Sodom by Cody Goodfellow 
• The Whither by Kaaron Warren 
• Uncanny Valley by Jeffrey Thomas 
• The Dublin Horror by Lynda E. Rucker 
• The Sixth Floor by Thana Niveau 
• The Carcass of the Lion by Christopher Slatsky 
• The Granfalloon by Orrin Grey 
• Little Black Lamb by Adam L G Nevill 

April 2018

Wow. How is it April already?

I've spent the past three months suffering from health problems - severe colds, followed by a full-blown case of the flu that put me out of action for about five weeks. So naturally my writing and fitness goals have suffered.

I've had three stories accepted for publication in forthcoming anthologies:

• Guising - The Alchemy Book of Horrors
• The Hanging Boy - The Black Room Manuscripts
• Outside - as-yet-untitled anthology project

More on these projects as and when information becomes available.

I'm slowly limbering up to restarting work on a novel called Little Red House. I have a lot of ideas and some good notes. I just need to get my aim right and find an interesting way of telling the story.

It isn't strictly horror, but it isn't not horror either (if that makes any sense). It's a dark-edged tale of absent fathers, human trauma, and the stories we tell ourselves to get through the night. Hopefully I can do it justice and finally get some words down on the project.