Writing Update

This month I've managed to finish the 11,000-word first draft of a project that's been on my mind for years.

The First Road to Hell is an epistolary novelette about a man trying to locate a "lost film" directed in 1981 by his late father. The film was an Italian cannibal movie, but it's reputation is one of  real life debauchery and bloodshed. The story is made up from sections of an article the protagonist is writing, extracts from interviews with various people who knew his father, and his own fragmented thoughts as he searches for what seems to be a surviving copy of the film...

I have no idea what to do with this story once it's done, but I'd love to find a publisher who might release it as a limited hardback with a cover that evokes the imagery from the posters of 1980s Italian cannibal movies. We'll see.

I've also written a new short story called Black Box. I started this one for an anthology I've been invited into, but I'm not sure if it's a good fit for that project. A rewrite and further edits will clarify things for me.

In other news, Ellen Datlow's The Best Horror of the Year Volume 15 is now available. Among some splendid tales by superb authors, it also reprints my story Lifelike. As always, I'm proud to be included in such a volume.