The Pale Little Girl By the Side of the Road

My contribution to the Christmas ghost story canon, The Pale Little Girl By the Side of the Road, can be read online on the Tale-Tale Press website.

It concerns the Redgrave family as they gather together to celebrate Christmas at a remote cottage.  When one of the grown-up children doesn't arrive, the others begin to recount their encounters with a strange child seen standing barefoot in the snow by the side of the road.

The pale little girl by the side of the road just wants some friends to play with at Christmastime.

The entire volume of The Blood Tomes: Winter Holidays can be downloaded an an e-book from Amazon.  The book also contains Christmas-themed horror fiction from the likes of Eric J Guignard, K.L. Napier, and others.

The Hole

The 'Bubble off Plumb' anthology which contains my short story, The Hole, will be published by Feral Cat Publishing on 14th December.  I wrote this story about addiction, specifically internet and mobile phone addiction, although it doesn't deal with this subject directly and is open to interpretation.  It's about a young couple who buy their first home only to find a seemingly bottomless hole in the center of the basement, a hole they quickly become fascinated by.

I received a good response to this story when I started submitting it, even when it was being rejected!

I'd like to give a huge thanks to editor Dan Kalin for selecting my story from the 921 that were submitted for 'Bubble off Plumb'.  What an honour!

Anyone who'd like to know more about this book,  can visit the publisher's website here.

Visions of the Autumn Country

October is approaching fast, which means the release of another of C.M. Muller's Nightscript anthologies.  This October 1st volume 4 will arrive, and I'm delighted to say that I have a story of my own included in the book.  It has been a pleasure to be involved in one of C.M. Muller's projects, his enthusiasm and attention to detail is inspiring.  Having bought all three of the previous volumes, I was well aware that when you invest in a copy of Nightscript you are guaranteed a quality, lovingly-made book full of carefully chosen, and carefully sequenced, tales.

C.M. Muller is also a writer of strange tales with many impressive publication credits, and you can find more about his work, as well as the Nightscript anthologies and his other projects, here.

My story in Nightscript 4, Visions of the Autumn Country, was partly inspired by the artwork of my friend, David Whitlam.  I've know Dave since we were at University together in the late 1990s, and I've watched him sharpen his singular vision over the years.  I've always thought Dave was creating his own interior landscape - a landscape of the imagination, almost another world - and it was this idea that I used as a jumping off point for this story.

Anyone who wants to take a stroll through David Whitlam's imagination can do so on his website here.  Warning - you might want to leave a breadcrumb trail.

Hear that...?

Something's Knocking.

That's the title of my story which has just been published in the Summer 2018 issue of The Oddville Press.  This story, as with many others, grew out of a discussion I had with my friend and occasional collaborator Martin Greaves, wherein he happened to mentioned how the Surrealists used to create things called Papillons.  Papillons were cards, such as the ones below, with strange phrases written on them which would be left around Paris, on cafe tables and noise boards, presumably to inspire or confuse people.

Martin then told me how The Surrealists also opened an office to which people could call a number or write and detail their strangest dreams.  I loved this idea, and it got me thinking.  A song by Soft Cell called Frustration, which I was having a minor obsession with at the time also got mixed in, and I ended up with this story about a middle-aged man who stumbles upon a back-street theater where bizarre plays are staged every evening.  Plays that are linked to the people in the audience.

Frustration by Soft Cell, a song I ripped off stole a few lyrics from was influenced by for this story.

The Oddville Press magazine can be dowloaded for free as a PDF here.

Land of Youth

I have a story in this handsome-looking anthology from Gypsum Sound Tales called Colp Issue 1: The Passage of Time.   That great cover was done by Luke Spooner at Carrion House.

My story, 'Land of Youth', has a journalist interviewing a former film actress at her home in Ireland which she claims was built on a fairy fort and where, as a result, time gets confused. It's about how we expect our movie idols to remain ever youthful and how, in our imaginations, they kind of do.

I wrote the story shortly after hearing about the sad death of Carrie Fisher back in December 2016.  Fisher, playing Princess Leia in Star Wars, was one of my childhood crushes, and her death got me thinking about the way film stars are at the mercy of passing time like the rest of us, but at the same time immortal in the roles they play.

Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles

When C.M. Muller announced his intention to release a doppelganger-themed anthology back in January I knew wanted to write something for it.  Never did I think I'd be heading up such an amazing line-up as the one below.  Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles will be released in February 2019.  

“The Last Salvador” — Tim Jeffreys
“Details Which Would Otherwise Be Lost to Shadow” — Clint Smith
“Zwillingslied” — Patricia Lillie
“Static” — Chris Shearer
“Stuck With Me” — Shannon Lawrence
“The Fifth Set” — Charles Wilkinson
“Murder Song” — Craig Wallwork
“The Final Diagnosis of Doctor Lazare” — David Peak
“Endangered” — Jason A. Wyckoff
“The Half-Life of Plastic” — Esther Rose
“Eidetic” — Steve Rasnic Tem
“They Are Us (1964) : An Oral History” — Jack Lothian
“Birds of Passage” — Gordon B. White
“The Half-Souled Woman” — Nina Shepardson
“Released” — Timothy B. Dodd
“As With Alem” — Farah Rose Smith
“The Fall Guy” — Tom Johnstone
“Scordatura” — Jess Landry
“Stringless Puppetry” — C.C. Adams
“The Bath House” — Tim Major
“Picky Yunn” — J.C. Raye
“One Last Mile” — Erica Ruppert

Some thoughts on Mother!

Spoilers ahead.

After watching ‘Mother!’ I realised that I’d forgotten about all the previous Darren Aronofsky films I’d loved (Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler).  Only his two most recent films were fresh in my mind: Black Swan which I thought was interesting but flawed; and Noah, which I couldn’t see the point of at all and had actually decided was Aronofsky filling some kind of contractual obligation.  So, when I sat down to watch ‘Mother!’ - having forgotten what this writer/director is capable of - I wasn’t quite prepared for the affect it would have on me.

Brief plot summary: Jennifer Lawrence plays the adoring wife of a middle-aged blocked poet (Javier Bardem).  They live together in a gorgeous isolated mansion, which she is painstakingly renovating after it was gutted by a fire which consumed the poet’s first wife.  Out of the blue a stranger (Ed Harris) arrives at their door looking for a place to stay.  To the confusion of his wife, the poet tells the stranger to stay in the house as long as he likes after discovering the man’s a fan of his book.  The man is then quickly joined by his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) and the couple’s two quarrelling sons.  The strangers show a general lack of respect – sometimes even outright hostility - to their hosts.  The situation soon escalates to murder, then more people arrive at the house and their disrespect goes unnoticed by the poet until his wife can take no more.  When all the intruders are finally turfed out , the poet at last finds inspiration and with that a renewed passion for his wife.  However, with the publication of his poem and his wife’s pregnancy, strangers, worshippers and fans once again begin arriving at the house and the problems begin again (to put it mildly).

Never having had much interest in religion, I’m afraid I missed most of the Biblical allusions in the film.  Instead, I saw it as an allegory about fame or the quest for fame.  The poet keeps opening up his house to fans so he can bask in their adoration, heedless to the confusion and suffering of the one person who truly loves him.  This quest for fame and adoration suddenly begins to look monstrous and obscene.  Why would the poet hanker after the praise and attention of strangers who continually prove themselves unworthy whilst remaining blind to the efforts of his wife to give him a home, a life, and a family? Viewed like this, I found the film to be genuinely terrifying, and it would make anyone who’s ever chased the approval of strangers (Okay, I’ll raise my hand here) seriously question their motives.

I also couldn’t help but see the film as some kind of comment on our social media age; people opening up their lives to strangers and hankering after likes and comments.  This was most prominent for me in the film’s most disturbing scene.  After the birth of his son, the poet waits for his wife to fall asleep so he can take the baby from her arms and pass it into his crowd of worshippers (this made me think of Michael Jackson dangling his baby son off a balcony for his fans).  The worshippers again prove themselves careless and unworthy and by the time the mother re-awakens the baby is dead, his neck snapped after being passed between many hands.