In October, to coincide with the publication of Writing the Uncanny: Essays on Crafting Strange Fiction, ed. Dan Coxon & Richard V. Hirst (Dead Ink), I wrote a Top 10 piece for the Guardian focusing on urban horror and weird fiction.
It’s been a long time since I posted an update on here for various reasons, and I’m happy to say since the last post I’ve had stories and essays in three different publications.
I have an essay in Writing the Uncanny: Essays on Crafting Strange Fiction, ed. Dan Coxon & Richard V. Hirst (Dead Ink) titled ‘Half-Concealed Places, or a Particularly Humdrum Uncanny’. The essay is about weird and uncanny fiction’s interaction with edgeland and psychogeographic writing, and how it can work powerfully in seemingly ‘humdrum’ spaces.
I was honoured to be invited to contribute to an anthology featuring writers such as Jeremy Dyson, Alison Moore, Lucie McKnight Hardy, Jenn Ashworth and many more.
I have a new story in the charity anthology Out of the Darkness, ed. Dan Coxon (Unsung Stories) called ‘The Residential’. Themed around mental-health, all proceeds from sales of the book go to the charity Together for Mental Wellbeing.
‘The Residential’ is a new London Incognita story, about the everyday stresses and rage induced by life in a city like London – specifically when all the systems that keep the city fail. It’s also about the eeriness and uncanny nature of suburban streets.
Once again, it’s a pleasure to be in an athology with so many brilliant writers of the weird – Laura Mauro, Malcolm Devlin, Aliya Whiteley, Gareth E. Rees and many more.
My story ‘What Never Was’, first published in Confingo magazine and part of last year’s collection London Incognita was selected for Best British Short Stories 2021, ed. Nicholas Royle (Salt). It feels like a real stamp of approval to have one of my stories included in this collection, and I’m very grateful to be in such good company.
I have a new story published in Minor Literature(s), ‘Voided Substructures’. A story of toxic masculinity, friendship and regrets about the past.
You can read it here: https://minorliteratures.com/2021/05/04/voided-substructures-gary-budden
Thanks to everyone who attended the Dead Ink Halloween takeover on Halloween last night! It was great fun – watching readings from the brilliant Naomi Booth and Lucie McKnight Hardy, reading my story ‘Sky City’ from the newly published London Incognita and answering questions afterwards.
You can watch the whole event here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CG-5jB_FmI3/
A big thanks to everyone who attended the online Instagram launch for London Incognita last Thursday night, hosted wonderfully by Heidi James.
If you don’t know Heidi’s work then I seriously recommend you check out her recent novel The Sound Mirror published by Bluemoose this year.
If you missed it, you can watch the whole event on the Dead Ink Instagram page here:
Delighted to announce that I'm launching LONDON INCOGNITA this week on Instagram, in conversation with the mighty Heidi James (author of the phenomenal The Sound Mirror). Watch two Kentish writers discuss the weird darkness of the capital, and more.
Thursday October 5, 2020, 7pm GMT.
A great first review is in for London Incognita, from Jackie Law on the Never Imitate blog. A flattering and perceptive review:
The London portrayed is home to the homeless – druggies and ghosts. Graffiti and rubbish abut closed off building sites, keeping the discarded from areas now shiny and gentrified. Beneath are the sewers, where giant rats gorge on fatburgs, and a mythical queen lures urban explorers…
I have read several, excellent non fiction books about urban explorers and psychogeographers seeking out the mostly unregarded aspects of well traversed spaces. This short story collection does this masterfully, with the addition of melancholy wraiths and the Londoners whose lives they change. It is a dark love story to the city.
You can review the full review here: https://neverimitate.wordpress.com/2020/10/02/book-review-london-incognita/
Both the newly published LONDON INCOGNITA, and my first collection HOLLOW SHORES, are now available in Audiobook from, produced by WF Howes!
They are available to buy via Audible- click on the links below.
LONDON INCOGNITA is published today by Dead Ink!!
Late-capitalist urban weird fiction about the most exciting and horrifying of places - London.
About the book:
London Incognita chronicles a city caught in the cycle of perpetual decline and continuous renewal: the English capital, groaning under the weight of two-thousand years of history, as seen through the eyes of its desperate and troubled inhabitants. A malicious presence from the 1970s resurfaces in the fevered alleyways of the city; an amnesiac goddess offers brittle comfort to the spirits of murdered shop-girls; and an obscure and forgotten London writer holds the key to a thing known as the emperor worm. As bombs detonate and buildings burn down, the citys selfish inhabitants hunt the ghosts of friends, family and lovers to the urban limits of the metropolis, uncovering the dark secrets of London.
Paperback: https://deadinkbooks.com/product/london-incognita-pre-order/
Audiobook: https://audible.co.uk/pd/London-Incognita-Audiobook/1004019424
My story ‘What Never Was’ is published in the new issue of Confingo.
It’s available to order directly here.
I am delighted to announce that my second book of fiction, LONDON INCOGNITA, will be published by Dead Ink in October 2020. You can currently pre-order it by becoming a Dead Ink subscriber here.
Includes the Shirley Jackson Award shortlisted Judderman.
ABOUT THE BOOK
London Incognita chronicles a city caught in the cycle of perpetual decline and continuous renewal: the English capital, groaning under the weight of two-thousand years of history, as seen through the eyes of its desperate and troubled inhabitants.
A malicious presence from the 1970s resurfaces in the fevered alleyways of the city; an amnesiac goddess offers brittle comfort to the spirits of murdered shop-girls; and an obscure and forgotten London writer holds the key to a thing known as the emperor worm. As bombs detonate and buildings burn down, the city’s selfish inhabitants hunt the ghosts of friends, family and lovers to the urban limits of the metropolis, uncovering the dark secrets of London.
I am delighted to announce that I have a new short story appearing in the forthcoming volume of Nightscript.
CONTENTS
Dauda’s Return — Timothy Dodd
The Patent-Master — LC von Hessen
Let Your Hinged Jaw Do the Talking — Tom Johnstone
The Best Thing About Her — Ralph Robert Moore
What Crows Mean — Julia Rust
A Postcard From White Dunes — Jeremy Schliewe
Baddavine — Dan Coxon
Beyond the Lace — Charles Wilkinson
The Gods Shall Lay Sore Trouble Upon Them — Christi Nogle
A Photograph — Alexander James
The Owner— Francesco Corigliano
Passed Pawn — Selene dePackh
The Death Bodies of Kanggye — Kurt Newton
Loneliness — James Owens
Victims of a Transitional Time in Morality — J.R. Hamantaschen
The Whisper Gallery — Amelia Gorman
Long Rock — Gary Budden
Volume VI will be released on October 1st. Preorder information can be found here.
Gary Budden has been fascinated with Reculver and its towers, dominating the skyline on the north Kent coast,England, a few miles east from the town of Herne Bay, for his entire life.
Always pulled back to walk its crumbling sandstone cliffs at constant threat from the encroaching sea; watching the colony of nesting sand martins burrowed deep into the stone. Amazed by the ruined twelfth-century church on the site of a seventh-century monastery, itself on the site of a Roman fort built to defend against invading Saxons, in the place where the British Army tested the bouncing bomb.
A riot of histories, invasion, innovation, assimilation.
As part of Kickstarter's Make 100 initiative, and joining forces with renowned landscape artist Maxim Griffin once more, These Towers Will One Day Slip Into the Sea is the follow up to 2019’s The White Heron Beneath the Reactor: a new illustrated landscape punk book exploring the windswept and evocative landscapes of Reculver, and its dizzying layers of history and human narrative.
In no order – my favourite reads of 2019:
Stillicide – Cynan Jones
Do Not Pass Go – Joel Lane
Tampa – Alissa Nutting
Outline – Rachel Cusk
Straight Edge: A Clear-Headed Hardcore Punk History – Tony Rettman
The Reddening – Adam Nevill
The Resurrection Man – Eoin McNamee
The Country Will Bring Us No Peace – Matthieu Simard
The Psalm Killer – Chris Petit
Caught – Henry Green
Broken Ghost – Niall Griffiths
Happy Like Murderers – Gordon Burn
Somebody’s Husband, Somebody’s Son – Gordon Burn
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland – Patrick Radden Keefe
Flowers of the Sea – Reggie Oliver
Moonstomp – Tim Wells
The Dollmaker – Nina Allan
The Black Country – Kerry Hadley-Pryce
The Terror – Dan Simmons
Plume – Will Wiles
The Offing – Benjamin Myers
Wounds – Nathan Ballingrud
Water Shall Refuse Them – Lucie McKnight Hardy
Machine – Susan Steinberg
Doggerland – Ben Smith
I Am The River – T.E. Grau
Lanny – Max Porter
Orison For A Curlew – Horatio Clare
For The Good Times – David Keenan
Modern Nature – Derek Jarman
All the Fabulous Beasts – Priya Sharma
The Migration – Helen Marshall
The Idea of North – Peter Davidson
I am very happy to say that my story ‘We Pass Under’ is included in the upcoming edition of Uncertainties, published by Swan River Press and edited by Timothy J. Jarvis
Numbered edition of 100 also available while supplies last.
Read MoreI’m pleased to have a second story in the excellent Shadow Booth series, edited by Dan Coxon. I was in the very first volume with my story ‘Where No Shadows Fall’ so I am delighted to be back with a new piece of short fiction, ‘Collector of Games’, that focuses on the hunt for mythical video-games and the pitch-black reaches of the dark web. Dan has gathered a really stunning lineup of writers for this volume, so I really recommend getting hold of a copy. You can pre-order a copy here: http://www.theshadowbooth.com/2019/08/the-shadow-booth-vol-4-coming-this.html
Table of Contents reads as follows:
The Devil of Timanfaya by Lucie McKnight Hardy
The Tribute by James Machin
The Larpins by Charles Wilkinson
Drowning by Giselle Leeb
You Are Not in Kettering Now by Andrew McDonnell
Hardrada by Ashley Stokes
Defensive Wounds by James Everington
The Verandah by Jay Caselberg
The Salt Marsh Lambs by Jane Roberts
The Box of Knowledge by Tim Cooke
His Hand by Polis Loizou
Terminal Teatime by Anna Vaught
Collector of Games by Gary Budden
One Two Three by Marian Womack
The new issue of The Lonely Crowd is out, featuring my story ‘We Rip Holes in Their Paper Faces to Give Them Sight’.
You can order a copy here.
Read MoreI have a short essay on The Lonely Crowd website about the writing of my new Verona-set story ‘We Rip Holes in Their Paper Faces to Give Them Sight’. It’s a story of tourist-horror, eco-depression and selfishness.
Read it here: https://thelonelycrowd.org/2019/08/28/writing-we-rip-holes-in-their-paper-faces-to-give-them-sight-gary-budden
Read MoreIt’s often hard to identify what triggers a reassessment of the past. It can be stray word or sight or smell, or one of the silly polls people are fond of on social media, or a reminiscence with a friend. Sometimes, for me, it’s the realisation that a thing I loved has been half-forgotten; and one of the joys of getting older is reassessing the body of work of a beloved writer, band or artist and seeing how you react to it again.
Read More