Out of the Darkness, Writing the Uncanny, Best British Short stories

December 05, 2021 by Gary Budden

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.

You can buy it here.

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.

You can buy it here.

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.

You can buy it here.

THE SHADOW BOOTH Vol. 4

August 29, 2019 by Gary Budden

I’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

NOSTALGIC MELANCHOLY

February 04, 2019 by Gary Budden

Another great review of the This Dreaming Isle (Unsung Stories, 2018) anthology. They had the following to say about my story ‘Hovering (Or, a recollection of 25 February 2015)’.

‘Budden’s offering is a well-researched, cleverly written and prettily described tale. He has managed some impressively complex characterisation, considering that he only has a few pages to tell Iain’s story. His descriptions of this half-forgotten patch of Kentish coastline are charming and laced with a nostalgic melancholy that doesn’t outstay its welcome or romanticise the poverty that afflicts this area. Another contender for my favourite entry in the anthology!’

Read the full review at Fantasy Faction here: http://fantasy-faction.com/2019/this-dreaming-isle-edited-by-dan-coxon-an-anthology-by-unsung-stories

NEW LEXICONS 23/10/18

October 23, 2018 by Gary Budden

I had an excellent weekend up in Chester at Fantasycon, which involved a lot of books, beer, and writing talk. It was as fun as ever, so roll on Glasgow next year! A highlight was reading with the writers Priya Sharma, D.A. Northwood and Tim Major on the Saturday night – all writers whose work I respect a great deal – and reading to a crowd of peers and contemporaries and writers I am frankly in awe of. Seriously, it’s easier reading to a hostile crowd of drunks than a group of people you respect and whose opinion you care about.

Photos appropriated from Tim Major.

(L-R) Priya Sharma, D.A. Northwood, Tim Major

I was also very pleased to get my hands on my contributor’’s copy of THIS DREAMING ISLE, a new anthology of strange fiction with a tight focus on the landscapes of the United Kingdom. As anyone who has read my work will know, this essential link between the weird, the eerie and the uncanny with place and landscape is something that obsesses me. Therefore it has been fantastic to have the opportunity to share space in a book with writers like Jenn Ashworth, Catriona Ward, Gareth E. Rees and Aliya Whiteley, as well as horror legends like Ramsey Campbell and Stephen Volk.

The introductory essay to the book, written by editor Dan Coxon, feels particularly pertinent this week. Explaining strongly how the stories in THIS DREAMING ISLE resist unpleasant notions of nationalism and nativism, both essay and book come out in a week when the #FolkloreThursday Twitter account is under attack from neo-volkish racists hell bent on imagining a pure ethnic heritage where none exists. These people are dangerous idiots, and I am glad to be aligned with writers who refuse such easy notions of the past and what landscape means. Sadly, I feel this battle is going to continue for a long time yet.

Everyone should have a listen to this recent episode of Backlisted Podcast about Adam Thorpe’s majestic 1992 novel, ULVERTON. One of the first, and best, books, to get me interested in the uncanny power of the landscapes we live in. Coincidentally, one of the guest’s is Tom Cox, whose new book from Unbound, HELP THE WITCH, just landed on my desk at Titan today.

I cannot recommend ULVERTON enough, so do go read it.

Music-wise, I have been loving the new Current 93 album, The Light Is Leaving Us All, and Grand Collapse’s brutally intense album Along the Dew, which features this apt anti-fascist song ‘Chalk and Flint’. You should listen to it.