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.
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.
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
I recently watched the 2018 British horror film Possum, written and directed by Matthew Holness, adapted from his own 2008 short story of the same name. Holness is well-known for the excellent horror spoof Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, and it’s fascinating to see him now playing the horror straight – and in this case, a pitch black and deeply strange example of English weird fiction.
Read MoreA lovely review over on Goodreads for the This Dreaming Isle (Unsung Stories) anthology – my contribution ‘Hovering (or, a Recollection of 25 February 2015)’ had the following, very kind, write up:
Another fantastic story from Budden, who is fast becoming one of my favourite current writers of weird fiction and whose approach – being as it is so closely tied to ideas about Britishness and the mythical nature of landscape – is absolutely perfect for this anthology. It is framed as a story told to the author by a friend, and as with many of Budden's stories, it's hard to figure out whether it's entirely fictional. It feels very densely layered, a patchwork of memories and history, emphasising how a place can be shaped by what has happened there.
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
Spot the genre fiction writer
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.
‘There is a writhing worm in all of us, waiting to be freed.’
– From The Salvage Song of the Larks, and Other Stories, by Michael Ashman
I have a story in the latest Coffin Bell Journal that you can read here.
I was pleased to contribute to the excellent ‘A Personal Anthology’ series run by Jonathan Gibbs. The concept is simple – a writer chooses twelve pieces of favourite short fiction and explains why others should read them.
My list:
‘Black County’ – Joel Lane
‘The Stains’ – Robert Aickman
‘The White Cat’ – Joyce Carol Oates
‘The Husband Stitch’ – Carmen Maria Machado
‘Wide Acre’ – Nathan Ballingrud’
‘An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk According to One Who Saw It’ – Jessie Greengrass
‘The Horse of Iron and How We Can Know It (And Be Changed By It)’ – M John Harrison
‘Four Abstracts’ – Nina Allan
‘The Man Whom the Trees Loved’ – Algernon Blackwood
‘The Cheater’s Guide to Love’ – Junot Diaz
‘The Last Clean, Bright Summer’ – Livia Llewellyn
‘The Unwish’ – Claire Dean
You can read it here.
Very happy to announce that I have a story – 'Hovering (Or, a recollection of 25 February 2015)' – in this upcoming anthology THIS DREAMING ISLE from Unsung Stories. It's crowdfunding on Kickstarter now! All the information is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/291030539/this-dreaming-isle-an-anthology-of-dark-fantasy-an
Read More
(L-R: Paul Tremblay, Lydia Gittins, me)
I was incredibly chuffed to be described by the brilliant horror author, Paul Tremblay, as 'the editor with the best taste in music in the biz' today. Paul is the author of the novels A Head Full of Ghosts, Disappearance at Devil's Rock and the newly published The Cabin at the End of the World, and I recommend all three of them. Great works of empathetic, literary horror all focusing on families in crisis whilst using, and subverting, standard horror tropes.
So how did this come about? you might ask.
Paul was in the UK promoting The Cabin at the End of the World, and as his UK editor at Titan Books, I was fortunate enough to accompany him and publicist Lydia Gittins on the first leg of the tour up to Edgelit in Derby – a one day genre fiction convention where Paul was the guest of honour. It was a cracking day and great as ever to meet fellow writers, editors and readers.
You can read Paul's full account of the trip here – but needless to say it involved us bonding over a shared love of music like Hüsker Dü and Fugazi, and discussing the finer details of Bob Mould's solo career. I then waffled on about my love of Jawbreaker and Watership Down-themed hardcore punk (really), and found someone who wasn't completely bored by what I was saying. A result in my book. I also experienced an unusual ale in Derby (Paul's choice) called Last Mango in Paris, featuring a blue-tinged chimpanzee on the label.
Weird fiction and punk rock: i'm telling you, there's a real connection there.