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
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.
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.
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.
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
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 MoreFinal cover for The White Heron Beneath the Reactor.
Read MoreAn Invite to Eternity. Tales of Nature Disrupted, takes its cue from John Clare to address the most pressing issue humanity is facing: anthropogenic climate change. Edited by Marian Womack and myself, and with a foreword by Helen Marshall.
Read MoreA walk from Gravesend to the derelict Cliffe Fort and back, along the opening stretch of the Saxon Shore Way
Read MoreThe White Heron Beneath the Reactor is coming ever-closer to completion. Maxim is working on the final artwork and the book will be going to the typesetter ASAP.
Here are two brand new images from the book to give more of a flavour of what the finished work will look like.
Thanks, as ever, for your patience with us. More updates very soon!
Read MoreI am happy to say that the text of The White Heron Beneath the Reactor is complete and being proofread, and that Maxim has been going above-and-beyond with the artwork – something you can now judge for yourselves, as we are pleased to be sharing some images from the book and a short extract. Enjoy!
Read MoreYou can now listen to my interview on Resonance FM, on the Suite 212 show hosted by Tom Overton and Juliet Jacques.
I was on the show discussing Hollow Shores, Judderman and the upcoming The White Heron Beneath the Reactor, covering a range of topics including Derek Jarman, Dungeness, punk rock, birdwatching and the apocalypse. Enjoy!
Late February and the air is already full of spring, too early; worry caused by mild weather. At the harbour, the asphalt plant shimmers in a misted haze coming off the waters of the Thames estuary. The water is at low ebb, slutch visible, glistening. The sun is bright and the mist has a chilled bite. A sky unclouded, deep tangible blue. The world is unfocused, either fading in or fading out. You imagine things appearing or slipping out of view forever in the mist; a sea-giant made of salt spray and coastal haze. But nothing ever does.
I will be reading from my story ‘We Rip Holes in Their Paper Faces to Give Them Sight’ at the second London event organised by The Lonely Crowd at The Music Room, 49 Great Ormond Street. Featuring readings from Bernard O’Donoghue, Angela T. Carr, John Freeman, Lucie McKnight Hardy, Grahame Williams and myself.
Date: 07/03/19.
Time: 7pm.
Venue: The Music Room, 49 Great Ormond Street, WC1N 3JL.
Tickets are priced at £5.00. The ticket price includes £5.00 off a copy of Issue 10 of The Lonely Crowd and complimentary drinks & snacks.
https://thelonelycrowd.org/events-2019/
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