I mentioned a few postings back that I wanted to try writing stuff for specific markets this year- the stories in The Other Room were written just as they came to me, without worrying about whether anyone would want to publish them until afterwards. And I still will write some stories in that manner, but I wanted to challenge myself to write some to within a specific word count, theme etc. too.
I pleased to say the first of these stories, written for the second City Of Hell anthology (head honcho = Colin Barnes) has been accepted. It's called No Insects At Sea - the setting of the City Of Hell stories is a pretty grim and disturbing one, where giant insects have taken over the world. It was a challenge to write a story for such a setting - not the grim and disturbing aspect, I have that covered - but the giant mutant insects. Such things aren't my normal style. I'm pretty pleased with the result - it seems to me a good combination of what I do best and the darkest elements of Colin's vision.
I think it will be awhile before the second City Of Hell anthology is released, but in the meantime you can read an interview with myself by Colin on the website for the series. The author picture was one I supplied for Colin to 'make scary' but even his Photoshop skills couldn't make me look anything than smug and/or slightly simple.
