UK Ghost Story Festival 2026

Very pleased to say I'll be taking part in the UK Ghost Story Festival next year at the Quad in Derby, organised as ever by the indefatigable Alex Davis.

There's a whole host of talented writers there, including a few good writing chums of mine I'm looking forward to catching up with. I will be doing a panel and running a writing workshop on Ghost Stories & Ambiguity which you can sign up for here - but do check out the full lineup of events!

Darkest Nights

Pleased to say I'll be be taking part in Darkest Nights writing school, running one of the online sessions along with some fantastic authors, as you can see below:

Details & tickets here

 

Hallowe'en Horrors

I'll be appearing at the Hallowe'en Horrors event at the Derby Quad on October 30th, running a workshop  on writing weird, strange, off-beat, and creepy fiction. Details and a link to get tickets are below:

Join us for the first part of a very special day of horror writing, with five workshop sessions looking at a wide range of aspects of the genre! QUAD’s Literature Officer Alex Davis will be your host throughout, and will be joined by acclaimed authors Sophie Draper, James Everington and Angeline Trevena for an exciting day of dark inspiration, imagination and information!

3:30pm-4:30pm: James Everington – The uncanny: making the everyday seem strange in fiction

Anyone can make a werewolf or spectre sound scary, but how do writers approach more mundane horrors? This workshop will focus on picking out those details in apparently innocuous, everyday situations and making them seem just that little bit ‘off'. Perfect for making your readers uneasy without them knowing quite why….

Further details & tickets here.

UK Ghost Story Festival

I love ghost stories, and so I jumped at the chance to be involved in the UK Ghost Story Festival, which takes place 29th November to 01 December in Derby. I'll be taking part in two events, both on the Saturday:

Supernatural Shorts: Why Do Short Ghost Stories Work So Well?
With James Everington, Alison Littlewood, Rhiannon Ward (Chair) and Mark Latham
So many of the most renowned authors of ghost stories made their name in short fiction, with the works of MR James, Arthur Machen, Charles Dickens and many others gaining iconic status. But why is the supernatural so effective in its shorter form? This panel discussion will explore this tradition and explore the reasons for its success, with time for audience Q+A at the end of the session.

Spirit Masters - Who Are The Best Ghost Story Writers Ever?
With Alex Davis (Chair), James Everington, Alison Littlewood and Marie O'Regan
Get ready to rumble as our expert panel dissects the merits and quality of some of the best-loved ghost story writers out there, as well as those lesser-known purveyors of the form who might deserve that bit more credit. How do the traditional masters of the field compare to its modern authors? Who are the greatest names largely forgotten today? Expect to be taking away a mighty reading list from this lively discussion on who are the best of the best! We’ll also have time for audience Q+A at the end of the session.

As well as my two bits, there's so much else going on that looks worthwhile and I'll definitely be checking out plenty of other events myself as a punter. You can either buy tickets for individual events or weekend/Saturday passes. Check out all the info. here...

Other Worlds - My Schedule

The Other Worlds convention takes place at Nottingham Writers' Studio on Saturday 6th October. The schedule has just been released, so here is a quick preview of what I'll be up to:

• 11:30am – Workshop: Creating Atmosphere in Horror and Weird Fiction

• 2:30pm – Human Fears: Are We More Afraid of People Than Monster in Our Fiction? Charlotte Bond, Alex Davis (Chair), James Everington, Alison Moore

• 5:00pm – Pushing the Boundaries: Where Does Genre Fiction End? Alex Davis (Chair), James Everington, Daniel Godfrey, Justina Robson, Anna Stephens

Full Schedule and Tickets can be found here.

Boo Books and Trying To Be So Quiet

Well.
 
I'd planned to do a brief blog post today about some new reviews for my Boo Books novella Trying To Be So Quiet - and I still am going to mention that - but they've been slightly overshadowed by the sad news from Alex Davis that Boo Books is to close. Boo Books have released some fantastic books and I'm proud to have been part of their rosta. And I'd like to thank Alex for all his hard work and encouragement, and wish him good luck with his future ventures.
 
The good news is that Boo Books titles are all still available as we speak, and I can personally recommend Andrew David Barker's The Electric and Dead Leaves, the Haunted anthology, and, based on her reading at Edge-Lit, Tracy Fahey's collection The Unheimlich Manouver.


Oh yeah, and those Trying To Be So Quiet reviews:
 
"If you like your quiet, stealthy, and throat-achingly sad, this one is for you." Tracy Fahey
"A must read, wonderful.", Yvonne Davies, Terror Tree


Trying To Be So Quiet is available as a hardback and ebook (UK | US). 

Guest Blog: Alex Davis 'The Hardest Movie I Ever Watched'

Today on the blog I'm very pleased to welcome Alex Davis, with a guest post about his new project, Film Gutter. So, without further ado...

Take it away, Alex:

GUEST BLOG: THE HARDEST MOVIE I EVER WATCHED

Over the last year, I’ve had a wonderful time working on reviews and interviews over at Ginger Nuts of Horror, all focused on the world of extreme horror. It’s a fantastic scene of people, who have been hugely helpful and welcoming, and I’ve legitimately stumbled across some of the best films I’ve ever watched. But there have also been moments where I have thought ‘why on Earth did I do that to myself?’ I’ve never shied away from a challenge, and consider myself someone who is quite hard to shock. I expect there are a few films that I’ve seen that would have defeated a lot of viewers along the way. But the one that sticks out by some way as the hardest to watch, and that is Thanatomorphose.

The date was 19^th April 2015, and with the house to myself I decided to settle down for a movie for Film Gutter. This year I’m trying to keep a bit more ahead of the curve, but for a long time after I started it was watch it, review it, send it and live it went. So I got myself comfortable for Thanatomorphose, one of those films I had seen on a number of ‘most disturbing’ lists. And it turned out to be anything but a comfortable experience.

Now, what disturbs people is distinctly individual , but for me this one was kind of the perfect storm. The story follows a young lady in a fairly uneasy love triangle between her ‘alpha male’ boyfriend and a rather gentler and shier friend. The movie openings with a mind-wrenching cacophony of colour and sound, a strange shooting style repeated later on to even greater effect. When we get to the real ‘meat’ of the story, what begins as a fairly ordinary seemingly illness soon becomes a living hell for our lead. Her body begins to give in on her, rotting away to nothing. The shooting and visuals are so graphic and unflinching that it left me utterly speechless throughout. But when you add into that the fact that her decay also sees her mind descending and her animal lusts taking over, you have a combination that made me feel perturbed in a way no movie ever has before or since. Oh yeah, and I ordered myself a kebab before starting this one. A kebab. What the hell was I thinking? When it arrived there was no way I could eat it... Kayden Rose does a fine job in the lead, growing increasingly fascinated with her condition and also embracing some utterly horrible scenes. The final scene is punctuated with an absolutely awful scream as her body finally dissolves to nothing, and I was left with my hands over my ears asking myself ‘Is it over? Is it over?’ Never have I wanted to turn off a film more.

And you might ask yourself, why the hell didn’t I? A fine question. First up, in taking up the quest of Film Gutter, I made a sort of silent vow to myself to NEVER turn off a film, no matter how upset, nervous or physically sick it was making me. And secondly, it’s the kind of morbid curiosity that was in evidence throughout Thanatomorphose. Why do drivers slow down to look at car crashes? Why do people gather round when people are attacked or mugged on the street? We want to know. We kind of need to know, as humans – we can’t help ourselves. And for this very reason I had to get to the end of this film. Not because I ever thought there would or could be a happy ending – in fact, so much extreme horror has a bleak finale! But I just had to witness it.

Now, a lot of people don’t share that urge with me. Which is kind of what Film Gutter is there for – by no means is it simply a mechanism for masochistic self-torture. Film Gutter is a safe window to look in to and find out what you wanted to know without looking at it yourself – we’re offering the newspaper coverage the day after that car crash. You can get the facts, but you don’t need to witness the gore, the violence and the deviancy yourself. Just how shocking is A Serbian Film? Do they seriously do it with a zombie in Nekromantik? Just how twisted are the Guinea Pig movies? And are there seriously films called Human Pork Chop and Bad Butt?

If you love extreme horror, hopefully you’ll find some useful guidance as to what’s among the finest on the scene. But if not, this is a glimpse into some of the brilliance and madness that is out there – and remember it’s a fine line between those two...

Film Gutter Volume 1 is out now on ebook, with 50 reviews, interviews and more exclusive content from the world of extreme horror. Read it if you dare, and watch them if you’re even more daring! More here. 

The Hyde Hotel is OPEN...

The Hyde Hotel officially opens its doors today. Published by Black Shuck Books, it's the first anthology I've ever edited (alongside Dan Howarth). I first had the idea for a book of stories all set in the same hotel a number of years ago, and it's taken awhile to bring to fruition... So big thanks must go to Theresa Derwin, Steve Shaw, and most importantly to all the authors involved who put up with a few delays and all contributed such fine stories. It's genuinely one of the books I'm most proud of being part of.

The Hyde Hotel is available in both ebook and paperback formats - all links at the Black Shuck Books website.


The Hyde Hotel Welcomes You…

The Hyde Hotel looks almost exactly as you’d expect it to: a faceless, budget hotel in a grey city you are just passing through. A hotel aimed at people travelling alone, a hotel where you know so little about your fellow guests that they could be anyone… and where, perhaps, so could you. But sometimes things are hiding in plain sight, and not everyone who stays at The Hyde gets a good night’s sleep…
Enjoy your stay.

Table of Contents

• CHECKING IN  by James Everington
• THE VIEW FROM THE BASEMENT  by Alison Littlewood
• NIGHT PORTERS  by Iain Rowan
• TICK BOX  by Dan Howarth
• THE EDIFICE OF DUST  by Amelia Mangan
• LOST AND FOUND  by S P Miskowski
• HOUSEKEEPING  by Ray Cluley
• SOMETHING LIKE BLOOD  by Alex Davis
• THE COYOTE CORPORATION’S MISPLACED SONG  by Cate Gardner
• WRATH OF THE DEEP  by Simon Bestwick
• THE SEALED WINDOW  by Mark West
• THE BLUE ROOM  by V H Leslie
• CHECKING OUT  by James Everington

The Hyde Hotel Welcomes YOU

So, a bit of an announcement. Really pleased to say that the first anthology I've edited (well, co-edited) will be out next year from Black Shuck Books. THE HYDE HOTEL features horror and weird fiction about guests all staying in the same hotel. As you can see from the contents below there's a fantastic list of contributors. I hope some of you will consider a stay at The Hyde.

Reservations from 07/01/2016.

THE HYDE HOTEL:
James Everington - Checking In
Alison Littlewood​ - The View From The Basement
Iain Rowan​ - Night Porters
Dan​ Howarth - Tick Box
Amelia Mangan​ - The Edifice Of Dust
S.P. Miskowski​ - Lost & Found
Ray Cluley​ - Housekeeping
Alex Davis​ - Something Like Blood
Cate Gardner​ - The Coyote Corporation's Misplaced Song
Simon Bestwick​ - Wrath Of The Deep
Mark West​ - The Sealed Window
V.H. Leslie​ - The Blue Room
James Everington - Checking Out

Announcement! Trying To Be So Quiet from Boo Books

News!

Delighted to say that Boo Books are to release my novella Trying To Be So Quiet, a story about ghosts and grief and how we manage to go on despite the fact of death. When Alex from Boo Books emailed me to say he wanted to take it on, he said it reminded him of Sarah Pinborough's superlative The Language Of Dying which is one of the best, and most surprising, things anyone's said about my writing so far.

The e-book edition of Trying to be So Quiet will be out at the end of October, followed by a limited edition hardback in Feb 2016, which will include artwork and bonus content and a cuddly toy*

Here's a picture of myself and Alex sealing the deal:

* actual contents may vary

Edge-lit 4

Edge-lit 4 took place on Saturday, and as usual I went across to Derby for the day. I remember when I first went to the first Edge-lit (my first ever convention) I was pretty nervous as I didn't know anyone. Okay, very nervous. And yet somehow, in the intervening three years, I've met so many in the horror community that this post is mainly just a list of people I spoke to. I include as many people as I remember not to name drop, but to sincerely thank them all for being such a friendly and inclusive bunch. (And if I've forgotten to mention you, sorry - it was a hectic day!)

Things started well when Phil Sloman and I continued our habit of arriving in cities within 60 seconds of each other – despite having been travelling for hours, he was loitering outside the station when I arrived, so we headed up to the venue, talking about The Quarantined City, dodgy cafes and publisher foibles. Once at the venue we quickly bumped into Dion Winton-Polack and Lily Childs – the first of a number of Facebook friends I met for the first time in the flesh that day.

In the bar I went for drinks, spying Graeme Reynolds in the queue, and then in quick succession spoke to (deep breath) Paul Holmes, Neil Snowden, Adele Wearing, Mark Morris, Kit Power, Vicky Hooper, Ross Warren, Lisa Childs, Steve Byrne, Alison Littlewood, Stephen Bacon, Richard Farren Barber, John Travis and Terry Grimwood. I made a valiant attempt to actually get upstairs to the venue itself, but then bumped into Dan Howarth and his partner Jenny so we had a chat in the lobby. I must have been back to the bar and decided the sun was past the yardarm at this point too, for I definitely had a pint of Pedigree in my hand.

I tried to get upstairs again but ended up talking to Andrew David Barker (author of the fantastic The Electric) instead. Moving closer, right at the foot of the stairs, I bumped into Simon Bestwick, Cate Gardner and Rosanne Rabinowitz – Cate and I have been saying we’ll meet up at a con since 2012 but the fates have always been against us before, so it was fantastic to finally do so.

Shortly  before my first aborted attempt to leave the Quad bar.

And then it was lunch time, and I’d not even made it to any panels or events. A group of us went to a café which served lovely ‘artisan sandwiches’, although quite how they took so long to prepare I’ll never know. After lunch, Mark West lead a contingent to a local second hand market stall, but I figured I’d better go back to The Quad and actually try and make it upstairs – which I did, sort of. I stopped to chat to Theresa Derwin of Knightwatch Press about a 'Top Secret Project' (TM) myself, Dan Howarth and her have been working on… After that, I saw Hic Dragones had a stall so I went over to talk to head honcho Hannah Kate and posed with a copy of Hauntings. Then back downstairs, and I bumped into Ross Warren again who was talking to Ray Cluley who I’d pre-order a copy of Probably Monsters from. Ray signed it for me and with a cry ‘pick any card’ he flourished some old school horror postcards which he’d wrote mini one-off stories on the back. What a guy.

Pimping Hauntings

Finally at that point I went up to an actual to goodness Edge-lit event, a panel on Monsters – along the way bumping into Tim Major, who came and sat with myself and Ross. The panel was hosted by Adam Nevill and featured Sarah Pinborough, Mark Morris and Alison Littlewood. Then it was straight over to the Spectral Press launch event, where books by Stephen Volk, Mark Morris and Cate Gardner were being launched. I've already had the pleasure of reading Stephen's Leytonstone to review for This Is Horror, and was chuffed to see a quote from my review appears in the front of the book. Cate and Mark's books sounded great too.

In the audience I spoke to Paul Feeney (later on buying a copy of his debut novella The Last Bus), met Dean M Drinkal and Tony Cowin for the first time, before catching up with Dan again, passing on the info from Theresa about the Top Secret Project' (TM), which as it turns out wasn't to remain fully top secret for much longer...

Book (and CD) haul for the day.

Next up was the Knightwatch Press event, which was truly one of the most entertaining launches I've been to. Dion was there to launch Sunny With A Chance Of Zombies, and his daughter was dressed up for the part as a brain eating zombie (with an actual brain to scoff in her hands). She was brilliant and never broke character once. The readings for Sunny... and Chip Shop of Horrors were all funny as hell (deliberately so) and Phil knocked his reading out the park, especially when he did a mini song and dance in the middle. Then there was brain-cake, some free wine, and Theresa letting slip to the audience about the 'Top Secret Project' (TM) I mentioned above. So I guess I'll be mentioning it on here too soon...! All in all, a fantastic launch.

Then a group of us now including Fiona Ní Éalaighthe heading out for the traditional convention curry - after a walk in the rain we ended up in the same restaurant as last year. Because of course we did. Lovely (if very spicy!) food though and some great conversation about just what made conventions such fun. Which in short, was the people. (And the shit loads of books, too).

Handsome people eating a curry. If you're wondering where Fiona is, like a gentlemen I'm blocking all sight of her save ear.

We headed back for the raffle, which was a bit of a blow-out as far as our group was concerned - I did win a signed copy of some fantasy book so I suppose I shouldn't grumble... plus with Sarah Pinborough and John Connolly presenting it was full of laughs (many of them filthy ones). And then, too soon, the day was done (and hay-fever had about killed any chance I had of saying anything coherent anymore) so I headed back to the station. It felt especially bittersweet on the train back this time - I met great people some of whom I count as genuine friends, but I only get to see them a few hectic days a year like this one. But still, it was a great event, maybe the best Edge-lit to date and I for one can't wait for the next one.

(One of those good friends is Mark West, who has written his own take on the day here. I have also shamelessly nicked a few photos from him...)

Guest Post: Alex Davis on The Dark Side Of Cinema

So, I was meant to post this yesterday as part of a blog swap with Alex Davis, but life got in the way. So a day late, here's Alex's wonderful guest post. And over on his blog, you can find me talking about a key influence on The Quarantined City and one of my favourite ever shows, Twin Peaks.

Take it away, Alex:

The Dark Side of Cinema

One of the things I've always really loved to have in my working life is a bit of variety. Freelancing gives you the opportunity to explore lots of interesting things with a kind of freedom you don't often have in a regular working environment. And when, at the very start of this year, I noticed Ginger Nuts of Horror – a fantastic website if you've never been by – were looking for reviewers and writers, I decided to throw my hat in the ring with a pitch for a series looking at the most extreme of cinema. And so, Film Gutter was born.

I've always enjoyed things that are from the edge, alternative, a bit outre. And the same very much goes for films – I've rarely been one for a blockbuster, much preferring independent and world cinema. What first set me off thinking about Film Gutter was a quick trawl through Youtube at people's lists of 'disturbing films' or 'disgusting films' or 'controversial movies' and it struck me how many I had already seen and not been that affected by. And that started me wondering – is there a line I won't let a film cross? Is there a point where I would press the stop button and give up because something had disturbed me so much? If those things that really shook other people up had produced so little effect in me, was there something out there that would make me feel that perturbed?

So the rationale was effectively something akin to masochism, a movie-based Man vs Food – bring it on and see if you can break me. Six months in, I've taken in some absolutely horrendous movies, but it's been fascinating to explore what is out there and what people are doing in extreme horror. There are a lot of films I don't know if I would have checked out or not if I wasn't writing the column. 

So here are a few highlights of the first six months of Film Gutter:

Best Film: Flowers, all day long. An astounding piece by director Phil Stevens, without a single word of dialogue in the whole piece. The visuals and the atmosphere are simply incredible, and the wordless performance from the six female leads are also wonderful. This one is on its way soon from Unearthed Films, and I can't suggest checking it out enough.

Worst Film: Yet to type up my review for this one, and I may yet not bother, because Chaos was so awful. Lazy characters, cliché violence and dialogue put into the mouths of teenage characters but clearly written by somebody many years out of touch. Just lousy from beginning to end, some kind of attempt at an informational film but not even achieving that.

Most Harrowing Film: Megan is Missing. A relatively simple found footage movie, but well played by all the teenage actors and having one of the most horrific, impactful finales you are ever likely to see. The last twenty minutes of this one left me absolutely shellshocked.

Most Reprehensible Film: Snuff 102. It's rare to find a film was so few redeeming features as this Argentinian piece. Flat out horrible and simply designed to upset from the get go, with graphic and realistically presented snuff violence and scenes that send me a bit queasy even to think of.

Hardest Film to Watch: Thanatomorphose. My hand lingered over the stop button so many times during this movie it's untrue. I made this stomach-churning body horror even worse by watching it while I ate dinner – very bad move indeed. The last few minutes of this one had me covering my ears with my hands and asking the screen 'Is it over?'

There are still plenty more disturbing films out there to watch, and I'm looking forwards – perhaps a little strangely – to maybe finding the film that can break me...

You can read the full set of Film Gutter reviews so far athttp://www.gingernutsofhorror.com/film-gutter.html. And, if you fancied something a bit gentler, you can check out my novel The Last War at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00YQICMHQ