Millionaires Day

So, Kit Power's latest book is an odd one, even for him. You'll have seen the title of this post - "Millionaires Day" - and already had a reaction I'm sure. Either you remember that day vividly (despite the fact that, post-Covid, no one ever seems to talk about it) or you'll be denying it ever happened, that it was all just internet bollocks. Two tribes.

I was reluctant to even post this piece, to be honest. I'll probably not check my DMs for awhile after it goes live.

But Kit's wrote a whole book about it, so god knows what his messages are going to be like.

The book's being marketed as 'fiction' for reasons obvious to anyone who's spent any time on the internet (especially that message-board...) so, yeah - fiction. Sure. So as part of Kit's research for his FICTIONAL book he asked some fellow writers to send him their FICTIONAL recollections of that time. I don't know in what mischievous and ingenious ways Kit will have used what I sent him, but I thought I'd post the original piece on here to help promote Millionaires Day (which is being formally launched at FantasyCon in Chester in a few weeks). 

So: this is just a piece of make believe, if that's what you want to think. Just a story. Don't @ me.

#millionairesday

Did it happen? I remember it happening, but when I look online, at what other people apparently think they remember, I’m not sure how much proof that is.

When I go outside to my—well, it’s not a garden, but the few metres of dead grass I call a garden—when I go outside to the garden, I still expect to see the black scorch marks. Look up and I still expect to see smoke, and that the sky might snow this winter. But there are no scorch marks, and we’ve fucked the weather too much for snow.

But what I do remember is this: how surreal it seemed, after having made a cuppa from yesterday's reused tea-bag, after having checked the expiration date on the dried noodles I’d got from the food-bank despite the fact that I'd nothing else and would have to eat them regardless… - I remember how surreal it felt to find all that money under my sagging bed. Finding a tenner would have been cause for celebration; finding all that—I felt elated, but scared too, almost. Like something had gone wrong and I’d be held accountable.

I unlocked my phone, to open social media—because that’s what you do, isn’t it, when something special or untoward happens? You check social media. But it was down, all of it. Every site. I reasoned I’d just not paid some bill or other. I looked again at the case of money under my bed; I could pay those bills and debts now. More importantly, I could eat.

But I still felt uneasy. Like when someone gives you something and you’ve not got a gift to give them back. Or like when you have to go to a food bank.

I took some of the money, planning to buy a load of booze—and I mean a load—and food. It was only when I left the house I realised that what had happened to me hadn’t only happened to me. Already half he shops were shut as the owners partied, and in those that remained open the prices—felt-tipped over the original, printed ones— looked as surreal as the cash under my bed had done. I bought the booze but not the food; back home I had vintage Champagne and Hakushu whisky and dried, out-of-date noodles… and I felt a bitterness as I heard the cheers and whoops from outside. Everyone else was doing the same as me, minus the noodles. I’d felt special for a moment, different, but barely hours later I was back to being the same as everyone else, but shitter.

I remember, I’m sure I do, that I took the case of money outside to the ‘garden’, poured BBQ fluid over it, and set it alight. As the black smoke rose into the sky I looked up and saw that it had started to snow—in my drunken vision it looked like a blizzard and it was like I’d caused it, like because of me we’d have a white Christmas. Because of me.

And then I saw the swirls and eddies of black smoke rising up all over the estate, and I shouted swear words at all the other fuckers, all the other trapped fuckers like me running down the same rat-runs, and then I must have blacked out or passed out—stupid, I don’t even like Champagne—and when I woke up my tiny garden was blackened and sooty, but the sky, the sky was still snowing and we did have a white Christmas, all of us, despite what the weather records say that year.

That’s what I remember.

Recommendation: My Life In Horror #1 by Kit Power

Kit Power's My Life In Horror #1 is a non-fiction collection of essays originally published on Gingernuts Of Horror. In each, Kit describes a formative encounter with the horror genre in his childhood or young adulthood: not just books and films, but also music, a role-playing game, and real-life events. Kit's definition of what counts as 'horror' is pretty flexible, which makes for some delightful surprises in what he's included—as well as Hellraiser we get Robocop, as well as The Wasp Factory we get Sleepers. I thought I'd already read most of the content, but it turns out there was quite a lot I'd missed, especially where they relate to music. As an aside, Kit is very good writing about music, making we want to listen to tunes I either doubt will be to my taste (The Wildhearts) or even already know I loathe (bloody Queen). 

Kit and I are of a similar age, so I encountered a lot of the works he mentioned in my youth too (and I was struck by the notion, hinted at throughout the book, that the news we see as kids influences our view of horror as much as fiction; that footage of Hillsborough, Zeebrugge, the Challenger explosion, or the Ethiopian famines, form a bedrock of shared cultural experience and imagery similar to liking the same films) but I suspect nearly all fans of the genre will get a kick out of these pieces. And...

.... and, oh look, who am I kidding? This isn't how I wanted to write about this book.

There's a great moment in B.S. Johnson's Alberto Angelo where he interrupts his own novel by saying "fuck all this lying" and proceeds to tell the supposedly real-version of events that inspired the fiction up until that point. And while I've not been lying above, I have been circling round the real reason I loved this book: 

It's 2020.

It's Covid-time.

I haven't seen my writing friends in months, nor am I likely to for months more.

Like many I'm sure, my writing has taken a hit this year. My routine's all changed, I've lost some mojo. And part of it is that the conventions are cancelled, those semi-regular catch ups with fellow authors. I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets a burst of motivation & enthusiasm following Fantasycon or Edge-Lit, and while some of that is from the scheduled events, a lot is from being surrounded by so many amazing writers and fans and creatives, from talking to them during the day and well into the night.

Reading My Life In Horror feels as close to one of those conversations as I'm going to get this year. Indeed, the first chapter is about Stephen King's IT, and one of my favourite FCon memories is a late night conversation with Kit and Mark West when we talked about how much we loved IT for hours. And the great thing about this book is it's so personal, so much Kit's take of the horror genre, that it feels like a one-way conversation with him. My responses to the essays in the book weren't objective judgements, but me thinking what I would want to say back to him, if I could. (You're so wrong about Don't Look Now, Kit.)

In a very real way, it's fired me up like a convention would (I even read it Friday to Sunday, the same timescales as Fcon) and made me want to get back to my own writing, to my own life in horror. So it's pointless for me to pretend to describe this book like I did at the top of the review, to compose an objective sounding discussion of its many strengths and odd weaknesses. 

My Life In Horror #1 was quite simply just what I needed right now, in 2020, and it might be just what you need too. 

Kit Power's Life In Horror

My life with Kit Power:

• He wrote a book which, when I reviewed it, all I could manage as a first sentence was, "Well, fuck."
• Two reading slots I've done with him involved hammers
• Myself, Kit and Mark West spent what felt like hours talking about IT at the con bar at Fcon Peterborough
• Umpteen political disagreements
• I've featured him in a forthcoming short story, although he doesn't know that yet. Nor that in it, I claim that he isn't real
• Those trousers
• The support he's shown my own writing, especially his kind words about Paupers' Graves

So anyway, he's crowdfunding what sounds like a brilliant book, My Life In Horror Volume 1 and he's   written this piece, to persuade you to donate your hard-earned towards it. Which you definitely should - did I mention the hammers?

Take it away, Kit:

Sure, it’s a cliche, but it’s also true; life comes at you fast.

It’s January 2014. Having completed an Open University course the previous summer, I’ve discovered I have 10 - 12 hours a week I could be using for something other than watching bad TV. Having also over the summer of 2013 devoured King’s On Writing, I’ve decided to start writing.

Since then, I’ve written one 17,000 word piece I’m optimistically calling a novella, another 12K piece, another 6K piece, and a handful of short stories. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, but I am having fun.

The 17K piece is called Lifeline, and I’ve shopped it to a few small presses with no success. Most of the feedback suggests it may be a bit… much. I think it probably is, too, but that’s what I like about it. Then, one small press explicitly says it’s too much but if I have anything else, I should send it - they really want a novella and they like my style.

So I send over the 12K piece, and say I know it’s too short, but I have a 6K piece that might pair with it and bring the wordcount up… and they go for it.

Just like that, I'm going to be a published writer.

And then, hot on the heels of that moment; I should probably figure out a way to tell people about the book.

Enter: Gingernuts of Horror.

Green as I was, I knew the site was a big deal; respected by indie and named authors alike, pulling in some huge interviews, and covering a dizzying range of books and movies. Jim Mcleod, the site proprietor, had also already struck me as a fearsome figure - passionate about the genre, but clearly unwilling to suffer fools gladly, or really at all. Landing a review there would clearly be A Big Deal. So I made the approach, via email.

I heard nothing back.

Undeterred, I continued to plug the book, finding blogs willing to take a review copy, and doing author interviews. And at some point, I completed the Gingernuts ‘5 minutes with…’ template and subbed that. At the same time, I mentioned to Jim that, in the unlikely event no-one of any importance had yet signed up for it, I’d love to take a crack at an essay on Stephen King’s IT for the site’s ‘The Book That Made Me’ series.

To my utter astonishment, he said yes.

So there I am, February 2014, writing a non-fiction essay for one of Europe’s biggest independent horror review sites, about one of Stephen King's biggest ever novels (in terms of both sales, and page count).

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But I had fun.

Flash forward a week or so. I’m on Twitter. I am new to Twitter. In what you’ll have already realised is a pattern, here, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m having fun.

There’s a twitterbot. Whenever you tweet a tweet that contains the word Robocop, it replies to your tweet saying ‘I’d Buy That For A Dollar!’ This is clearly the funniest thing I have so far encountered on Twitter, and during a tweet interaction with Jim, I tell him about it, hoping to impress him.

And it doesn’t work.

I track down the tweetbot, annoyed and a little embarrassed, and discover it’s creator has turned it off in protest at the recent Robocop remake. I explain this to Jim, still a little embarrassed, and then, more or less off the cuff, and certainly intending it to be a goof, I tell him if he ever does a series called The Film That Made Me, I could write him a doozy about Robocop.

Let’s do it, he says.

You can write the first article, he says.

Fantastic, I say.

I have no idea what I am doing.

So I write. And write. And write some more. I discover memories tied to this movie that have sat in my mind, unearthed and apparently unremembered since puberty. And yet here they are, vivid and alive. I write, I remember, I write some more, I get excited, I start cutting loose, and somewhere around the two thousand word mark I realise I am asserting, in an article for The Gingernuts Of Horror, that Robocop is the greatest horror movie ever made.

I read it back. Shamefully, I admit to laughing at my own jokes.

So I send it to Jim.

He runs it. It goes over gangbusters.

A couple of months later, he asks me if I want to write something regular for the site.

I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. But I’m having fun. So I say yes.

We kick ideas about; Jim’s main suggestion is ‘something like the Robocop piece’, which is flattering and scary all at once, as I still have no idea where most of it came from. But eventually we settle on a monthly format where I explore works - books, movies, music - that messed me up as a kid in some way or another, and that I think of as horror or horror related.

In June 2014, I submit my first column, and My Life In Horror is born.

Fast forward to July, 2015. I’m at my first genre con - EdgeLit in Derby. I am there early, and I am nervous as hell. I’ve had a few shorts in a few anthologies, self published Lifeline as an ebook novella, and I am trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my debut novel, GodBomb! You’ll be astonished to learn I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote it, but I had fun.

I’m early enough that the venue isn’t even open, so I sit at a table outside, and soon, I am approached by a guy who knows my name. This guy is Neil Snowdon, and he knows me from Facebook, and in particular, a recent interview I conducted for the site with Stephen Volk - oh yeah, by this point I’m somehow interviewing Stephen Volk for the site. Guess how much I knew what I was doing. We chatted non-fiction and process (I can’t remember if My Life In Horror came up or not), and our shared love of the longform essay/interview. At some point, I confessed that I had no idea what I was doing. Neil opined that nobody else did, either.

Before the event had even started, I’d made a friend.

Fast forward to October 2016. I’m a podcaster now - as well as a blogger, reviewer, interviewer, and oh, yeah, still author too, the novel’s out now. My podcast is called Watching Robocop with Kit Power and every month(ish) I watch Robocop with a friend and record the resulting conversation. It’s huge fun, and I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

I am also guesting on other people’s podcasts, including They Must Be Destroyed On Sight! - a movie show about cult cinema. I basically invite myself on to talk about two movies - Parents, and Ken Russell/The Who movie Tommy. My reason for picking the two films is simply that they are the two most cult movies I know and like, and they both kinda messed me up as a kid. I’m also double-dipping the subject matter - my plan is to write a My Life In Horror piece about Tommy, so I figure the rewatch and conversation will help with that. And so it proves.

And Neil Snowdon is listening too. And he gets in touch.

“I like what you had to say about Tommy and Ken Russell. Fancy writing a Midnight Monograph book about the film? I’ve been enjoying your My Life In Horror stuff, seems like Tommy could be a good fit for a longer piece.”

“Well, I don’t know, man, that’s really flattering and I’d love to give it a go, but I’m not really a film expert - in fact, most of the time I have very little idea what I am doing. It’d really just be my take on the film, you know, really personal.”

And then Neil said the words every writer longs to hear from an editor: “Well, that’s exactly what I’m after.”

I waited on making a final decision until after the My Life In Horror article dropped - I thought I’d give Neil a chance to back out once he’d seen me actually flinging written words at the subject. I sent him the link when it went live. “What do you think?”

“I think that’s the introduction.”

Flash forward. Its July 2019. I’m at Edgelit. Again. With Neil. Again. I’ve just interviewed Stephen Volk on stage about his new non-fiction collection, Coffinmakers Blues, which is launching at the event - alongside my own non-fiction debut, the Midnight Monograph book on Tommy. It’s turned out better than I could have dreamed possible - but, then, Neil is one hell of an editor.

Post launch, we break bread and chat, the conversation covering a bewildering array of subjects, before Neil casually asks “So, Stokercon 2020. What are you going to have coming out?”

I explain I have a couple of possible irons in the fire; a short short story collection with a press that specialises in such editions, and a novella I am racing to get finished for another press that I am hopeful will make the grade.

“What about a My Life In Horror collection? I’ve always thought they’d make a good book. Put ‘em in chronological order, it’s almost an autobiography. And you’ll never find a better crowd than Stokercon, it’s tailor made - all that 80’s and 90’s nostalgia.”

“Yeah, but it’s already basically too late to shop around, everyone’s going to have their plans already, I should have been thinking about it months ago to be in with a shot.”

“Self pub, maybe? A WARNING went okay.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The conversation moves on to other things.

But the idea festers.

Fast forward to November 2019. The novella is with the publisher. So is the short short story collection. I probably have two Stokercon 2020 releases set. I can relax.

I am not relaxed. The conversation with Neil is playing on my mind. Festering. I’ve put the first three years of My Life In Horror together in chronological order. I’ve revised and expanded every single essay.

I think I like it. I think it works.

So do the publishers I show it to, but it’s not for them, at least not for Stokercon. And that’s fine, I have two books coming out already, three might be considered greedy.

But.

It’s My Life In Horror.

Post Fcon, I’m chatting with another friend. We kick it about, and he names the publishers I’ve already approached. Then he casually tosses into the conversation “Of course, you could crowdfund it.”

Bloody hell, I think.

I mean, bloody hell, I guess I could.

I mean, I’d have absolutely no idea what I was doing.

But it sounds like fun.

Kit Power’s My Life In Horror Volume One is crowdfunding until 23rd February. The campaign features two limited edition hardbacks, both of which are exclusive to this campaign, signed paperbacks, ebooks, and audio recording perks. To back the campaign, please visit https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/my-life-in-horror-volume-one/x/22919255#/. If successful, books should be ready by Stokercon 2020.

Assuming Kit has the faintest idea what the hell he’s doing.

Recommendation: The Finite by Kit Power

Well, fuck.

I recommend books for all kinds of reasons on here: the plot, the characterisation, the quality of the prose, the intellectual and thematic ideas underpinning the whole. (Normally, of course, if it's worth recommending it's for more than one element.) Fancy ideas which really all come down to one thing: did the book make an emotion impression on me? Will I remember scenes or dialogue or just the general feel of it? Has it, in however small a way, changed me?

I'll be remembering scenes from Kit Power's novella The Finite for a long time, I think. This one is going to linger. It's going to be hard to forget the ashy taste of it under my tongue, the gritty feel of it on my skin. It combines a real & genuine evocation of parental love with a gut-wrenching sense of absolute fucking fatalism and despair.

So look, you can read the blurb yourself, but basically The Finite is about a nuclear bomb going off and a father and daughter who survive the initial blast but have absorbed a fatal dose of radiation poison anyway. It's about their last, finite span of time together with that knowledge, and it's absolutely as devastating and soul-destroying as that sounds. (And, to repeat: it's also a book about love.)

It hardly needs to be said, this could all have gone horribly wrong. One false note, one poorly written scene or cliched character decision, and the whole thing would have become ridiculous and bathetic and easily ignored. But Power doesn't put a foot wrong, and so he succeeds in writing one of the most bleak and terrible things I've read since The Road. He succeeds in changing me in those small and awful and glorious ways that good fiction can. He succeeds into making horror into art.

And because it needs to be said a third time: this is also a story about love. And you should read it.

The Finite: Black Shuck Books

Edge-Lit 8

I'll be at the Edge-Lit convention again this year—always a fantastic day. I'll be around for most of the day mingling, eating, drinking, not-winning the raffle, and no doubt buying books. Plus! I'm also part of these programmed events:

3pm – Black Shuck Books – Book Launch
The official launch for Pareidolia, edited by myself and Dan Howarth, alongside The Finite by Kit Power.

4pm – Multi-Publisher Horror Book Launch
Launches for titles from Dark Minds Press, The Sinister Horror Company, and Hersham Horror who are releasing The Woods with a story from me, and others by Cate Gardner, Mark West, Penny Jones and Phil Sloman.


Hope to see a bunch of you there. Say hi!

2016: My Writing Year

So 2016, eh? An, uh, 'interesting' year for many of us... for reasons I'm sure you don't need me to remind you of.

But just judging 2016 based on what it meant for my writing, it was a good year. In terms of books published I looked very prolific, but in reality this was caused by the vagaries of small-press publishing schedules rather than anything else.

Books
Trying To Be So Quiet 
A ghost story released as a (brilliantly designed) hardback - a first for me. Jim McLeod of Ginger Nuts Of Horror included TTBSQ in his Top 20 Books of the year, and Anthony Watson mentioned it in his 2016 Review post on his Dark Musings site. Sadly Boo Books are no longer with us, so I'll be looking for a new home for this one.

The Quarantined City
Finally the whole story could be told... stories, in fact. After 'publisher problems' prevented this being released episodically as originally planned, the brilliant Infinity Plus stepped in to release the whole novel. It's the book of mine I'm probably most proud of, and Anthony Watson picked it as his second favourite novel of the year, calling it a "truimph". And of course I'm going to be crass enough to mention again that this one got reviewed in the bloody Guardian.

Paupers' Graves
Part of the Hersham Horror novella range, this one stretched me as a writer, involving a fair amount of historical research (the setting is based on a real life cemetery here in Nottingham). Fortunately the hard work seemed to pay off, with Mark West including Paupers' Graves in his annual Westies awards; Horror Novel Reviews in this 2016 List; Anthony Watson mentioning it in his year end piece; as did Kit Power in his personal round up for Ginger Nuts of Horror.

The Hyde Hotel
My first book as editor, alongside Dan Howarth. I loved putting together this - thanks to all the stellar authors involved. And again, Anthony Watson (a man I owe a drink to, should we ever met) mentioned this in his roundup of the year.

Stories & Non-Fiction: 
Including reprints, I had seven stories published this year. The new ones were 'Hooked' (Thirteen Signs), 'A Glimpse of Red' (Great British Horror #1: Green &Pleasant Land) and 'Premonition' (Reflections). And although not released in 2016, Kit Power (a cracking writer in himself) mentioned 'The Man Dogs Hated' (from Falling Over) as one of his favourite short stories he read this year in his own annual round up.

I also had two pieces in the Writers On Writing series from Crystal Lake, both republished in the Omnibus Edition: 'Embracing Your Inner Shitness' and 'Fictional Emotions; Emotional Fictions'.

Events:
I attended more writing related events than ever before, and had a blast at all of them: Edge-Lit 5, Sledge-lit 2, Derby Writers' Day, Nottingham Library Local Writers Showcase, and of course the annual three days of talking books, eating food, launching books, drinking beer and buying books that is Fantasycon.

Coming Up...
2017 will see me hard at work upon a novel, as well as hopefully see some more short stories published. I'm tentatively thinking about what tales should feature in my next collection too, so hopefully they'll be some news on that.

See you next year, everyone!

Paupers' Grave: First Reviews & Fantasycon Launch

My new novella, Paupers' Graves is being launched this Saturday at Fantasycon 2016 as part of the Hersham Horror launch event, which also includes great looking books by Marie O'Regan, Mark West, Phil Sloman and Stephen Bacon. (You can also preorder it here.)

It's had some pre-releases reviews already, and yet again I'm humbled by what what people have said about my work:

"...an incredibly powerful and scary story that actually has something to say - and something genuinely nuanced and uncomfortable, at that. Very highly recommended." Kit Power at Gingernuts Of Horror.

"As might be expected from the author of the amazing Quarantined City, this is a story which operates on multiple levels. It’s a story about stories; it’s about society. It’s ghosts and hauntings and is very effective in dealing out the thrills and chills. It’s a corker – scary and profound." Anthony Watson at Dark Musings.

My Fantasycon schedule is as below:

Saturday 12.00pm: Bright Lights panel, with Penny Reeve (Chair), Liz De Jager, Donna Scott, Kit Power & me.... (Royal Ballroom, Royal Hotel)

Saturday 1:00pm: Book Launch for Great British Horror #1: Green & Pleasent Land (Harbour Lights, Grand Hotel)

Saturday7:00 pm: Hersham Horror launch, including Paupers' Graves (Cocktail Bar, Grand Hotel)


Otherwise, I'll be hanging around enjoying myself. Hope to see as many as possible there!

Edge-Lit 5: After

On Saturday I went to Edge-Lit 5 and had a wonderful time, as always. The whole day passed in much of a blur, so this post won't be as detailed as Mark West's latest Convention Report: he's a man who seems to remember everything that happened. Maybe the fact Mark doesn't drink helps...

Mark West, me, Peter Mark May
(photo by Peter Colborn)

But my post is a few impressionistic snapshots of what I remember from the day:

Sitting opposite someone on the train who was reading a Sarah Pinborough book so I was convinced they were 'one of us' and I almost struck up conversation... but no, they got off at Long Eaton. Poor sod.

The launch for Trying To Be So Quiet (alongside Tracy Fahey launching her new collection and Exaggerated Press launching the Darker Battlefields anthology) seeming to go really well from what I could tell - I signed and sold a few books, so that was a good sign...

Buying some excellent looking books, including both those that launched alongside mine, The Grieving Stones by Gary McMahon, and the Hauntings anthology from NewCon Press

Good friends Mark West, Phil Sloman, Ross Warren, Lisa James, Steve Byrne, Kit Power and many more responding to my 'recent exciting review' in that most British of ways: by taking the piss.

Realising anew each time I signed a book (or in one case a contract) how truly shit my handwriting is.

Sitting discussing horror, ghosts and the past with Victoria Leslie in the sun while eating a delicious chorizo sandwich and fries from The Quad... only to hear Victoria repeat some of my bumbling ideas in her Supernatural Fiction panel later. She gave me credit for them though :)

The look of indignation on Steve's face when informing me they didn't serve beer before 11am...

Simon Bestwick continuing an animated political discussion we'd had online in the front page of his novel Hell's Ditch when he signed it for me. Still not convinced, Simon :)

My first mediocre convention curry. I blame Brexit.

Meeting friends old and new; and despite the risk of missing someone I'm going to list who I remember because these things really are about the people. So as well as the above, shout outs to: Priya Sharma, Peter Mark May, Holly Emma Ice, Dion Winton-Pollock, Andrew Hook, Nina Allen, Cate Gardner, Gary Couzens, John Travis, Johnny Mains, Ian Whates, Amanda Rutter, Terry Grimwood, Richard Farren Barber, Anthony Cowin, Ray Cluley, Roy Gray, Adele Wearing, Angelina Trevena, Gary McMahon, Steve Shaw, Yvonne Davis, Theresa Derwin, Greg James, Gary McMahon - with some of you it was all too fleeting a chat. Lets's rectify that over a pint that at the next one, okay?

Double Ginger Nuts

Big thanks to the Ginger Nuts Of Horror site for not just one but two fantastic reviews recently. Firstly, head honcho Jim Mcleod reviewed my forthcoming novella Trying To Be So Quiet. Jim's a massively respected reviewer in the UK horror scene, so I was naturally relieved that he liked it so much:

"Everington has always been one of those writers to watch out for, a gifted writer with a keen eye for refined horror, Trying To Be So Quiet doesn't so much as cement his place as a great writer, as but catapults him into the ranks of exceptional writers." (Review here.)

Then author Kit Power reviewed my collection Falling Over, which he claimed was his short story read of 2016 so far... He also said:

"...this is a masterful collection from a writer with an incredible deftness of touch. Note perfect grasp of character, the ability to render the mundane strange with a turn of phrase, deeply literate yet not an ounce of pretension, Everington is a quiet but potent voice in horror fiction." (Review here.)

News x 3

A few bits and bobs:

Firstly, the anthology Masks, which features my story Porcelain, is out now (UK | US). Edited by Dean M Drinkel and featuring stories from Icy Sedgwick and Phil Sloman amongst others, it also has some great cover art from James Powell, who sadly passed away earlier this year - Masks is dedicated to his memory.

Nextly, my story Red Route is included in a new anthology Another Dimension, which features fiction and non-fiction pieces in the spirit of The Twilight Zone. Honoured to be included in a book alongside ST Joshi, Kit Power, Gary A. Braunbeck and a whole host of others. You can currently pre-order Another Dimension with 50% off here.

And finally, I'm thrilled to see that The Man In Blue Books (from the Hic Dragones anthology Hauntings) got a mention in Ellen Datlow's latest recommendation list for Best Horror Of The Year #7. Like almost everyone working in the horror genre, Datlow's anthologies are ones I admire immensely, so it's a real surprise just to see my name included on the recommended list, especially alongside such fantastic company.