C.J. Carter-Stephenson's Blog: ~ Crystal Clear ~, page 3
October 26, 2021
BACK OF THE BOOKSHELF Podcast Update...
I just wanted to post a quick
Back of the Bookshelf
update, as I'm aware that new content has been conspicuous by its absence of late. There have been a few unavoidable delays, but the audio version of the third episode of Season 2 will finally launch on Halloween. It's an adaptation of a horror story by Robert W. Chambers in honour of the occasion with the usual immersive soundscape to bring it to life. The story is called
In the Court of the Dragon
and was originally published in Chambers' acclaimed collection
The King in Yellow
. Chambers does an excellent job of building tension and the locations are vividly described, so I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Here's a picture of me in full narration mode...
My aim is to release the video of the episode at the same time as the audio version, but if this isn't possible, it should follow shortly afterwards. The video for Episode 2 will then launch in November. After that, it should be business as usual with Episode 4 launching on 1st December and a Christmas themed episode following on Christmas Eve. Watch this space or follow Back of the Bookshelf on Twitter for further updates - @BackBookshelf.
My aim is to release the video of the episode at the same time as the audio version, but if this isn't possible, it should follow shortly afterwards. The video for Episode 2 will then launch in November. After that, it should be business as usual with Episode 4 launching on 1st December and a Christmas themed episode following on Christmas Eve. Watch this space or follow Back of the Bookshelf on Twitter for further updates - @BackBookshelf.
October 4, 2021
➠Back to the Filmmaking➠
After a long hiatus, I've been getting back into acting and my latest effort has just launched on YouTube. It's a student remake of a scene from Back to the Future Part III, specifically the street race near the end. I play the part of Needles, which was, of course, originated by the inimitable Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The point wasn't to improve on the original movie (surely impossible), but rather to create a homage to it and explore how the scene was put together. The casting call made it sound fun and it didn't disappoint. I even got to drive my car a bit. Here's a picture of me with some of the other cast and crew...
If anyone is interested, you can check out the finished result here...
'Back to the Future Part III' Scene Remake
If anyone is interested, you can check out the finished result here...
'Back to the Future Part III' Scene Remake
January 15, 2021
📰 More breaking news...
It hasn't been long since my last post, but there have been a few more developments in my literary world. Firstly, my short story, Dog Woman was published today on the
Page & Spine: Fiction Showcase
website. Page & Spine has been running since 2012 under the leadership of N.k. Wagner and has built up a large archive of quality fiction, so it's definitely worth a look (especially as it's entirely free of charge). My own contribution was something I came up with while studying for my MA and is a weird fiction piece set in a Victorian freak show. It is written in the present tense with an experimental slow-reveal structure and was inspired by Paula Rego's painting of the same name. Click here to read it.
Next up is another announcement about my H2-Oh screenplay. To my delight, this has been selected for inclusion in the Oregon Short Film Festival Winter 2021, which will be taking place on 25th - 28th February at the Sunshine Mill Artisan Plaza and Winery, 901 E 2nd St, The Dalles, OR 97058. This is the official selection laurel...
The chances of my attending in person are practically nonexistent, due to the ongoing lockdown situation in the UK, but if anyone else is in a position to go, it promises to be a Covid safe event, in which guests will watch the screenings from their vehicles outside and wear masks when ordering food or using the restrooms indoors. As mentioned previously, H2-Oh is an action-packed science fiction piece about a space fighter pilot who is marooned on a dying world. Check out the poster below...
It has some stiff competition in the Oregon festival, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will achieve something. Click here to find out more about the festival.
That's all folks... for now.
Next up is another announcement about my H2-Oh screenplay. To my delight, this has been selected for inclusion in the Oregon Short Film Festival Winter 2021, which will be taking place on 25th - 28th February at the Sunshine Mill Artisan Plaza and Winery, 901 E 2nd St, The Dalles, OR 97058. This is the official selection laurel...
The chances of my attending in person are practically nonexistent, due to the ongoing lockdown situation in the UK, but if anyone else is in a position to go, it promises to be a Covid safe event, in which guests will watch the screenings from their vehicles outside and wear masks when ordering food or using the restrooms indoors. As mentioned previously, H2-Oh is an action-packed science fiction piece about a space fighter pilot who is marooned on a dying world. Check out the poster below...
It has some stiff competition in the Oregon festival, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will achieve something. Click here to find out more about the festival.
That's all folks... for now.
January 6, 2021
2021 off to a good start (apart from the virus, of course).
Welcome to 2021. COVID-19 still has the world under siege, but things have got off to a good start for me writing wise. Firstly, I have some publication news. The latest episode of
The Night's End Podcast
featuring The Timeless Dance was released on New Year's Day as planned and seems to be doing well. It's a highly atmospheric dramatization of the story, so definitely worth checking out even if you've already read the print version. They've also come up with a great promotional image... as you can see...
You can find this episode together with all their others HERE. Hours of quality horror that will chill you to the bone even more than the icy grip of another winter.
If you want to read The Timeless Dance in print, it's still available on the Youth Imagination website HERE. Also still available online is my poem Jungle Secrets courtesy of Utopia Science Fiction . Click here to check it out.
As if that wasn't enough, Issue 2 of Frost Zone Zine , featuring my story The Apparition has also recently been released. It's packed full of excellent fiction and poetry, so would be a great choice if you're on the lookout for your next read. This one is available at no charge HERE.
Frost Zone Zine is a fledgling publication, so if you read and enjoy it, please consider supporting them by spreading the word, posting a review, etc.
I've also had some screenwriting success recently. A screenplay I wrote for the pilot episode of an unproduced television show called Unascended won an award for Best Dialogues in the Global International Film Festival, which was a great honour. This is the screenplay's blurb...
Soon afterwards, my screenplay for a short science fiction film called H2-Oh was included in the FFTG Awards Program 2020 Slate and two others made it to the finals of the International Moving Film Festival. These are all very small steps on the journey to getting something on screen, but they are steps nonetheless, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed 🤞.
Next up fantasy and comedy are set to collide in my second Tale of Sir Degrevaunt with accompanying artwork by the great Mauro Vargas (best known now for his work on comic miniseries Star Wars: Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir ). The story, which is called The Cat's Tale, will be appearing in Issue 4 of TdotSpec's Speculative North magazine, which should be going to press imminently. More news on this as soon as I have it.
That's it for now.
You can find this episode together with all their others HERE. Hours of quality horror that will chill you to the bone even more than the icy grip of another winter.
If you want to read The Timeless Dance in print, it's still available on the Youth Imagination website HERE. Also still available online is my poem Jungle Secrets courtesy of Utopia Science Fiction . Click here to check it out.
As if that wasn't enough, Issue 2 of Frost Zone Zine , featuring my story The Apparition has also recently been released. It's packed full of excellent fiction and poetry, so would be a great choice if you're on the lookout for your next read. This one is available at no charge HERE.
Frost Zone Zine is a fledgling publication, so if you read and enjoy it, please consider supporting them by spreading the word, posting a review, etc.
I've also had some screenwriting success recently. A screenplay I wrote for the pilot episode of an unproduced television show called Unascended won an award for Best Dialogues in the Global International Film Festival, which was a great honour. This is the screenplay's blurb...
Who better to keep the ghost population in check than one of their own? Meet Zara, the ghost of an English teenager who committed suicide in 1984. Unable to rest in peace, she has made it her death's work to intervene when other spirits go bump in the night. This is her story...
Soon afterwards, my screenplay for a short science fiction film called H2-Oh was included in the FFTG Awards Program 2020 Slate and two others made it to the finals of the International Moving Film Festival. These are all very small steps on the journey to getting something on screen, but they are steps nonetheless, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed 🤞.
Next up fantasy and comedy are set to collide in my second Tale of Sir Degrevaunt with accompanying artwork by the great Mauro Vargas (best known now for his work on comic miniseries Star Wars: Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir ). The story, which is called The Cat's Tale, will be appearing in Issue 4 of TdotSpec's Speculative North magazine, which should be going to press imminently. More news on this as soon as I have it.
That's it for now.
September 30, 2020
See in the New Year with a little horror...
I've just found out that my short story The Timeless Dance is being adapted into audio form for an episode of
The Night's End Podcast
.
The episode is scheduled for release at 10 AM on 01/01/21 (Australian time) and will be accessible via the above link.
The Timeless Dance originally appeared in Issue 57 of Youth Imagination back in 2018 and is about a magic mask which steals faces. It falls firmly in the horror genre, but has a surrealist sensibility such as you might find in the work of Angela Carter or Neil Gaiman. If you are at a loose end on New Year's Day (and are not too worse for wear from the revels of the night before), I would love for you to check it out. There's no cost for doing so and you might just enjoy it. In the meantime, there are lots of other great stories on the podcast which are definitely worth a listen. Have a great day.
The episode is scheduled for release at 10 AM on 01/01/21 (Australian time) and will be accessible via the above link.
The Timeless Dance originally appeared in Issue 57 of Youth Imagination back in 2018 and is about a magic mask which steals faces. It falls firmly in the horror genre, but has a surrealist sensibility such as you might find in the work of Angela Carter or Neil Gaiman. If you are at a loose end on New Year's Day (and are not too worse for wear from the revels of the night before), I would love for you to check it out. There's no cost for doing so and you might just enjoy it. In the meantime, there are lots of other great stories on the podcast which are definitely worth a listen. Have a great day.
August 17, 2020
Sometimes it pays to be away with the fairies...
12 years ago, They Come From Below, my tale of a Shakespearean fairy running amok in subterranean London was published in the inaugural issue of Teresa Ford’s Ethereal Tales magazine. Now in the troubled year of 2020, I am excited to report that the story is about to make a comeback in a forthcoming anthology from Corrugated Sky Publishing, LLC tentatively titled Pixies, Fae and Sprites – A Mythical Rebellion. As the name suggests, the book is all about the mythical beings commonly described as fae (so yes... mermaids, trolls, werewolves, vampires, zombies, unicorns, dragons and other legendary creatures are all being turned away at the door). No information has been released yet about who else is contributing to the book, but based on past Corrugated Sky anthologies, the quality is likely to be high, so it should be one to watch out for. Further details (including publication date) will follow as soon as I know them.
On the subject of publication credits, I also wanted to take a moment to announce the publication of another car related article in Issue 240 (July/August 2020) of Round-Up, the magazine of the Mustang Owners Club of Great Britain. The article was written in the throes of the COVID-19 lockdown when car shows around the country were being systematically cancelled and is a retrospective of the events I attended in 2019 with accompanying photos (a few of which can be viewed below and here). If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy of the magazine click here to visit the club's shop (though double-check with them before placing an order, as I think they might be temporarily closed because of the pandemic situation).
That’s everything for now, but I have a few other things in the pipeline, so I hope to have more news very soon.
On the subject of publication credits, I also wanted to take a moment to announce the publication of another car related article in Issue 240 (July/August 2020) of Round-Up, the magazine of the Mustang Owners Club of Great Britain. The article was written in the throes of the COVID-19 lockdown when car shows around the country were being systematically cancelled and is a retrospective of the events I attended in 2019 with accompanying photos (a few of which can be viewed below and here). If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy of the magazine click here to visit the club's shop (though double-check with them before placing an order, as I think they might be temporarily closed because of the pandemic situation).
That’s everything for now, but I have a few other things in the pipeline, so I hope to have more news very soon.
February 28, 2020
February 2020 Arrives...
In my last post, I invited you to step forward in time with me to February 2020 to talk about the publication of my speculative poem Jungle Secrets in Volume 1, Issue 4 of
Utopia Science Fiction
. Now February 2020 📆 has actually arrived and the magazine has been duly released. It's a riveting read with a particular focus on environmental issues. Appearing alongside my poem are works by acclaimed sci-fi writers like 🚀Holly Schofield, 🚀David Barber and 🚀Carmen Lucía Alvarad. By all accounts, the last issue didn't sell as many copies as it deserved, so if you can support them by picking up a copy of this one, I am sure they would be deeply grateful 👍. Click on the image below for more information...
As for the future, it's looking bright at the moment, as I've just had a story accepted by Speculative North Magazine (the magazine formerly known as tdotSpec). This one is an Arthurian fantasy 🦄, though it steers clear of the usual overworked territory, keeping the better known characters on the periphery. My aim was to stay true to the traditions of this much loved sub-genre, while making it accessible to modern readers through the use of strong characterization and fast pacing. Accompanying it are four illustrations by artist extraordinaire 🎨 Mauro Vargas. These have to be seen to be believed, so definitely worth a look 👀. The story is expected to appear in issue 3 of the magazine, which is due out in 4 to 6 months. Watch this space for further updates 📺.
November 24, 2019
A Tale of a Publication Past and a Publication Future...
Hope everyone out there is having a good Sunday. For me, it's a day of announcements... a tale of a publication past and a publication future . I'll start with the past...
🧟♀️ 🎃 ☠️ 👻 🧟♀️ 🎃 ☠️ 👻 🧟♀️ 🎃 ☠️ 👻
This one slipped through the net at the time, but my story, Freeing the Flames found a home last Halloween in Scary Snippets: A Halloween Microfiction Anthology from Suicide House Publishing.
It's a flash fiction piece falling under the broad umbrella of horror but with a surrealist sensibility. The setting is contemporary, but it's very much in the vein of time-honoured ghost story writers like M.R. James and J. Sheridan Le Fanu with the requisite twist-in-the-tale.
If you fancy reading it, the Scary Snippets: A Halloween Microfiction Anthology is available here...
Amazon Link
The book is packed with punchy little horror stories, so definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a new fear fix.
🚀 🌎 👽 🛸 🚀 🌎 👽 🛸 🚀 🌎 👽 🛸
Now buckle your safety belts as we accelerate up to 88mph and head into the future, specifically February 2020, when my speculative poem, Jungle Secrets will be appearing in Utopia Science Fiction
. Jungle Secrets is a longish poem about a UFO that crash landed on Earth thousands of years ago and has been laying undiscovered in a jungle ever since. It's non-rhyming, but has a traditional metre, and like Freeing the Flames, ends with a twist.
The poem is one I'm particularly fond of and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it in its Utopia Science Fiction home. The magazine only launched in October of this year, but has already published some high quality SF, so definitely one to watch.
📢 📣 👂 📢 📣 👂 📢 📣 👂 📢 📣 👂
Stay tuned for more news, including details of when the Back of the Bookshelf podcast will be returning for it second season. I realise I haven't posted for a while, so just to bring you up to speed, the final episodes in the first season were Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's The Mortal Immortal: A Tale and Theodora Ozaki's How an Old Man Lost His Wen. They are available now if you fancy listening to them, and as always there is absolutely no charge.
That's all for now.
🧟♀️ 🎃 ☠️ 👻 🧟♀️ 🎃 ☠️ 👻 🧟♀️ 🎃 ☠️ 👻
This one slipped through the net at the time, but my story, Freeing the Flames found a home last Halloween in Scary Snippets: A Halloween Microfiction Anthology from Suicide House Publishing.
It's a flash fiction piece falling under the broad umbrella of horror but with a surrealist sensibility. The setting is contemporary, but it's very much in the vein of time-honoured ghost story writers like M.R. James and J. Sheridan Le Fanu with the requisite twist-in-the-tale.
If you fancy reading it, the Scary Snippets: A Halloween Microfiction Anthology is available here...
Amazon Link
The book is packed with punchy little horror stories, so definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a new fear fix.
🚀 🌎 👽 🛸 🚀 🌎 👽 🛸 🚀 🌎 👽 🛸
Now buckle your safety belts as we accelerate up to 88mph and head into the future, specifically February 2020, when my speculative poem, Jungle Secrets will be appearing in Utopia Science Fiction
. Jungle Secrets is a longish poem about a UFO that crash landed on Earth thousands of years ago and has been laying undiscovered in a jungle ever since. It's non-rhyming, but has a traditional metre, and like Freeing the Flames, ends with a twist.
The poem is one I'm particularly fond of and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it in its Utopia Science Fiction home. The magazine only launched in October of this year, but has already published some high quality SF, so definitely one to watch.
📢 📣 👂 📢 📣 👂 📢 📣 👂 📢 📣 👂
Stay tuned for more news, including details of when the Back of the Bookshelf podcast will be returning for it second season. I realise I haven't posted for a while, so just to bring you up to speed, the final episodes in the first season were Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's The Mortal Immortal: A Tale and Theodora Ozaki's How an Old Man Lost His Wen. They are available now if you fancy listening to them, and as always there is absolutely no charge.
That's all for now.
March 8, 2019
New Sci-Fi Stories Blasting Off...
Once again, it's been a while since I last posted, so it's time for an update. Firstly, some good news... my short story, The Ether Existence was published this month in Volume 2, Issue 9 of
The New Accelerator
. It's an epic space opera this time, so not lights years away from my children's novel,
The Crystal Ship
, though it's aimed at an older audience. You'll need to pay a membership fee to read it, but it's a small amount which will give you access to a great new story every week, so there are worse ways you could spend your money. Here's the logline...
🚀 🏴☠️ 🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀
Feline space pirate, Captain Deno's latest robbery promises to be her greatest success, but this time she may have bitten off more than she can chew, as hidden amongst the spoils is something unexpected... something which could mean big trouble for her and her crew. There'll be battles in space, strange new worlds to explore, and she'll need all of her brains and skill if she's going to survive...
🚀 🏴☠️ 🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀
Now for another publication announcement... my newest science fiction story, The Mind Minder is being published in Issue 5 of SERIAL Magazine . This one's a murder mystery set on Mars. It was inspired by my musings on the future of the care industry and has a Philip K. Dick kind of vibe. The magazine is in the final stages of production and will be released within the next few weeks. If you are a fan of sci-fi murder mysteries, then this in one you won't want to miss.
Sticking with the same theme, I neglected to mention at the time, but I had two haiku poems published on the Quatrain.Fish website back in December. The titles are Angel or Dragon? and Insect Inspiration . I'm not going to say anything about the themes, as they speak for themselves, but you'll be pleased to hear that they can be accessed for no charge.
Moving on to Back of the Bookshelf , I'm sorry to say that I've taken the decision to switch to audio only format. The videos have been popular, but the time it is taking to make them just isn't sustainable. It is still my intention to release a video for Episode 9, but that will be the last one for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, I don't have a release date for this video (which I am conscious is already long overdue); all I can say is work is proceeding as fast as possible.
Episode 10 is also under still preparation, but should be available shortly. The featured story is by Baroness Emma Orczy of Scarlet Pimpernel fame. It's called The Liverpool Mystery, and as the title suggests, is a detective story. It features a character known only as the old man in the corner, who solves unexplained crimes from the comfort of a London tea-room while talking to a female journalist, and was part of a series. Orczy was inspired to write the stories by the success of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, but made a conscious decision to make her detective as different from his more famous forerunner as possible. One key departure is that the criminals are not brought to justice and the focus is entirely on the reasoning powers of the old man. It's an interesting take, which I think you'll enjoy.
Check back for further details. That's all for now. Have a great evening.
🚀 🏴☠️ 🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀
Feline space pirate, Captain Deno's latest robbery promises to be her greatest success, but this time she may have bitten off more than she can chew, as hidden amongst the spoils is something unexpected... something which could mean big trouble for her and her crew. There'll be battles in space, strange new worlds to explore, and she'll need all of her brains and skill if she's going to survive...
🚀 🏴☠️ 🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀🏴☠️🚀
Now for another publication announcement... my newest science fiction story, The Mind Minder is being published in Issue 5 of SERIAL Magazine . This one's a murder mystery set on Mars. It was inspired by my musings on the future of the care industry and has a Philip K. Dick kind of vibe. The magazine is in the final stages of production and will be released within the next few weeks. If you are a fan of sci-fi murder mysteries, then this in one you won't want to miss.
Sticking with the same theme, I neglected to mention at the time, but I had two haiku poems published on the Quatrain.Fish website back in December. The titles are Angel or Dragon? and Insect Inspiration . I'm not going to say anything about the themes, as they speak for themselves, but you'll be pleased to hear that they can be accessed for no charge.
Moving on to Back of the Bookshelf , I'm sorry to say that I've taken the decision to switch to audio only format. The videos have been popular, but the time it is taking to make them just isn't sustainable. It is still my intention to release a video for Episode 9, but that will be the last one for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, I don't have a release date for this video (which I am conscious is already long overdue); all I can say is work is proceeding as fast as possible.
Episode 10 is also under still preparation, but should be available shortly. The featured story is by Baroness Emma Orczy of Scarlet Pimpernel fame. It's called The Liverpool Mystery, and as the title suggests, is a detective story. It features a character known only as the old man in the corner, who solves unexplained crimes from the comfort of a London tea-room while talking to a female journalist, and was part of a series. Orczy was inspired to write the stories by the success of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, but made a conscious decision to make her detective as different from his more famous forerunner as possible. One key departure is that the criminals are not brought to justice and the focus is entirely on the reasoning powers of the old man. It's an interesting take, which I think you'll enjoy.
Check back for further details. That's all for now. Have a great evening.
November 9, 2018
New Podcast Releases - 'The Cone' - H.G. Wells & 'The Higher Life' - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
I am pleased to report that another two episodes of my classic fiction podcast,
Back of the Bookshelf
, have successfully launched since my last post. In episode 6 we journey back to a 19th Century iron works in a story called The Cone by the legendary H.G. Wells. Wells' science fiction writing is regularly adapted for stage and screen, and his debut novella
The Time Machine
is widely regarded as a seminal classic of the genre, but in line with my mission statement, I've sought out something from his other body of work, which is less well known. Falling under the category of sensation fiction, The Cone was originally intended to be the opening of a novel. The plot revolves around the manager of the aforementioned iron works, who suspects his wife is having an affair and takes her supposed lover on a tour of his workplace. The locations are vividly described and the mounting tension is almost unbearable. Release details are as follows...
TITLE - The Cone
AUTHOR - H.G. Wells
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED - 1895 in Unicorn
NARRATOR - C.J. Carter-Stephenson
MUSIC - Kevin MacLeod
DURATION - 29:19
Episode 7, meanwhile, features a supernatural story from the pen of Mary Elizabeth Braddon in honour of Halloween. Braddon is remembered chiefly for her sensation novel, Lady Audley's Secret , but left behind a considerable body of other work which is equally worthy of attention, as we see here. The story is called The Higher Life and was originally published in 1907 in an anthology called Tales for the Homes. In it, we look back on the life of an old man as he approaches death and join his spirit as it crosses over to the other side. The writing is atmospheric and thought-provoking, and the characterisation is excellent. This is one of Braddon's least known stories, but it is highly enjoyable, so it was crying our for me to adapt it. I was even inspired to release some accompanying merchandise, which you can check out here... Episode 7 Merchandise. Here are the episode details...
TITLE - The Higher Life
AUTHOR - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED - 1907 in Tales for the Homes
NARRATOR - C.J. Carter-Stephenson
MUSIC - Kevin MacLeod
DURATION - 20:02
Moving onto publication news, my flash fiction story, The Decision, has now been published in Issue 7 of the Jitter Press journal. As I think I mentioned previously, the story is a twist-in-the-tale horror inspired by my love of fairy-tales. Elsewhere in the issue you will find a wide selection of other chilling stories and poems by talented writers like Les Bohem and Ann Christine Tabaka… definitely worth checking out if you fancy a good scare. You can read it online for free, though I would highly recommend purchasing a paperback copy if you can afford it, as it's the kind of book you'll want to treasure. Click here to access the online store or here for my story's dedicated page on their website.
In a slight departure from the norm, I also have an article appearing in the January/February 2019 issue of Round-Up, the magazine of the Mustang Owner’s Club of Great Britain. It’s unlikely that any members of the club will actually read this post, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. The article in question is a review of the 2018 Isle of Wight International Charity Classic Car Extravaganza and will be accompanied by a selection of photographs of the event. If you aren't a member of the MOCGB and fancy reading it, watch this space, as it may reappear in a more public forum at a later stage.
Anyway, I'm in the middle of working on a new poetry chapbook, so I'm going to sign off now. Have a great weekend.
TITLE - The Cone
AUTHOR - H.G. Wells
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED - 1895 in Unicorn
NARRATOR - C.J. Carter-Stephenson
MUSIC - Kevin MacLeod
DURATION - 29:19
Episode 7, meanwhile, features a supernatural story from the pen of Mary Elizabeth Braddon in honour of Halloween. Braddon is remembered chiefly for her sensation novel, Lady Audley's Secret , but left behind a considerable body of other work which is equally worthy of attention, as we see here. The story is called The Higher Life and was originally published in 1907 in an anthology called Tales for the Homes. In it, we look back on the life of an old man as he approaches death and join his spirit as it crosses over to the other side. The writing is atmospheric and thought-provoking, and the characterisation is excellent. This is one of Braddon's least known stories, but it is highly enjoyable, so it was crying our for me to adapt it. I was even inspired to release some accompanying merchandise, which you can check out here... Episode 7 Merchandise. Here are the episode details...
TITLE - The Higher Life
AUTHOR - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED - 1907 in Tales for the Homes
NARRATOR - C.J. Carter-Stephenson
MUSIC - Kevin MacLeod
DURATION - 20:02
Moving onto publication news, my flash fiction story, The Decision, has now been published in Issue 7 of the Jitter Press journal. As I think I mentioned previously, the story is a twist-in-the-tale horror inspired by my love of fairy-tales. Elsewhere in the issue you will find a wide selection of other chilling stories and poems by talented writers like Les Bohem and Ann Christine Tabaka… definitely worth checking out if you fancy a good scare. You can read it online for free, though I would highly recommend purchasing a paperback copy if you can afford it, as it's the kind of book you'll want to treasure. Click here to access the online store or here for my story's dedicated page on their website.
In a slight departure from the norm, I also have an article appearing in the January/February 2019 issue of Round-Up, the magazine of the Mustang Owner’s Club of Great Britain. It’s unlikely that any members of the club will actually read this post, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. The article in question is a review of the 2018 Isle of Wight International Charity Classic Car Extravaganza and will be accompanied by a selection of photographs of the event. If you aren't a member of the MOCGB and fancy reading it, watch this space, as it may reappear in a more public forum at a later stage.
Anyway, I'm in the middle of working on a new poetry chapbook, so I'm going to sign off now. Have a great weekend.
