Angela Slatter's Blog, page 25

New Novel: Blackwater

Art cards by Kathleen Jennings

So, I’m in a weird place at the moment, having delivered one series I’m not sure what (if anything) will be published next as far as novels are concerned. But I am working on finalising the first draft of this, Blackwater, something new for me, a gothic-y novel, set in Ireland and Australia. Here’s the opening chapter for those who are interested.

Part I:  In All Beginnings, Are Endings

Chapter One

See this house perched not so far from the granite cliffs? Not so far from the promontory where the Howth lighthouse sits? It’s very fine, the house. It’s been here longer than the beacon, by a good few hundred years, and it’s less a house than a sort of castle now. Although perhaps “fortified mansion” describes it best. There are four towers, one at each corner, added in the mid-seventeen hundreds, and in between them an agglomeration of buildings of various vintages: the oldest, squarest, is a stone structure that was probably there first, a twelfth century thing, when the family first made enough money to better their circumstances. Two storeys and an attic, grey stone leeched by age; ivy grows over all it, except the windows, a strangely bright green almost like a sea algae, on the grey walls, winter and summer. Fourteenth century wings connect it to the towers; the age of the stables is anyone’s guess, but they’re a tumble-down affair, their state a nod to the family fortunes perhaps. There is stone that’s sometimes grey, sometimes gold, sometimes white, depending on the time of year, time of day and how much sun is about, and embedded in the walls are swathes of glass both clear and coloured from when the O’Malleys could afford the best of everything; the glass lets the light in, but cannot keep the cold out, so the hearth are enormous, big enough for a man to stand upright or an ox to roast in.

They built close to the cliffs – but not too close, they were wise the first O’Malleys – so there’s a broad lawn of green, a low wall almost at the edge to keep all but the most determined, the most stupid, from toppling over, and there’s a path that winds back and forth on itself, an easy trail down to a pebbled shingle that stretches in a crescent. At the furtherest end is a sea cave, or was before the collapse, a tidal thing you don’t want to be caught in at the wrong time. A place the unwary have gone looking for treasure for rumours abounded that the O’Malleys smuggled, committed piracy, hid their ill-gotten gains down there until they could be safely shifted elsewhere and exchanged for gold and silver to line the family’s already overflowing coffers.

The truth is, no one knows where they came from but no one can remember a time when they weren’t here, or at least spoken of. No one says ‘Before the O’Malleys’ for good reason; their history is murky, and that’s not a little to do with their very own efforts. Local recounting claims they appeared in the 1100s, perhaps in the vanguard of Strongbow’s army, or perhaps trailing along behind gathering what they could while no one noticed, until they had enough to make a reputation. What’s spoken of is that they were tall even in a place where the Norse raiders had liberally scattered their seed, but not blond: dark haired, dark eyed, with skin so terribly pale that in another country folk might mutter that they didn’t go about by day, but that wouldn’t have been true.

They took the land by Howth Head and built the first house; they prospered quickly. They built ships and traded, and built more ships and traded more, roamed further. They grew rich from the sea and everyone knew tell of how the O’Malleys did not lose themselves to the water, they their ships did not sink and their sons did not drown (or only those meant to) for they swam like seals, learned to do so from their first breath, first step, first stroke. They kept to themselves, seldom taking wives or husbands who weren’t of their extended families – they bred like rabbits, but the core of the family remained tightly wound around a limited bloodline. And they paid no more than a passing care for the opinion of the Holy Mother Church, which was more than enough to set them apart, make them an object of unease and rumour.

But they kept their position. They were neither stupid nor fearful. They cultivated friends in the highest of high places, sowed favours and reaped the rewards of doing so, and they gathered secrets and lies, oh! such a harvest. The O’Malleys knew the locations of all the inconvenient bodies that had been buried due to exigence; sometimes they put the bodies there themselves. They paid their own debts, made sure they collected what was theirs, and ensured all who dealt with them knew that what was owed, would be paid back one way or another.

They were careful and clever.

Even the princes of the church found themselves, at one point and other, beholding to them. Some churchman of import required a favour only the O’Malleys could provide and so, hat in hand, he came to them. Under cover of darkness, of course, in a closed carriage with no regalia that might give him away, on the loneliest roads out of Dublin to the big old house on Howth Head; he’d take a deep breath as he stepped from the conveyance, then another as he looked up at the great panes of glass lit from within so it looked like the interior was on fire, and he’d cross himself for fear that he might find himself somewhere more infernal when he crossed the threshold.

More than one made such visits over many years. Yet such men mislike owing favours to anyone – especially women – and there was a time when females  held the O’Malley family reins; those very same priests tried to avoid paying one debt or another. All manner of excuses offered and an equal number of threats and coercions too. None of them worked, and the ecclesiastics found themselves brought to heel: a bishop was unseated and moved on like some common mendicant, and the smile on the lips of the matriarch wide and red.

And it’s a loss that’s never been forgotten, not in several hundred years, and it’s unlikely to ever be. Indeed, the Church’s memory is long and unsleeping, and in each successive generation one of her sons has sought a way to make the family pay. No matter that the O’Malleys had given a child to the church for as long as anyone can recall, that they paid more than their tithes required, and they supported endowed livings for more than one cleric, gave charitably to many causes, and had a pew with their name on it in St Patrick’s all to themselves, where they sat every Sunday whenever in attendance at the townhouse they maintained in Dublin.

An insult once given to the Holy Mother Church is never forgotten, though the family had grown too influential to be easily destroyed, and generations of godly men have devoted a good deal of their lives to ill-wishing the O’Malleys past, present, and future. Much effort and energy were devoted to the cursing of the name, gossiping about the source of their prosperity, and plotting to take it from them. Many was the head shaken in rue that pyres and pokers were no longer options available as a means of enforcing conformity.

But it wasn’t only the more godly members of Dublin society at odds with the O’Malleys. Though they were generous, those who took O’Malley charity often found that the price attached to the aid rendered was much higher than they could have imagined. Some paid it willingly and were rewarded for the family valued loyalty; those who complained were justly requited. As time went on business partners thought twice about joining O’Malley ventures, and the more cynical amongst them counted their fingers twice after shaking hands on a deal, just to make sure all their digits were intact. Those who married in to the extended branches did so at their peril, for many were the husbands and wives deemed to be untrustworthy or simply inconvenient when passion had run its course, and disposed of quietly. And their dealings were always quiet, but things done ill always leave echoes and stains behind. Because they’d been around for so very long, the O’Malleys’ sins built up, year upon year, decade upon decade, century upon century.

There was something not quite right with the O’Malleys, they didn’t fear like others of their ilk; they, perhaps, put their faith elsewhere. Some said the O’Malleys had too much salt water in their veins to be good Catholics, or anything else good for that matter. But nothing could be proven, not ever, not in almost eight hundred years.

As it turned out, they brought themselves down without aid from the Church.

They’d not been bothered, or not overly so for the decline had seemed gradual, at least at first. Their ships began to sink or be taken by pirates; then investments, seemingly shrewd, were soon proven unwise. It was, although no one but they knew, their bloodline that had faltered first, and their fortunes followed soon after.

Almost all their affluence bled away, faster and faster, until within a generation there was just the house on the promontory (the Dublin townhouse having been sold to a lesser branch of the family); the great fleet was whittled was to a couple of merchant vessels making desultory journeys across the seas; and the deeds to some property in the Americas, the value of which no one was quite certain. The O’Malleys had too many debts, too little capital, blood running thin …

The grounds of the grand mansion were once carefully tended by an army of gardeners, but now there’s only a single man – Malachi who is ancient, barely breathing, farting dust – to take care of things. All the walled gardens are over-run – all but one, the one the old woman uses – their doors bound shut with brambles. The paths through are maintained but only just, and those who walk them risk having sleeves and skirts torn by thorns and branches, twigs with too much length and strength. Malachi’s sister, Maura – younger and less given to farting – does what she can to keep the interior of the house shining, but she’s one woman, arthritic and tired and cross; it’s a losing battle.

And now there’s just a single daughter left of the household, whose surname wasn’t even O’Malley because her mother had committed the triple sins of being the only surviving child of four, a girl, and insisting from sheer perversity on taking her husband’s name, despite her own mother’s insistence that it really should be the other way around. Worse still: he had no O’Malley lineage, this Liam Elliott, so the daughter’s blood was thinned once again.

And in this, the Year of Our Lord 1896, the family found itself much diminished in more ways than one. Unable to pay its creditors and investors, unable to give to the sea what it was owed, and with too few of other people’s secrets to use as currency, the O’Malleys were, at last, in danger of extinction.

           ***

New Collection!

Delighted to say that I’ve signed a contract with the wondrous PS Publishing for a new collection of stories, due out in 2019.

Twelve reprints, two new stories, and an intro by Mr Kim Newman, for which I am eternally grateful.

Ze official blurb:

THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF ANGELA SLATTER

Welcome to The Best Short Stories of Angela Slatter .

Slatter’s work has been described by the legendary Ramsey Campbell as “enviably original, and told in prose as stylish as it’s precise. Not just disturbing but often touching, her work enriches and revives the tale of terror.”

From the fierce changeling children of ‘Finnegan’s Field’ to shades of old gods in ‘Egyptian Revival’, from the Lovecraftian echoes of ‘Lavinia’s Wood’ to a new kind of Victorian sleuth in ‘Ripper’, and from the re-imagined fairy tale of ‘The Little Mermaid, in Passing’ to the tender terror of ‘Neither Time nor Tears’, the stories in this collection spring from dragons’ teeth scattered on the field of story.

The Best Short Stories of Angela Slatter collects twelve reprints and two new unpublished tales, with an Introduction by Kim Newman.

“Slatter’s dark fantasies have a bright, burning core of understanding and insight.” ~ M.R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts and The Boy on the Bridge.

“Angela Slatter’s stories are horrific, mysterious, whimsical, and mischievous. Beautifully written, full of humanity and intelligence, her stories are both timely and timeless in their concerns. This is an essential collection from one of our best.” ~ Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World.

“Angela Slatter ’s prose is both eloquent and elegant ? which is no mean feat. By turns beautiful and chilling in equal measure, her stories feature characters who live and breathe and leap off the page, while the plots themselves are wholly unique. This book is a gem and you should treasure it as such.” ~ Paul Kane, bestselling and award-winning author of Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, Monsters and Before.

“Angela has a rare talent for drawing the reader in to her world, with a lyrical, almost fairytale quality to her writing that also shows a sardonic wit to delight the reader. This collection showcases some of her best stories – you need to read it.” ~ Marie O’Regan, author of Bury Them Deep, editor of Phantoms and The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women.

 

 

Suspended in Dusk II: Paul Michael Anderson

Today’s blog guest is Paul Michael Anderson, talking about “Wants and Needs”.

1. What was the inspiration for your SiD2 story?

Honestly? A house I’d looked at with my wife when we were looking to buy about four years ago.  It was this loft-style house that was really awesome but totally impractical because the road up the mountain was rough on the Pontiac Sunfire I was driving at the time.  We ultimately passed, but the idea of being isolated up there stuck around in my head.  Add into that grief (which I’d written about, from different perspectives, in stories like “All That You Leave Behind” and “Last Days of a Ready-Made Victim”) and the concept of wendigos and there you are.

2. Who are your top five horror-writing inspirations?

Huh.  Jack Ketchum, Damien Angelica Walters, Harlan Ellison, James Herbert, Shirley Jackson.  This wasn’t easy.

3. You get to choose one book for a desert island exile: what is it?

THE TALISMAN, by Stephen King & Peter Straub.  That was easier.

4. What’s your favorite trope in horror?

Guilt.  I like seeing how writers play with it.  Guilt fucks up your perspective and the way you perceive the actions and motivations of others, regardless of how much or how little self-absorbed you are.  The works I tend to dig the most has a place for guilt within its protagonists and antagonists.

5. What’s next for you?

I have two novellas coming out this year–“How We Broke” (co-written with Bracken MacLeod) in CHIRAL M4D, and “I Can Give You Life” in ASHES & ENTROPY–plus assorted short stories in a number of places.  Hustling the 2nd edition of my first book BONES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN, which will be out some time in July, and working on the follow-up to that collection with something (not sure what yet)

 

Bio:

Paul Michael Anderson is a writer and teacher living in northern Virginia with his wife and daughter.  He is the author of BONES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN and assorted stories, interviews, and reviews.  He is working on his first novel.

 

 

Sydney: Restoration Event

Hey, Sydney!

I’ll be at the wonderful Galaxy Books on 20 September at 6pm to do a Q&A about Restoration, Verity and the writing life, so come along and ask me stuff. I’ll sign books, too – mine, other people’s – sure, I have boundary issues!

You can click here and book in.

 

Aaaaand launched!

Pre-launch panic

And Restoration has been launched! Thanks to everyone who came along and listened to Dr Kim and I banter, and my parents heckling from the audience. Thanks to the wonderful staff at Brisbane Square Library who always look after us so well, and to Cupcakes by K who provided many of us with a delicious dinner/dessert! And thanks to Jo Fletcher Books and Hachette Australia for bringing the book baby to life!

Still panicking but held in place by Dr Kim and our bangs

Y’all know what these are

Restoration: launch reminder and interviews

So, this is your last reminder to RSVP for the Restoration launch, which is happening tomorrow night at Brisbane Square Library. Me, Kim Wilkins, cupcakes, amusing profanities, books! So, 6pm arrival for a 6.30 start, details are here.

Over at Lael Braday’s blog I talk about writing process and stuff.

Over at Carleton Chinner’s blog I talk about more stuff.

And as part of the blog tour:

Lisa Reads Books reviews Restoration, as does Thoughts by Tash, and Lou at her blog.

And Theresa Smith reviews Vigil, just for a blast from the past!

And! Corpselight gets a great review over at Sisters in Crime by Isobel Blackthorn.

Plus! Jeann at Happy Indulgence is giving away a copy of Restoration.

 

Book Birthday!

Hello, Restoration!

My baby is out in the world.

‘Slatter’s dark imaginings, spritzed w/ humour, pack age-old magic into a contemporary setting with a sure hand. This woman knows her stuff.’ MARGO LANAGAN, bestselling author of Tender Morsels

And lest we forget, the launch is Friday 17th August at Brisbane Square Library – pls RSVP and come along for cupcakes!

Suspended in Dusk II: Sarah Read

Today’s blog guest is the lovely Sarah Read, talking about “Still Life with Natalie”, from the the new Suspended in Dusk II anthology.

1. What was the inspiration for your SiD2 story?

A friend of mine (hi Torii!) told me about a dream she had where a man was growing human heads in flower pots. It sounded like a good time, so I ran away with it a bit. I love it when my friends tell me their nightmares. People don’t usually like to listen to mine. Except you lovely people.

2. Who are your top five horror-writing inspirations?

This changes so often. My heart is a revolving door of affection for horror stories. But the folks who keep to the middle of the door and just keep going round past dizziness are Caitlin Kiernan, Shirley Jackson, Stephen Graham Jones, Jeff Vandermeer, and Paul Tremblay. What a dreadfully painful question. My spinning door heart is already at war with my answer. And have you ever tried to slam a revolving door? I’ll be up all night changing my answer.

3. You get to choose one book for a desert island exile (yes, you did something terrible): what is it?

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende.

4. What’s your favourite trope in horror?

I’m a sucker for haunted old houses. I NEVER get tired of ghosts and creaky stairs and hidden passages.

5. What’s next for you?

My first novel will be released from Journalstone/Trepidatio in early 2019. It’s a YA/adult crossover horror story set in an English boarding school in 1926. The title is currently in flux, or I’d tell you what it’s called. So for now, just keep your eyes peeled for Sarah’s Book of Unpleasant Happenings. An anthology I’m editing for Pantheon Magazine, called Gorgon: Tales of Emergence, will be released this fall. We have an incredible lineup of authors and I’m so excited to share their stories of transformations with the world. I’m currently tidying up my second novel manuscript and writing my third. I’m having WAY too much fun.

 

Bio:

Sarah Read’s work can be read in The Best Horror of the Year vol 10, Black Static, Gamut, Lamplight, and Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities, and Undefinable Wonders, among other places. Her debut novel will be released in early 2019 from Trepidatio, an imprint of Journalstone. She is the editor of Pantheon Magazine and its affiliated anthologies. You can follow her at her website www.inkwellmonster.wordpress.com, or on Twitter or Instagram at @inkwellmonster.

 

Restoration reviews

Grabs from the first couple of Goodreads reviews of Restoration – thanks to Paromjit and Imogene respectively.

1. Angela Slatter writes a bewitchingly compelling addition to this series. Her greatest strengths are her witty and humorous writing style and the fabulous and charismatic central character of Verity, with her inordinate ability to upset those around her, but blessed with a close coterie of friends and allies she can rely on, particularly the gifted Norn sisters running their Little Venice cafe. Slatter has created a world and characters that I have become fond of, and which has me looking forward with marked anticipation to the next in the series. Highly recommended! Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.

2. Disclosure disclosed, OH EM GEE!

I loved Vigil and Corpselight, and I unashamedly recommend them to all urban fantasy/ kick ass protagonist readers in my book store.

However….have you ever had that moment with an author where you realise that they have been laying the seeds, the throwaway lines, the unimportant mentions, the minor characters just so that they could make them all an integral part of a gigantic, amazing, mind-blowing stupendous storyline that will culminate in ways you never dreamed of? No?

Well, you’re about to.

Kaaron Warren: Tide of Stone

Today, the deceptively adorable Kaaron Warren talks specifically about her new novel, Tide of Stone, and about writing in general.

1. So, what do new readers need to know about Kaaron Warren?

I’ve been publishing fiction since 1993. Took me about five years to sell my first story, once I decided I really wanted to, but I’ve had stories in print every year since, which is something, I think. I’ve lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Fiji and Canberra, finding inspiration in every place. Even a simple walk to the shops can give me ideas for story or character. Tide of Stone is my fifth novel in print, although I have another one almost finished, plus one at first draft and a novel I wrote as a teenager.

2. What was the inspiration behind your new novel, Tide of Stone?

Like anything I write, it came from a number of places. Often a single image sends my imagination racing and in this case it was a picture of the Maunsell Sea Forts. Huge and abandoned, I imagined their insides echoing, and wondered what it would be like to spend a night inside one of them.

Apart from the isolation and the emptiness, there is a sense of permanence about them, regardless of the rust. They look like they’ve been there forever.

As I started writing the novel, about criminals who are given eternal life and imprisoned, I realised that the Forts wouldn’t work for what I was doing with the story, so reluctantly I had to let them go.

The Time Ball tower captures a similar mood, but gives me the added symbolism of the ball dropping every day, keeping time.

3. How did you connect with Ominium Gatherum?

I knew of the publisher through some of the great writers they have published, such as SP Miskowski,John Claude Smith, Lucy Taylor,and Simon Bestwick. So they were on my radar as a place to consider them for Tide of Stone, which is a novel that takes some chances with content, style and layout.

When Lee Murray was hired as a commissioning editor they jumped further up my list. I’m a great admirer of Lee as a writer and as a writing professional. I’d seen her at work at the NZ Natcon, and I knew she knew her stuff. So I approached her to see if she would be interested in reading Tide of Stone.

Luckily for me, she loved it and Kate Jonez did, too. Lee edited the book and Kate has been incredibly supportive and professional throughout.

4. What attracts you to the darker side of fiction?

Like that with dark fiction, all the endings aren’t tied up happily. I don’t mind a happy ending but quite often those endings don’t ring true for me.

I like that I can let a story travel where it needs to, and that anything is possible. I’m fascinated by ghosts and I like being able to write stories where the existence of ghosts is a given.

5. In general, who and/or what are your writing influences?

I’m a very broad reader and always have been. I’m a scavenger for information, always looking for that ring of authenticity I can bring to a story. For example, I recently rescued a pile of old magazines and pamphlets from recycling, and I’ll use these to inspire a story or two. They might give me ideas, or they might give me a specific detail that will help a character ring true. They might help me decide on a plot development. You never know!

VW Service Book

The British Stake in South Africa

An Ordinance Relating to Motor Traffic 1936-1972

Tourist Park Guide 1965

Cumberland Recipe Calendar 1950. This is all cocktails! Including the Angel’s Dream, which is Apricot Brandy with ice cream on top.

Geelong Street Directory 1950s

And the fabulous Symbols for Welding. If this doesn’t end up in a story I’ll eat the booklet with tomato sauce.

So I’m influenced by all I read, including fiction, good and bad.

6. Who is your favourite villain in fiction?

Very hard to choose just one. It’d come down to Randall Flagg in Stephen King’s The Stand, Nurse Ratched in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the vampire in Nathan Ballingrud’s Sunbleached.

But the award goes to the first real villain I came across in fiction: Rooky in Enid Blyton’s “Five Get Into Trouble”. I was terrified of him! The Famous Five are kidnapped by Rooky after a case of mistaken identity, and he makes the most awful threats. He has a terrible temper, and this idea that someone couldn’t control themselves, would literally blank out and commit acts of violence, gave me nightmares. Then of course there is the escaped convict the children discover. He terrified me too, because we knew so little about him, but Rooky was protecting him so he must be bad. And then there’s Mr Perton, who owns the isolated house…

7. When did you first decide you wanted to be a writer

I started writing stories from the moment I learnt how to form words on the page. Even in the early years of primary school I took every opportunity to write a story. I still have some scraps of paper with early first lines on them, and one or two of my very early stories.

At 14 a family friend gave me a list of possible venues for stories, including writing groups running competitions and more. This gave them the idea that I could in fact become a published writer, but I didn’t really start sending stories out properly till I was about 23 or 24. I was 28 when I sold my first short story, so it really did take a while.

8. What scares you?

Loss.

9. Name five people, living or dead, you’d like to invite to dinner?

Five people who still think about me even though I have forgotten they exist.

10. What is next for Kaaron Warren?

I have a short story collection from Dark Moon Books called A Primer to Kaaron Warren.

I have a novella coming out from Cemetery Dance.

I’m Guest of Honour at World Fantasy in Baltimore this year, and at Stokercon and NZ’s Geysercon next year.

I’m working on a new novel (one is done and ready to go) and a number of short stories. I always have a few things on the go at once.