Angela Slatter's Blog, page 77

She Walks in Shadows – sample stories

The wrap-around cover of She Walks in Shadows! Still one of my fave covers.

You can pre-order here AND read some story excerpts (“Turn Out the Light” by Penelope Love and “The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad” by Molly Tanzer)  to see what squamous joys you’re in for.

Go, read, order. You know you want to.

Check it out: Tor.com’s Sampler

And you can now download Tor.com Publishing’s Fall 2015 Sampler! It’s free – go here for details.

I tell you this coz it had excerpts from the first ten novellas in Tor.com’s new line. So if you’d like to see what all the fuss is about, download!!

There’s stuff from me, Nnedi Okorafor, Sylvia Spruck Wrigley, Paul Cornell, Kai Ashante Wilson, Daniel Polansky, Michael R. Underwood, Matt Wallace, K. J. Parker, and Alter S. Reiss.

Dead Letters

And Conrad Williams has announced the ToC for his Dead Letters anthology. I’m in it – v. excited. Published by Titan Books in 2016.

The Green Letter – Steven Hall

Over to You – Michael Marshall Smith

In Memoriam – Joanne Harris

Ausland – Alison Moore

Wonders to Come – Christopher Fowler

Cancer Dancer – Pat Cadigan

The Wrong Game – Ramsey Campbell

Is-and – Claire Dean

Buyer’s Remorse – Andrew Lane

Gone Away – Muriel Gray

Astray – Nina Allan

The Days of Our Lives – Adam LG Nevill

The Hungry Hotel – Lisa Tuttle

L0ND0N – Nicholas Royle

Change Management – Angela Slatter

Ledge Bants – Maria Dahvana Headley & China Miéville

And We, Spectators Always, Everywhere – Kirsten Kaschock

 

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories: Simon Marshall-Jones

It seemed only fitting to hear from Spectral’s fearless leader once again: the delightful Mr Simon Marshall-Jones!

What inspired you to run with a second Spectral Book of Horror Stories?

That one’s simple really – the first one was such an outstanding success, both in terms of sales and critical appraisal, that there was no question of publishing a follow up. Mark’s a great editor, with a keen eye for story, so it was as simple as “Shall we do a second one?” “Yes!”

What can readers expect from this 2nd outing ?

Some old favourites will return, joined by writers both well-established and those yet to reach a broader audience. And we are joined by a writer better known for his YA fiction, Cliff McNish, with his first published adult fiction short.

Spectral Press is certainly spreading its wings – how many imprints are you running now?

Currently I am running three: Spectral, which concentrates on the horror/ghost/supernatural side of the genre (yes, yes, I know – neither of Stephen Volk’s novellas deal with the supernatural…): Theatrum Mundi, which deals with contemporary fantasy, slipstream, magical realism, and experimental works; and, lastly, rEvolution SF, the science fiction imprint, which will debut its first novel in 2016 with Mappalujo by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard. Also on the horizon is a crime imprint, Spectral Stiletto, the name harking back to the Golden Age of crime writing in the forties and fifties – stiletto knives and femmes fatale in stiletto heels.

What draws you to speculative fiction?

The possibilities, the breadth of the canvasses upon which the writer sketches out his visions, and sheer heights of imagination to which some authors fly. Speculative fiction stretches from the firmly mundane realities of the dystopian to the hyper-reality of imagined universes, dimensions, and realities. But, the wonder of it all is purely down to one element: that lump of grey matter nestled inside our heads that can go places where no physical human ever can.

The future of Spectral is…

I have no idea – but that’s the most exciting aspect of it all…. =)

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories can be pre-ordered here.

 

Cover and ToC Reveal: The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014

Always happy to have stories (two!) in this glorious publication edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, and published by Ticonderoga Publications. The fifth volume of The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror has yet another gorgeous cover and, most importantly, can be pre-ordered here.

Table of Contents

Alan Baxter, “Shadows of the Lonely Dead” [Suspended in Dusk]
James Bradley, “The Changeling” [Fearsome Magics]
Imogen Cassidy, “Soul Partner” [Aurealis 74]
David Conyers & David Kernot, “The Bullet & The Flesh” [World War Cthulhu]
Terry Dowling, “The Corpse Rose” [Nightmare Carnival]
Thoraiya Dyer, “The Oud” [Long Hidden Anthology]
Jason Franks, “Metempsychosis” [SQ Magazine]
Michelle Goldsmith, “Of Gold and Dust” [Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Maga 60]
Michael Grey, “1884” [Cthulhu Lives: An Eldrich Tribute to H.P.Lovecraft]
Stephanie Gunn, “Escapement” [Kisses by Clockwork]
Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter, “Vox” [The Female Factory]
Gerry Huntman, “Of The Colour Tumeric, Climbing on Fingertips” [Night Terrors III]
Rick Kennett, “Dolls for Another Day” [The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Shadows: Vol 2]
Charlotte Kieft, “Chiaroscuro” [Disquiet]
SG Larner, “Kneaded” [Phantazein]
Claire McKenna, “Yard” [Use Only As Directed]
Andrew J. McKiernan, “A Prayer for Lazarus” [Last Year, When We Were Young]
Faith Mudge, “Signature” [Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fi]
Jason Nahrung, “The Preservation Society” [Dimension6]
Emma Osbourne, “The Box Wife” [Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre & Twisted #9]
Angela Rega, “Shedding Skin” [Crossed Genres]
Tansy Rayner Roberts, “The Love Letters of Swans” [Phantazein]
Angela Slatter, “The Badger Bride” [Strange Tales IV]
Cat Sparks, “New Chronicles of Andras Thorn” [Dimension6 Annual Collection 2014]
Anna Tambour, “The Walking-stick Forest” [Tor.com]
Kyla Ward, “Necromancy” [Spectral Realms #1]
Kaaron Warren, “Bridge of Sighs” [Fearful Symmetries: An Anthology of Horror]
Janeen Webb, “Lady of the Swamp” [Death at the Blue Elephant]

It’s always special …

… to see something like this! “All of this autumn’s TorDotComPub titles, together at last!” Lee Harris, Happy Editor

Twitter photo by Lee Harris

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories: Tim Lebbon

Tim Lebbon is a New York Times-bestselling writer from South Wales. He’s had over thirty novels published to date, as well as hundreds of novellas and short stories. His latest novel is the thriller The Hunt, and other recent releases include The Silence and Alien: Out of the Shadows. He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, International Horror Guild and Shirley Jackson Awards. Future books include The Rage War (an Alien/Predator trilogy), and the Relics trilogy from Titan.

The movie of his story Pay the Ghost, starring Nicolas Cage, is due for release this September, and other projects in development include Playtime (an original script with Stephen Volk), My Haunted House with Gravy Media, The Hunt, Exorcising Angels Ste (based on a novella with Simon Clark), and a TV Series proposal of The Silence.

What inspired your story “Flotsam”?

I read an article recently about a woman who had become fascinated with messages in bottles. She combed beaches for them, and just occasionally she’d find a message. A lot of the time they were from children living just along the coast, writing messages and launching them in an attempt to see how far their bottles might travel. Other times, the paper she took out of bottles was so old that any writing had long since faded away. I found this interesting, and a little haunting. I knew it would find its way into a story one day.

What’s the first horror story you can remember making a big impact on you?

I’m sure I read horror fiction when I was very young, but it was The Rats by James Herbert that sticks in my mind. I read that when I was 10 or 11, a very adult read, but it opened up my reading horizons. Before then I was reading Willard Price, Hardy Boys, etc. After The Rats, it was James Herbert and Stephen King.

Name your three favourite horror writers.

That’s a hard one. Stephen King. Adam Nevill. Arthur Machen. But this might change month by month.

Is your writing generally firmly in the horror arena or do you do occasional jaunts into other areas of speculative fiction?

I write all sorts. My new novel The Hunt is a thriller. I’ve written fantasy (very very very dark fantasy). But there’s always a dark tinge to what I do.

What’s in your to-be-read pile at the moment?

In all honesty, I probably have over 1000 books unread. But books I intend reading soon include Three Moments of an Explosion (China Mieville), Tin Men (Christopher Golden), Those We Left Behind (Stuart Neville), and H is for Hawk (Helen Macdonald).

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories can be pre-ordered here.

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories: Sean Logan

Sean Logan’s stories have appeared in more than thirty publications, including Black Static, Supernatural Tales, The New Gothic, Eulogies II and Dark Visions. He lives in northern California, where he often spends his nights writing horror stories and his days at work writing about something really scary—banking software.

What inspired your story “Where the Forest Ends”?

It is a sad story and it was based on a sad event. Without going into detail about what really happened, I’ll just say that a father lost his son while he was in the care of someone else. It was incredibly upsetting and I couldn’t stop thinking about the hopeless grief the father must have felt, the guilt and the anger. What do you do with all of those emotions? How do you act on those feelings when nothing can be undone? And how do you go on and live a normal life after that? These questions were haunting me and they became the basis for the story. It was painful to write.

What’s the first horror story you can remember making a big impact on you?

Back when I was first getting interested in short horror stories in the early ’90s I read “Red” by Richard Christian Matheson. It’s very short, just a couple pages, but, man, it packs a wallop. I was blown away by how something so small could have such a big impact. I gave it to everyone I knew and said, “You gotta read this!”

Name your three favourite horror writers.

The first one’s pretty easy: Robert Aickman. For my money there’s no one better and it saddens me he’s not better known. I bought all of his books second hand because at the time they were all out of print. All of them. It’s a shame. He should be required reading. The other two I’m not as certain about, but I could probably do worse than M.R. James and Stephen King.

Is your writing generally firmly in the horror arena or do you do occasional jaunts into other areas of speculative fiction?

As a reader I gravitate toward horror in the short form and crime fiction for novels, and that’s generally reflected in my writing. I’m wrapping up a darkly humorous crime novel now and soon to start another, but the short stories are most often some sort of supernatural weirdness.

What’s in your to-be-read pile at the moment?

As someone who loves to read, but reads very slowly, my TBR pile is always stacked high. Sitting near the top are Denis Johnson’s Nobody Move, Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, Irvine Welsh’s Filth, Joyce Carol Oates’ The Collector of Hearts and John Shirley’s Living Shadows.

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories can be pre-ordered here.

 

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories: Alison Moore

Alison Moore was born in Manchester in 1971. Her short fiction has been included in Best British Short Stories and Best British Horror anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra. The title story of her debut collection The Pre-War House and Other Stories won a New Writer novella prize. Her first novel, The Lighthouse, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and the National Book Awards 2012 (New Writer of the Year), winning the McKitterick Prize 2013. Her second novel, He Wants, was published in 2014. She lives in a village on the Leicestershire-Nottinghamshire border and is an honorary lecturer at Nottingham University.

What inspired your story “The Meantime”?

My friend told me that her little girl hated the phrase ‘in the meantime’ –  it does sound like something unpleasant is going to happen. By using the phrase to refer to periods of stricture, I discovered the story.

What’s the first horror story you can remember making a big impact on you?

Enid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree books – there was childhood horror in those lands at the top of the Faraway Tree, and in the threat of them moving away with the children still trapped in them.

Name your three favourite horror writers.

I particularly like Stephen King’s ‘writer’ novels: The Shining, The Dark Half, Misery. I have to say Roald Dahl for giving us Tales of the Unexpected. And a recent favourite: Shirley Jackson.

Is your writing generally firmly in the horror arena or do you do occasional jaunts into other areas of speculative fiction?

I write what is categorised as literary fiction as well as what creeps into the territory of horror. I often write on the border between the two.

What’s in your to-be-read pile at the moment?

Next up is The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters – I picked it up when I saw her at Derby Book Festival in June. Also towards the top of the teetering pile are Jim Crace’s Harvest and, one of many books inherited from my dad, John Updike’s Rabbit, Run.

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories can be pre-ordered here.

And over here I answer questions from a … errrr … bird

At Rhonda Parrish’s place, she’s running a series of interviews with Corvidae contributors, of which I am one.

So, go here!