Cate Gardner's Blog, page 15

Here There Be Voices

My short story Too Delicate for Human Form, which appeared in the anthologies Fish (Dagan Books) and Best British Fantasy 2013 (Salt Publishing) is now available in audio over at Far Fetched Fables alongside The Island of Peter Pandora by Kim Lakin-Smith.

The story is narrated by Heidi Hotz.

A couple more reviews of Black Static #45 and my story Th...

A couple more reviews of Black Static #45 and my story The Drop of Light and the Rise of Dark.


"...standing out from the other fiction in the magazine in that it's set at a pitch of full-blooded, heart-stopping terror almost from the outset." Tom Johnstone

"Gardner amps the creep factor up to 11 in this claustrophobic fever dream that ends in a way I hadn't expected." Nick Cato, The Horror Fiction Review

For Those Grieving

When mum died in December last year, I thought I would be broken forever. I tore through the house shouting and screaming, howling, begging for her back and making several million deals with the Devil and threatening to kick God in the nuts*. I thought I would never be able to cope with the pain of her loss.
I turned to the internet googling marvellous things like 'mum died' and 'when does grieving end' and found an awful lot of despair. The main theme seemed to be that even a year later the grief was still as strong, that these poor people broke down every day and couldn't cope with their lives. My reaction to reading these posts was that my grief would not lessen, that I would be that desperate forever. Those posts did not help me at all.
I couldn't have lived like that. I wanted to read that people were desperate at the time but that it got easier, not that it stayed the same. No one was telling me that it got better and that's all I wanted to hear.
You will get through this. It will not be this painful forever. Those words would have helped immensely.
At the time, I wanted to climb into my brother's house and not leave. I wanted to be with my family all the time, only I couldn't be. They had their lives. I felt I'd lost mine. My boyfriend was amazing, so understanding, and he spoke so much sense. I don't know if his counselling training helped or if he's just naturally awesome like that. He'll tell you the latter. He told me it would get easier.
He was right.
I still miss her. I still cry at times, but nowhere near as much, and the times that I do are short and I manage to shrug them off, although I don't think shrug is the right word. I cope and I can smile and look forward again. There are moments. Last night I heard of someone who had just lost their mum. It brought it back. The difference was, four months on, I shed a few quiet tears but then I fell asleep and when I woke up, I carried on living my life. I didn't rage at the ceiling and send the neighbours cowering under their beds thinking I was going to tear through the walls.
This new life is different, it's the same, it's a million different things, and I'm okay. My hope for this post is that if someone grieving finds it they might find a tiny bit of hope that they will be okay to.

*and I'm supposed to be agnostic.

Bring out your Frosty Tales

Adele Wearing's imprint, Fox Spirit, want unusual and elegant speculative fiction stories for the following anthology:

Winter Tales
Theme: (erm...) Winter
Word Count: 1500 to 7500 words
Deadline: June 15th 2015
No Reprints
Payment: £10 plus copy of the ebook and the print book

Full details are available over at the Fox Spirit webpage.

Spectral Offer

Spectral Press are running a special offer at the moment. You can order the following three limited edition novellas in hardback as a package and save money:

Leytonstone by Stephen Volk
Albion Fay by Mark Morris
The Bureau of Them by Cate Gardner (oh, that would be me).

My book is minus cover art as we are awaiting its completion but should be here soon. All three titles will be launched at Edge-Lit in July and all prices include postage. The offer runs until the end of this month.

The Rise of the Review

My short story, The Drop of Light and the Rise of Dark, appeared in Black Static #45 last month. I'm still pinching myself and resisting getting this beauty framed. Here be links to reviews from some fine folk:

"This one takes a very simple seeming scenario and weaves a dark, brooding story full of menace and terror, which ushers in some real, heartfelt emotion." Paul M Feeney, Ginger Nuts of Horror.

"So that redoubled the terror of this second little girl story (here physically disabled) who imagines the eclipse never-ending as she tries to struggle downstairs to find her parents or her best friend." DF Lewis

"...Gardner keeps an extra cruel sting in her tail – a reminder that in horror, and in life, you can’t get away so easily." Gareth Jones, Dread Central.

There is also a lovely review by Jess Landry over at HELLNOTES that favourites SP Miskowski, Stephen Hargadon and Steve Rasnic Tem's stories.

Shadow Moths

I'm delighted to announce that Caroline Callaghan of Frightful Horrors has excepted two of my short stories - Blood Moth Kiss and We make our own Monsters here.  They will be published as a mini-bite on Kindle in June/July this year. The title of the mini-collection is Shadow Moths. Both stories are previously unpublished.

In almost as exciting news, I've finally rearranged my study. This means, SKY allowing, that I will have proper internet access again and will be able to blog (hello, world) and keep up with submitting stories. If I actually have any to send out that is. I have one out in the Land of Please, one in my inbox in the Doom of No, and three in scrap form that need to be typed up, edited etc etc etc.

Image courtesy of wikicommons.

The Bureau of Almost Here

A wee announcement over at the Spectral Press website today:

THE BUREAU OF THEM by Cate GardnerCate Gardner’s new novella The Bureau of Them is due to be published this coming June and will be launched at this year’s Edge-Lit event in Derby in July alongside Mark Morris’ Albion Fay and Stephen Volk’s Leytonstone. To whet your appetite, here’s a teaser blurb from the back cover:You’re not the first to talk to your dead here, the vagrant said. The living always chase after their dead until they come upon their own.Formed from shadow and dust, ghosts inhabit the abandoned office building, angry at the world that denies them. When Katy sees her deceased boyfriend in the window of the derelict building, she finds a way in, hoping to be reunited. Instead, the dead ignore, the dead do not see and only the monster that is Yarker Ryland has need of her there.You can pre-order at the Spectral Press page. Publication is due June/July 2015 and as per the announcement above it will be launched at Edge-Lit. This will be my first book launch and I'm very lucky to be sharing the event with such megastars as Mark Morris and Stephen Volk. If nothing else, I will be able to supply them with spare pens if their's run out.Cover art forthcoming.

Hey Mum, I did it

A dream came true yesterday. An ambition. I sold a story to Black Static, a magazine I've been trying to get into since before it existed (those who've been around the small press for a while will remember its previous incarnation The Third Alternative). At a rough estimate it took me about eighteen years. Hopefully it won't take me more than a decade to sell another story to them.*
The Drop of Light and the Rise of Dark is my first completed story this year.

In extra good news. Damien Angelica Walters also had a story accepted there yesterday.



*Resists sending another story to Andy today.

Signal Boost

Silvia Moreno-Garcia has a book out from awesome publisher Solaris. A debut novel, and anyone who's anyone knows those are wondrous things.

The book is Signal to Noise and here be the blurb:

Mexico City, 1988: Long before iTunes or MP3s, you said “I love you” with a mixtape. Meche, awkward and fifteen, has two equally unhip friends — Sebastian and Daniela — and a whole lot of vinyl records to keep her company. When she discovers how to cast spells using music, the future looks brighter for the trio. With help from this newfound magic, the three friends will piece together their broken families, change their status as non-entities, and maybe even find love…

Mexico City, 2009: Two decades after abandoning the metropolis, Meche returns for her estranged father’s funeral. It’s hard enough to cope with her family, but then she runs into Sebastian, and it revives memories from her childhood she thought she buried a long time ago. What really happened back then? What precipitated the bitter falling out with her father? And, is there any magic left?

According to Amazon it's out February but pre-orders are available now.