Cate Gardner's Blog, page 34

Twisted Tales

Last night I attended the Twisted Tales event at Waterstones in Liverpool One. They've been holding these events for a year but this was the first I've attended.

Go me or bad me or something of that flavour.

Met up with Simon Bestwick for a coffee (okay, I had a bottle of water because I was way too hyper) before heading into the event. There were readings by Nicholas Royle, Lisa Tuttle and Adam Nevill, a question and answer session and then a signing.

Picked up the House of Fear Anthology, The Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle, The Ritual by Adam Nevill and Regicide by Nicholas Royle (which when I read the blurb on the back screamed 'I have to read this now' so I guess I'm shoving that one to the front of my towering to read pile which is actually rather neatly organised now).

Oh and I sat behind Ramsey Campbell during the event (yep, you read that right) and of course Simon being Simon (i.e. he knows everyone) he introduced me to Ramsey after the readings. I ran away rather quickly. Better that than subjecting him to a stream of incoherent nonsense.

Not NaNoWriMo

It's almost November.

It's almost time for NaNoWriMo and this year, I'm not participating.

Thank goodness for that.

Last year's NaNoWriMo book (Museum of Impossible Artefacts or Ghosts of Folding Time or whatever title I left it at) is still an unholy mess of time travel, ghosts, giant robots, abandoned streets, sinister future people, the grim reaper who isn't the grim reaper but does a really good job at being the grim reaper, ghost ships, zeppelins, kidnapping and disappearing houses. I should pick two of the above and start again with the thing and maybe I will, but not on Tuesday in particular, and not to be completed within 30 days. And hey, for fun, tell me which two of the above I should pick and run with. Or not. Or maybe I'll just keep them all.

Off to the Twisted Tales House of Fear event at Waterstones tonight. Maybe it'll inspire me.

Curious Things Afoot

Some Theatre of Curious Acts news this Tuesday. Although the book isn't released until mid-December we already have two reviews. The first review is from Lee Thompson...

"This is a simply deceiving story, complicated and intricate beneath the humor and darkness. She weaves a strong web and populates the story with quirky and likeable characters" - you can read the rest of the review over at The Crow's Caw.

The second review is by Caroline E Willis...

"The aesthetic of this 40,000 word novella evokes theater and circuses and other strange, false places that tell true stories. It's a cross between Gaiman's Neverwear, Maguire's Wicked and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and if you enjoy any of those, you will enjoy the "Theatre of Curious Acts." - you can read the rest of the review over at Tangent Online.

I'm currently writing a little collection of flash stories/biographical accounts of events that happened (according to some rather dubious folk including a Mr. Folk) to some rather unfortunate and some wicked creatures who populate the outskirts and the dark unseen corners of the Theatre. I'm hoping to use them for a blog tour in December or January - thinking January may be better being that it is the season of frost and staying-in-ness and plus 2012 has that whole apocalyptic vibe going for it.

And that is all my news, I think... Ooh, except I'm venturing out into the world this weekend to attend a wee event in my home town and then I'm scurrying home to cower back under my duvet.

At the Crossroads

Well I needed an excuse to post because I've been awfully lax of late and visiting the Delirium Books website gave me an excuse to. The full cover (ie including the back) is now on the website and it's perfect and gorgeous and perfect and here it is...


...how beautiful is that back cover? 
And you can read an excerpt on the Delirium Books/Dark Fuse page for Barbed Wire Hearts.
Did I say it is beautiful?

The Girl who Waited (for the hole in her mouth to close*)

(*as have many people over time)

Things that have happened since my last blog...

Griped and griped some more about my tooth, which developed an interestingly painful, dry socket. Things learned - I'm a dreadful patient or rather an impatient patient - although having toothache doesn't make you a patient at all; that although you may not be able to eat toast (the horror) because it might get stuck in the gaping hole in your mouth, that you can, however, eat chocolate because it melts and can't get stuck (my prescription). I have a hit list containing the names of all the people who said having a tooth removed was easy. They are aware of the list.

There have been a few more reviews of Nowhere Hall that I should have linked to over the past few weeks but constantly linking to reviews does not make for good blog content. Though possibly neither does griping about teeth.  The lastest are from Nickolas Cook at The Black Glove, Gef Fox at Skull Salad Reviews, Strange Aeons Magazine (which includes the words 'fucking Jedi'), Jason Baki at Floor to Ceiling Books and Anton Cancre at Horror News Net. If you are of a mind to read them, the reviews are all linked to from the Nowhere Hall page. Simon Marshall Jones has done (and continues to do) an awesome job of getting all the chapbooks he's published before reviewers.

There's also a review in (the first) for Theatre, which I'll link to when I get around to creating a page for the wee thing.

The garden took its revenge on my fence after it staked it x amount of years ago and aided by the wind managed to uproot the thing. I now have half a fence. That's different. And a hungry Alsation lives next door. Gulp! I should stop calling the dog 'dude' and telling it 'you're going to get a sore throat with all that barking'. I suspect I look like a very happy meal (especially now I've stopped griping).

And as a final note, my internet connection at work (or rather work's internet connection) now thinks it's French.

Au Revoir

The Whisper Jar by Carole Lanham

There are secrets hidden within The Whisper Jar. 
These are not the sort of secrets you can whisper into jam jars, twist the lid and know (or hope) they'll stay hidden; these are secrets that spill out across the pages of Carole Lanham's debut collection, which weaves tales that prove just how un-innocent childhood can sometimes be.
There are vampires and maybe vampires, and werewolves and fairies, and macabre torture devices that may or may not kill depending on the flick of a switch. There are the rhyming tales - the title story The Whisper Jar and the tragic The Adventures of Velvet Honeybone, Girl Werewuff - tales of woe, of childhood friendship, and how the magic dies with approaching adulthood. Each story is a delight, and the tales are told in Lanham's unique and compelling voice.
Although some secrets should stay hidden, Carole Lanham's The Whisper Jar should not. The ebook is available to pre-order from Morrigan Books and the book is released on October 31st.

Swimming with Awesome Fishes

I am delighted to announce that my short story, Too Delicate for Human Form, has been accepted by Dagan Books for their fish anthology.

I am also delighted to say that I managed to keep it a secret for two whole days, no hints or anything. This may be a record and I'm sure I deserve a reward even if it's self-gifted.

I am further delighted to be sharing a TOC with Camille Alexa, Amanda C Davis, Corinne Duyvis, Claude Lalumière, Ken Liu, TJ McIntyre and many other awesome folk. The official table of contents are below and the anthology is due out February 8th, 2012.







Alexa, Camille "The Skin of Her Skin"
Bernardo, Matthew "The Fish-Wife's Tale"
Blake, Polenth "Thwarting the Fiends"
Darrach, Shaw "I Know a Secret"
Davis, Amanda C. "O How the Wet Folk Sing"
Dixon, Paul "One Let Go"
Duyvis, Corinne "The Applause of Others"
Englehardt, Megan "Anansi and the New Thing"
Fleming, Sam "What the Water Gave Her"
Fuller, Andrew "A Salmon Tale, 2072"
Fullerton, H.L. "The Fish Are There On Land"
Gardner, Cate "Too Delicate for Human Form"
George, Zachary "You, Fish"
Hendrix, Sarah "Never to Return"
Kane, Tim "Vanity Mirror"
Kneeland, Andrea "Becoming Human"
Kwak, Jessie "Needlepoint Fish of Azure City"
L'Orange, April "Quick Karma"
Lalumière, Claude "Xandra's Brine"
Liu, Ken "How Do You Know If a Fish Is Happy?"
McBride, Tracie "The Touch of Taniwha"
McIntyre, T.J. "Did the Catfish Get a Flat Head?"
Nakayama, Timothy "Fallen Dragon"
Naquin, R.L. "Kisses In the Snow"
Obedoza, Mel "The Fisherman and Golden Fish"
Palmer, Suzanne "Laternfish In the Overworld"
Povey, Jennifer "Water Demons"
Rambo, Cat "The Fisher Queen"
Romasco-Moore, Maria "Fisheye"
Ruby, Jacob "The Talking Fish of Shangri-La"
Shvartsman, Alex "Life at the Lake's Shore"
Spencer, Ariyana "Fish Tears"
Unger, Vivian "A Fish Tail"
Wood, Mike "The Last Fisherman of Habitat 37"
Zup, Andreea "Maria and the Fish"

Like Pulling Teeth

I am freaking out...

I have to go to the dentist when I finish work in minus 2 hours and have a back tooth pulled...

I should stop griping because it's a tooth not a limb...

...but I won't, especially as when the tooth was filled a few months back the dentist didn't give me enough Novacaine and it hurt, hurt, hurt. And in case the tooth fairy reads my blog, I'd like chocolate coins please, dude.

And for those who don't subscribe to Daily Science Fiction (and thus didn't receive the email containing my story last week), you can now read Exit Stage Life online. Or maybe read, This Always Happens Here by Richard Larson, because it's awesome and has snow globes.

Butterflies & Frozen Things

Earlier this week, Lee Thompson (author of Iron Butterflies Rust and Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children) interviewed me for his blog and you can read it here. It was my seventh interview (all of which can be accessed from here) and it was a delightful experience. I quite like interviews. Maybe I'm a Narcissist. I hope not.

Today, I finally uploaded a good portion of my stories to Google Docs. I didn't know it was so easy to do. I'd originally uploaded the odd story and I did each one manually, but it appears I just had to click Ctrl-A to copy my entire flash drive to Google Docs and it did the rest. I may sleep a little easier now. Or I will when I've uploaded my other files. I hope Google Docs doesn't implode.

I finished editing The Menagerie of Frozen Birds this morning and am a little reluctant to leave that icy world behind, but it's onwards and upwards and I have three other short stories with deadlines that I have to get done.

But before I go, if you're of a mind to procrastinate today (well it is the weekend), then check out Draw a Stickman. Although, I chose to draw a stickwoman.

Doors & Bloody Hearts

My novella 'Barbed Wire Hearts' is now available to pre-order, and you can read an extract here. The limited edition hardcover will be published in November, and will also be available as an e-book. I believe there are only a small amount left available to buy.

In other news, my story 'Exit Stage Life' is tomorrow's Daily Science Fiction story and will be emailed to subscribers before being published on the website on the 29th September. The story is about a door that appears next to someone's desk and coincidentally...

At work, Office Services left a large door (okay, it had a cupboard attached to it) in front of my desk today. Gulp! I didn't open it. (I bet you're disappointed in me now).

And as it's Wednesday, I should mention my WIP - an icy tale called 'The Menagerie of Frozen Birds'. It's been kicking my ass but it's time for payback.