Stephanie Ellis's Blog, page 2

A Civil War Walk – All for Research Purposes!

A little while ago, I went over to Chester to watch the Midsummer Watch Parade of giant puppets in town – something which has a history going back 500 years. Those puppets have served as the inspiration for the December (and last) instalment of my Darklings series, although this one is set at the Winter Watch (with which I may have taken liberties!). At present it’s called To the Beat of the Drum, but that may change.

Anyway, the period in which it is written is December 1646, several months after the siege of the city had ended in February of that year. Initially a Royalist stronghold, the Parliamentarians were able to defeat the King’s army at nearby Rowton Heath, subsequently causing Charles I to flee the city. The remaining forces in Chester held out against the besiegers until February 1646 when the walls were breached.

Above is the bridge across which Charles escaped.

Whilst I have taken some liberties with the period, I have been trying to incorporate real aspects of the city from that period, a number of which are still in evidence today. One thing I had been trying to discover was the building from which most governance was carried out – it took me hours yesterday to find that it was known as Common Hall and this was in the converted St. Nicholas’ chapel. I found that building today, but look what it houses now! From mayors and aldermen to cosmetics …

Fun fact: apparently this building was also once a theatre and Charles Dickens performed here.

We (my lovely husband, Geraint, was keeping me company) then followed a self-guided civil war walk and trekked round the city walls and along the old city streets to help me get my bearings for the story, much of which takes place in the centre in the vicinity of the Rows – those upper galleries of shops you can see like those shown in the pictures below.

It was a really enjoyable walk, rounded off with a quick visit to Waterstones (which also occupies an upper gallery in one of the Rows). Once I got home, I carried on writing the story which currently stands at 8000 words so only 2000 to go, and let’s say those 2000 are the final chapter and it’s all about to go horribly wrong for my protagonist.

In terms of history, the English Civil War and following Commonwealth/Protectorate is one of the most fascinating in English history and yet it seems to be neglected. Tudors, Victorians, Stuarts, are all popular, but this period when the world turned upside down does not get the same attention. Yet it’s a period when authority was turned on its head, when radical religious and social movements appeared, when even women started to gain some leadership and take action and so many ideas swirled around. Yes, a violent time, but so much seemed possible before the status quo was … almost … resumed with the restoration of the monarchy. I just find it a shame that these people seem to warrant only a tiny part of the history section in bookshops.

Below are some of the books I’ve been reading. I’ve almost finished The Blazing World and then have The Restless Republic and The Levellers (Putney Debates) to read. It’s not all been just for this story, but also served for my historical mystery, Women of the Witch Eye, which I am currently trying to home and which will be developed into a series – even if I self-publish. And I know I will return to this era for other stories in the future!

The Woodcutter Giveaway!

Brigids Gate Press are hosting a giveaway of my folk horror novel, The Woodcutter over at StoryGraph. To be in with a chance of winning, go here.

A tragic accident, shrouded in mystery, leads to a family reunion in the hidden village of Little Hatchet, located in the smothering shadow of GodBeGone Wood, the home of the mythical Woodcutter and Grandma. Alec Eades rediscovers his bond with GodBeGone Wood and the future his father agreed to years ago as nefarious landowner Oliver Hayward schemes to raise money for the village by re-enacting part of the Woodcutter legend. Old wounds are re-opened and ties of blood and friendship are tested to the extreme when the Woodcutter is summoned and Grandma returns.

Discover Dracula Found in its Entirety!

Look what National Poetry Month 2024 produced! Seriously, it was not my intention to write this book; I merely started out – a little late – to National Poetry Month, and was trying to come up with an idea for the remainder of April. Cue found poetry – always a brilliant exercise when needing inspiration. I love the digging through words written by another and seeing what I can come up with (without plagiarism). Trouble was, there was more to the book than could be fitted in during April – and so I carried on through May, and well into June.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula gave me the opportunity to retell the story in found verse. But I also wanted to share the verses in a slightly different way so I created short video clips (on ClipChamp) and uploaded them to YouTube and TikTok. YouTube is the best place to go to as it has the playlist in the proper order. All videos used free images, footage and music from either pixabay.com and pexels.com. Note I actively avoided the numerous AI images which appeared on those sites – and which I found somewhat irritating, being horrendous in number. 70 videos were created in all, most on the day I wrote the poem, one or two written ahead of time when I knew I would be away.

Whilst all the poems are free to read on these videos – I didn’t get around to voice overs – I have created both ebook and print versions. The ebook is a straightforward gathering of the poems in one place. But I also wanted to play with formatting in a print book and so the paperback has some wonderful images, again sourced from pixabay or pexels, but worked on using Affinity photo.

Plus I love to find brushes and used Affinity’s FX settings to create the sort of 3D effect seen below with the fly (warning, you might find a spider or two in the book as well):

As well as playing with formatting, there was also something else I wanted to examine – amazon’s ‘quality’ paper for colour. Everything I’ve self-published before, has been standard paper and black and white. So yes, this put the price up, but it created a very pretty book. Again, I’ve used a new project to learn something.

Dracula Found was a deep dive into a classic not read for some time, a reassessment of the original against so many modern versions. I don’t think I’ve examined a book that closely, at that word level, for some time. Whilst having to omit or skim over many aspects due to the nature of the medium in which I was writing, I feel it carries the flavour of the original Dracula. Above all, it has shown me this is really the story of Mina Harker, a strong and clever woman, whose role seems to have been diminished in the many retellings – to me, anyway.

The poems remain freely available to read online, but if you want a copy, you know where to find them (and I’ve added Dracula Found to my Poetry Collections tab).

The last thing I would say is thank you to everyone who read and commented as I ploughed on with the task I set myself. I think I would like to do it again with another classic, but for the moment I need to reduce my other self-imposed workload! (Darklings, ahem.)

The Barricade

I have been remiss with my updates lately, especially as the pre-order links for my new novel, The Barricade, are up – plus I’ve had a few interviews with folk talking about the book! Scroll down to see the links to interviews with Happy Goat Horror and Horror Realms.

Sometimes you get so busy with your next project, that you don’t realise the time passing. I wrote this book back around 2020, writing in parallel with a folk horror – I think it was The Woodcutter. From my records, I subbed it to two publishers, it got rejected, and then I left it for a while. Then I tried agents, again crickets. And then I left it, faffing about whether to self-publish or try again, and with me, that can actually take years! When I was on X/Twitter, I had one of my moments and decided to try PitDark. Cue one request to see mss from an agent, then nothing, and then the lovely people of Lycan Valley Press asked if it was still available and here we are. I think what this tells me is I should actually make a bigger push at getting my work out, upping the number of submission attempts but I do find that a bit soul-destroying … and so the years pass. Advice to other writers out there? Keep subbing, but yes, get the balance right for you. Rejection takes a toll and the nature of this industry is that rejection is normal. It happens to everyone, even the biggest names were rejected on numerous occasions!

Now it’s The Barricade’s time, it was only waiting for this moment.

A pre-order package is available here.

When the world threatened to end, a select few went into an underground complex and left those above to survive any way they could. Scientist Faith Hamilton and her grown daughter Josie are two of the abandoned. A Barricade around the entrance to the bunker ensures those below would never be allowed out. Twenty years later they start hearing strange voices, seeing shadows within. Those below start to appear in the inner circle of the Barricade asking to be let out. Those above still refuse. Faith and her friends discover it hasn’t isolated them as they thought, that in fact there has been communication and manipulation by those underground all this time.

Early praise for the book:

“Stephanie Ellis worms her way under your skin with The Barricade, a monstrously grim dystopian tale exposing the human condition with all its frailties. Uncovering themes of abandonment, trauma, and mental health, The Barricade examines exactly how far we might be prepared to go to survive the impossible, both as individuals and as a species. Provocative and compelling.” —Lee Murray, five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Grotesque: Monster Stories

“In The Barricade, Ellis presents the worst kind of dystopia: one which is all too believable, especially in the actions of the few who remain. With a diverse cast, and a compellingly underrepresented choice of protagonist, the author’s unique voice and perspective bring this post-apocalyptic world to chilling life.” –Kev Harrison, author of Shadow of the Hidden.

“With The Barricade, Stephanie Ellis has created a story where the strength of older women is celebrated. Topics usually shied away from, such as menopause, are part of the story just as they are part of everyday life for many of us. Her heroines are human, and it’s the limitations they overcome that make them special. A riveting story that doesn’t flinch from the worst in us and, in spite of this, somehow left me feeling stronger. An empowering narrative that will lodge in your thoughts for a long while.” —Angela Yuriko Smith, 2x Bram Stoker Award® Winner

A Self-imposed Challenge! Darklings continues: From Jolly Jack to Descendants of Monstrosity

My self-imposed challenge continues! Laugh with Jolly Jack is up for pre-order now, publication being 1st April. An appropriate date I think for this title.

Not up for pre-order yet but completed is Descendants of Monstrosity. Many thanks to Alyson Faye for her careful eye and useful comments. Completely different to Jolly Jack, this is a modern day tale which reaches back into the past:

‘As part of a university team investigating the disappeared settlements of England, Harriet Rothery arrives in the vanished hamlet of Church Easton. A place on no map but one. A place an old friend had given as her address before she dropped off the face of the earth. As she investigates, she is plagued by strange dreams at night and illusions during the day. Church Easton and its surrounds, she discovers, is a place haunted with the taint of witchcraft and the injustices of the English Civil War, a legacy which reaches into the present, reaches for her …’

And here’s the cover! Note I only include the black border to ensure the cover shows up.

Links for pre-order will go up soon – intended publication 1st May.

The next in the series, Mine, is nearly ready as well. This one will be put up for June 1st publication.

Several more left to write … and at some point, print versions – or at least a couple of omnibus editions – to pull together. And all this while I’m trying to working on a new novel. When will I ever learn.

Darklings are Hatching and Jolly Jack is Lurking!

I mentioned in a previous post that I was creating a series of novelette-length quick reads under the series name, Darklings. Four have now been uploaded to a number of platforms, currently Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Kobo and Apple so it is available on a wider basis than just KDP. This means that none of these books will be available on Kindle Unlimited but having seen a lot of authors experience difficulties with amazon on a more frequent basis, I just want to make sure that I have a variety of options if anything ever goes wrong!

The four stories have been previously published, although Asylum of Shadows was the only standalone. The remaining three are to be found in collections but I think deserve a space of their own.

Pop over here https://stephanieellis.org/darklings-quick-reads-series/ to order!

Available for pre-order, actual publication date is 1st March. So what next for this series? I am currently 3/4 of the way through a brand new story, Laugh with Jolly Jack, which I intend to publish 1st April. I think the title is most appropriate for April Fool’s Day!

Laugh with Jolly Jack

Graham inherits an ancient penny arcade from his Great Uncle Reginald. His wife, a keen antiques hobbyist, insists the machines are worth something, and so Graham sets to work repairing and refurbishing them in his garage. But strange things happen when he puts a penny in the slot and the miniature worlds of burning mansions, revolutionary France, and desolate cemeteries come to life. And beyond all this, he hears laughter – the laughter of Jolly Jack.

Background to this story: many years ago, we used to take our children to visit the Milestones Living History museum in Basingstoke. It was always a great favourite so we went on a few occasions. Inside, you’d find cobbled streets and recreated shops and transport stations which were huge fun to wander around. In addition, they had a penny arcade with a whole heap of different settings and these machines which inspired my story. Some of them were really creepy, the faces, the puppetry, it was just macabre and Jolly Jack was one which always stuck with me.

Amazingly, I’ve just found a video of that machine online, so please, come along and laugh with Jolly Jack!

Welcome to Darklings Quick Read Series

Darklings is a new venture which will be coming your way in a few weeks. Featuring previously published as well as new stories, these tales are being offered up as standalone quick e-reads of novelette length. At some point in the future, I might combine them into omnibus print editions but the focus at present is the quick read on your devices.

To start, I am putting out the following four novelettes, all previously published. New ones will follow every 2 months. If I get into the swing of these, it may even be once a month but I will set up a schedule and stick to it (New Year’s plan and all that.)

All covers are my own design and creation via Pixabay and Affinity Photo editing.

Purchase links will be set up as soon as my Apple books account comes through. I am intending to offer these on a wider platform as opposed to just KDP. And yes, I could go to Draft2Digital to sort it all for me but somehow I don’t like the thought of losing a further percentage of my earnings.

Asylum of Shadows

Amongst the slums of Limehouse stands a new hospital, a monument to Victorian philanthropy. Marian, destitute and about to be orphaned as her father succumbs to the ravages of syphilis, is taken there by Dr. Janssen. This eminent physician offers her work and a roof over her head. Employed as a seamstress, she stitches shrouds for the dead and hoods for the hangman. Her additional duties are performed in the shadowy ward of St. Carcifex which receives the recently deceased, particularly those who have hung from the gallows. Her task in this gloomy place is to watch over them and make sure the dead stay dead.

First published by Demain Publishing as part of their Short Sharp Shocks series.

Of Blood and Stone

When Lina and Derek move to the dilapidated Scrin Cottage, they find they share their home with the Blood Stone, a monolith which stands in their front garden. As renovations progress, Lina discovers the vampiric nature of the stone, which according to old folk tales, once sat in the forest behind their home. Moved to their garden by the local minister and chained in place, the demon entombed within the stone was supposed to have been defeated …

First published in my collection, Devil Kin.

The Return

Max Hutton returns to his childhood home on the remote Northumbrian coast. His estranged father has died, leaving him the cottage. Old papers reveal the real reason his father drove him away, wanted neither Max nor his sons to return. An ancient entity is awake and it is calling …

First published in my collection, The Reckoning.

Beyond Hope

Developers Andrew Maudsley and John Lloyd are clearing the grounds where the church of St Francis Beyond Hope once stood. They have already built a hotel in the area and the land is to add to the complex. As the grounds are cleared, an ancient trapdoor is discovered which leads below, down old stone steps and into a world where monks worshipped another being.

First published in the Daughters of Darkness anthology.

January Update

January is proving to be a busy month! A good distraction following a recent loss and some other, unrelated, stress factors. I started off by recording an interview on the Unveiling Nightmares podcast with Crystal Baynam. It’s not available yet from what I can see but hopefully soon. I’m also on two online panels and it’d be great (albeit nerve-wracking) if you came along!:

British Fantasy Society

I’ll be taking part in the first panel of the day (so I’ll have to be up early!).

‘Panel 1 (10:15–11am): Fairytales, Gods & Monsters. A discussion on how myths and legends inspire works of fantasy and horror. Why do the old stories still fascinate us? How do we keep them fresh and new? Join moderator PS Livingstone and panellists Stephanie Ellis, Shauna Lawless and Wole Talabi as they chat about the fairytales, gods and monsters that awaken their imaginations. Find out more about our guests in this panel.’

Much of my own inspiration, particularly as I develop a certain thread of folk horror, has been delving into Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and especially, Norse, mythology. These old tales are fascinating and ripe for retelling or incorporating into fiction, provided you avoid tropes which have been done to death. I mean, I love Loki, but he’s everywhere these days!

Tickets are available here.

Writing the Occult

This panel is more familiar territory for me as we dive into ritual and how it is used within our writing. Those of you have read my folk horror novels, The Five Turns of the Wheel, Reborn, and The Woodcutter, will have come across enough examples of ritual to see that it does provide a pivotal role in my tales.

But ritual is never there for the sake of it, it has to have a purpose otherwise it is gratuitous.

Come along, at a very civilised hour, to join us.

Tickets are here.

To get you in the mood for a ritual, here’s a short reading I recorded for The Five Turns of the Wheel. Come join the Dance at the First Turn of the Wheel.

I was well-wrapped up when I recorded the above as it was – and still is – freezing in Wrexham.

What else for January?

Mothers Night (Rise of the Hare Witch), the third of my Five Turns novels, is now with a trusted beta reader so I’m trying to focus on tying up a couple of poetry projects and then start a completely different type of book. It’s one I wrote a couple of chapters for a few years back, intended to get back to last year but didn’t, so I’m diving into it again now. I was going to leave it until February but I actually started adding to it and enjoying myself. It’s not horror, it’s an alternative history/murder mystery with humour and considering everything, it’s been good to chuckle as I write.

There are plans for more ‘dark’ tales and a new individual poetry project but I think these are enough to be getting on with.

Signed Books!

I have a number of signed author copies (well, they will be once I’ve actually done it!) which I will be selling through my website in some way. Currently working out price/postage but details soon. Word of warning, it may just be for the UK at the moment, unless someone wants to pay the price of posting abroad, which I know is not cheap.

Happy reading everyone,

Steph

Winter’s Ghosts – Chilling Tales for Christmas

Who doesn’t like a spooky read for Christmas or during these darkest days of winter? And I don’t mean what we normally regard as horror. For me, a ghost story is more subtle than that. It’s something that makes you shiver a little rather than jump out of your skin, it’s that feeling we all get of being haunted, of something ‘not quite right’ but we can’t put our finger on it. Gothic style ghost stories are a particular favourite of mine and writer friend, Alyson Faye, and last year we came up with the idea of each writing a ghost story in this vein and then finding two other female ghost story writers from the past, stories which are often overlooked. Needless to say, last year came and went and we weren’t able to put this idea into action.

Then Aly raised the idea again recently and trawling through my files, I found an old story which I had never done anything with which could be developed to fit the theme. Dead Man’s Fair came about as a result of reading a true story set in the small market town I moved to with family when I was 17. My parents still live there and so I regard it now very much as my ‘home town’. The book in question was ‘A Night in the Snow – The story of a struggle for life on the Long Mynd‘ by Rev E Donald Carr, first published 1865. This tells of the minister’s journey overnight on the Mynd during a particularly violent snowstorm. In its pages, there is mention of the folk who travel across the hills to the market in Church Stretton and how this became known as Dead Man’s Fair because some never made it. I took that environment and created a new story of that title, following a young drover, already suffering loss, as he makes his way to the town for that infamous market.

Further up Carding Mill Valley, running along the bottom of the Long Mynd. (My photo)Pic: Sean the Spook, Wikipedia. A view of the Long Mynd looking down Townbrook Valley towards Burway Hill and Caer Caradoc

Can you imagine walking along the Long Mynd during a blizzard? I remember some particularly cold times in Stretton and I certainly wouldn’t want to go up there. If you want to find out a bit more about this area of South Shropshire, go here.

Then Aly provided, as always, a wonderful gothic story (this really is her genre), Chilled to the Bone. A delightful tale of greed going wrong. And I adored how Edgar Milner, of Milner Manor, dressed up as a female ghost in order to to get his hands on an inheritance. His prancing and preening made me smile, but yes – the story does turn dark. Ghosts don’t take kindly to this sort of thing.

Aly then read stories from a number of earlier female writers and sent me those she thought suitable to pair with our modern takes and to that end we included A Strange Christmas Game by Charlotte Riddell and The Triumph of Night by Edith Wharton, together with a biography of each.

Winter’s Ghosts has been put out as ebook only at present and is available here. https://mybook.to/WintersGhosts. Cheaper than a coffee why not grab a copy? (Sorry about the unintended rhyme!)

Book cover by me.

Update Time!

The year is almost drawing to a close and at the moment, I’m wondering where it’s gone. It’s also meant I’ve been wondering exactly what I’ve achieved, so here we go.

Current work in progress

Mother’s Night (Rise of the Hare Witch) now stands at 65,800 words and I’m determined to have a push to get this first draft finished before the end of the month. (Normally, I would have finished this some time ago but various things have held me up this year*. ) I had a read through last night, after just ploughing on regardless, of those early chapters and returning to those I found I was really enjoying the whole Yule fest/pagan vibe coming from the pages. It is exactly the sort of book I want to read – and that is why I’m writing it. As indicated in my Substack, I have been rewriting a few carols to fit my Folk! Here’s another, Solstice Pilgrims (a rewritten Good King Wenceslas to tell of the Mother and Grandmother (Hare Witch)). Much is made of song and dance in this book, but then it is the festive season and as Five Turns readers know, the Dance can mean so many things!

Solstice Pilgrims

Across the land, the Mother looked out
On midwinter’s solstice
When the snow lay round about
Hill and moor and forest

Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When the Hare Witch came in sight
Seeking she who ruled

Hither child, and stand by me,
If thou knowst it telling
Yonder creature who is she?
Where and what her dwelling?

Lady, she lives in the dark
In the cold of Helheim
In the mist of the abyss
Where began our own time

Bring me flesh and bring me wine,
Bring me our Folk hither
Thou and I will see her dine
When we bear them thither

The Mother made her way abroad
And her people followed
Through the drifts, their way they scored
To meet the one most hallowed

Lady, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
My blood runs cold, I know not how
I can go much longer

Mark my footsteps, good my child
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shall find the winter’s rage
Freeze they flesh less coldly.

In the Mother’s steps he walked,
To where the Hare Witch waited
For the pilgrims who’d been taught
Through her, their end was fated.
To her, their sacrifice was pure,
And ours is also pressing,
To feed the land, and Her adore
And receive Her sacred blessing.

Slasher Horror Novella in Verse – hovers close to the end but this is one of those written with no pressure on either author and life gets in the way. The end will come when it will come (but I will say this, it is good!)

What’s to Come?

Into Oblivion – my WWI story inspired by the early observation balloon units which were dotted above the battlefields has been accepted into Coy Hall’s first anthology under his Scythian Wolf imprint. I was particularly pleased with this acceptance as Coy was operating a blind read policy.

Enough Rope – my gothic horror novella set in the Victorian East End and developing some aspects of the world of my novelette Asylum of Shadows will be out in 2025.

The Barricade – my post-apocalyptic novel with Lycan Valley Press is currently out on edit. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share publication dates and a bit more news in the near future.

Plans for Next Year

*I’ve thought long and hard about this but next year, I’ve decided to take a step back from mentoring and jumping in to help others apart from a few friends who I’ll always support at the drop of a hat. Having said that, I know perfectly well that if I see someone with a problem and in need some sort of help, I’ll still probably offer but I will be careful about how much time that takes. Does that make me selfish? A little, maybe, but I was brought up in an environment which taught me to put others first and that still holds true, however, I think I deserve a little ‘me’ time for once. And I’ll still be over at Horror Tree as well.

What do I intend to do with this ‘me’ time?

Twiggy Voo – is an alternative history novel set just prior to WWI, a war which may or may not happen depending on events. Either way, it is a descendent of Napoleon who sits on the throne after Wellington lost at Waterloo. The British royal family is ‘controlled’ and certain members of society have been pushed aside. Winston Churchill in particular is now a rising industrial magnate whose sausages have given him the income to re-infiltrate society’s upper echelons. Cue a murder mystery at the dowager empress’s home with many historical figures appearing in a slightly different guise. This is a comedic effort with cosy crime overtones and I wrote the first few chapters a few years back. Rereading the other night it made me chuckle, so yes, I plan on completing this one.

Women of the Witch Eye – this dark historical novel is currently out on submission and I intend to write the second in this series, taking my characters, John Milton and Jennet Device, back to London at the time of the Putney Debates. I’ve a lot of books to read and research for this one!

In addition to the above, I’m also hoping to carve out time to write several short stories as I like to see a handful of these published each year. Plus I have two other completed novels which I am continuing to shop around. Part of me is thinking I might self-publish those.

Poetry? – oh, yes there are plans. A couple of co-authored things in the pipeline but I intend to work on a new found poetry collection, this one being a dive into the circumstances of poverty during the Victorian era. My family history research led me to primary sources including Workhouse notebooks and material from other investigators of the time. It’s a bit of an homage to those of my family from that time who endured life under the most brutal of circumstances.

Anything else? Well, if by some miracle I manage to to complete the above, then I have a novella idea lurking …

2023 Achievements

This leads me to my most recent reflections, reminding myself of what exactly I managed to come up with this year. Not bad, though I say it myself. Thank you to anyone who’s bought these books and read my work and also those who chose my stories and published them.