Mark West's Blog, page 88

July 9, 2010

More "Conjure" goodness

I got an email today, from Andrew Murray, a very nice chap from Australia who read "Conjure" (in what must be a record time) and had this to say:I loved it, an excellent, very well written supernatural thriller that had me hooked from the start [with:] real three dimensional characters I cared for & whose relationship was honestly felt and one creepy little bastard like Steve who really got under
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Published on July 09, 2010 16:16

July 8, 2010

My artwork page

Which sounds, perhaps, a little grander than it actually is!I've started a new "page" on the website, where I'm going to gather all of the bits and pieces of artwork I've produced. Mostly, it'll be book and CD covers, but there might also be some jokey little pieces.Just follow "Artwork" from the "Pages" section on the right or, alternatively, click here for the direct link.
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Published on July 08, 2010 07:08

July 7, 2010

Sad News

Before I met Alison, way back in 1992, I spent a year in a relationship with a lady called Liz, who had a daughter Emma, who was about 2. When Liz and I split, it was amicable and we still speak when we meet up and I'm proud of that. A downside, obviously, was that I didn't see much of Emma any more.When "Conjure" came out, I corresponded with Emma briefly through Facebook – Liz is apparently a
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Published on July 07, 2010 15:59

Was it really that gory?

At the weekend, I set up an photo album on my Facebook account, which showed the covers of various magazines/anthologies that my work has appeared in. One example was "Tourniquet Heart" (featuring my story "Up For Anything"), as edited by Chris Teague and he wrote, in the comments, "I do recall Paul Finch squirming during your reading at a Terror Tales gig in Birmingham, Mark; I think it was the
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Published on July 07, 2010 04:29

June 30, 2010

Catching up on some reading

I finished "Where The Heart Is" yesterday and I've posted my review up at GoodReads.com - which can be found here.I sent Carole Johnstone (who wrote the marvellous "Stamping Ground" in the anthology) a little note, on GoodReads, saying that I really liked her story and she came back, saying that she'd also enjoyed "The City In The Rain" but also that she'd read and liked "The Mill". How cool is
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Published on June 30, 2010 01:51

June 21, 2010

Where I am now

Well, here we are in the start of a new week and, I have to say, I had an excellent weekend. My dear friend Pauline celebrated a milestone birthday on on Saturday and I went to help her celebrate and it was great to see her and, particularly, another friend I haven't seen for the best part of 20 years.Yesterday was Fathers Day and - aside from a glitch when Dude & I were shopping on Saturday and
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Published on June 21, 2010 05:24

June 16, 2010

"The City In The Rain" is going strong...

Des Lewis is currently doing one of his patented real-time reviews of "Where The Heart Is" and he's just got to my story, "The City In The Rain".He liked it!I particularly liked this bit - "Without putting too fine a point on it, it is in many ways the perfect horror story. It has the horror feel, its tropes, a sense of pulp and popularity, yet with an underlying sophistication and poignancy that
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Published on June 16, 2010 14:32

June 4, 2010

I'm a Guest-Blogger

I am currently the 'guest-blogger' at Simon Marshall-Jones's site (cheers, Simon), with a little essay about how I got into writing. I'm to be the first in a series, as Simon explains:To begin my irregular series of guest-blogs by already-published authors reminiscing about the ups and downs of being a new writer and how they arrived at where they are now, I am happy to kick it all off with the
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Published on June 04, 2010 05:46

June 2, 2010

New Reviews up

I have two new reviews in the May edition of VideoVista.Both are French, part of the new-wave horror that seems to be coming out of there right now and both of them, for the most part, are very good.High Lane features some hair-raising climbing footage that had my afraid-of-heights wife almost swooning at timesMutants is a kind of zombie film, but not.
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Published on June 02, 2010 09:24

June 1, 2010

It's off!

"Come See My House In The Pretty Town" (come on, you knew the working title of 'david & the clowns' wasn't going to stick, didn't you?) has just winged its way over to the editors in-box and I await her decision with what approximates patience from me.I like the story a lot - it's a very different beast to "Mr Huxton Goes Camping" but I think that's a good thing and, as Sarah (my kid sister and
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Published on June 01, 2010 09:40