Tim Major's Blog, page 6
May 24, 2023
A new story and a ‘year’s best’ inclusion
My story, ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’, has been published on IZ Digital, the online arm of Interzone magazine. It’s about Elektro, the robot that was exhibited at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, who could walk, talk and (oddly enough) smoke cigarettes. It’s quite a sweet and sad little story, I think.
You can read ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’ for free if you’re a subscriber to the Interzone print edition, or if you’re a member of IZ Digital (only 1 euro per month!). Click here ...
May 17, 2023
Open submission calls: April 2023
Apologies – I forgot to post April’s open submissions calls here on my website! Below are the ones that are still valid as of today. To avoid disappointment in future, you might want to subscribe to my email newsletter, which contains open submission calls well ahead of them being posted here (if they are at all, *ahem*…).
Horror Story
A new magazine, with a first issue featuring monster stories – either classic monsters or invented ones.
Word count: 2000–10,000 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
De...
April 13, 2023
Favourite albums of the first quarter of 2023
Who says ‘best of’ lists have to be restricted to the end of the year? Here are my favourite new album releases of the first quarter of 2023, for those who might be interested.
Kali Malone – Does Spring Hide Its Joy Three hours of amazing drone work from prolific organist Kali Malone, featuring Sunn O))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley and cellist Lucy Railton.
Tongue Depressor – Bones For Time Ambient drones that sound like the steady breathing of a sleeping giant.
Atom TM – N...
March 13, 2023
Open submission calls: March 2023
Whereas last month’s open submission calls all seemed to be horror-flavoured, this month I’ve come across a wealth of science fiction venues seeking story submissions. Maybe horror editors prefer the winter, and the impending arrival of spring is bringing out all the SF publishers?
If you’d like to receive notifications of open submission calls direct to your inbox, sign up for my newsletter.
Metastellar
Currently, this online venue (which has the strapline ‘Speculative fiction and bey...
February 20, 2023
Open submission calls: February 2023
Here are some of the most interesting open submission calls for writers I’ve stumbled across this month. Good luck!
The Devil Take You: Tales of Medieval Horror
The editors of this anthology seek weird tales set in the medieval period – a terrific theme! And, while I know it’s not everything, it boasts a truly excellent cover design.
Word count: 3000–6000 words
Payment: $125–$200, presumably based on word count
Deadline: 15 April 2023
Find out more here
Chthonic Matter
New quarterly weird fi...
January 17, 2023
Open submission calls: January 2023
A new year, a fresh start, renewed ambitions, and so on… January is a great time to send out stories you’ve already written, or to be inspired to write new ones. Below, I’ve gathered some of the most interesting open submission calls for writers I’ve spotted this month. If you have a try at any of these opportunities, best of luck!
To receive more open submission calls like this, sign up for my email newsletter.
Ghoulish Tales
New magazine that celebrate ‘fun horror that aims to celebrate a...
January 16, 2023
Announcement – JEKYLL & HYDE: CONSULTING DETECTIVES
Exciting news is the very best way to begin a new year! I’m thrilled to announce that Titan Books will publish my novel JEKYLL & HYDE: CONSULTING DETECTIVES, and I’m very excited about it.
Here’s the Publishers Marketplace announcement:
More details soon! If you’re impatient to know more, please consider signing up to my email newsletter, as I’ll be including additional plot tidbits in the first newsletter, to be sent out imminently…
December 30, 2022
My writing year 2022
This year I had the following work published:
Sherlock Holmes: The Defaced Men (Titan) – my second Holmes novel (after The Back to Front Murder), featuring cinema pioneer Eadweard Muybridge.
Sherlock Holmes & The Twelve Thefts of Christmas (Titan) – a ‘Christmas special’ of a Holmes novel, featuring Irene Adler’s ‘advent calendar of crimes’ and with central roles for Mary Watson and Mrs Hudson.
Shade of Stillthorpe (Black Shuck) – a weird, folk horror-ish novella about family, fatherhood and c...
December 28, 2022
Favourite books of 2022
My favourite book published this year was Candescent Blooms by Andrew Hook. It’s an outstanding, confident, often surreal collection, featuring accounts of the final days of Hollywood actors who died before their time. Despite its strong pitch, it remains difficult to describe – the stories are poetic, subjective, dizzying. Though there’s a huge amount of research in evidence, tone and language take precedence over biography. Normally I struggle to read whole collections from start to finish, wh...
December 19, 2022
Favourite film, TV and videogames of 2022
Despite a return to cinema viewing being viable for the first time in a couple of years, I saw only two films in the cinema in 2023. However, they were among my favourite films I saw this year, and the atmosphere was certainly an important part of that. Though lighter than my usual fare, I thought that the 1950s mystery pastiche See How They Run (Tom George, 2022) was near-perfect in the sense of achieving everything it set out to achieve. Seeing it with my wife, followed by Italian ...
