Andrew Hook's Blog, page 17

Fur-Lined Ghettos issue #5

Time to announce that my partner's alt-poetry/weird prose magazine, Fur-Lined Ghettos, has reached it's fifth issue and is now available for purchase.

It's chock full of alt-poetry, surrealism, automatism, cut-up, existentialism, experimentation and subtle beauty.

There's poetry from Zachary Aaron, Cassandra de Alba, JR Clarke, Zachary Cosby, Dalton Day, Douglass Guy, Maya Owen, Ross Scott-Buccleuch, Kevin Sharp and Carol Shillibeer, with a short story by KL Owens.

The cool cover art is by Alba...

Old Books Given New Life As E-Books

I've decided to make available two of my short story collections which have long been out of print as e-books through Kindle. They're only £1.83 (or the equivalent cost overseas), so cheap enough to pick up!

For those unaware, I write strange, slipstream pieces, often focusing on themes of identity, reality and immortality, often coming at these topics from a quirky angle. Elements of SF/F/H infuse the work, but aren't hardwired to the staples of those genres. Think Haruki Murakami, Paul Auste...

Goodreads Giveaway - The Immortalists

I've decided to do a Goodreads Book Giveaway for one of my author copies of my neo-noir crime novel, "The Immortalists", which Future Radio presenter Mark Bond-Webster describes as "a wonderful novel" in a recent interview.

Entering couldn't be simpler. If you've a Goodreads account click here: Goodreads.


A reminder of what the book is about:

Ex-cop, Mordent, is an irascible, anachronistic PI with a noir sensibility and a bubblewrap fetish. Hired to investigate a missing person case he believes...

BlogHop: Three Things I Don’t Write (and Three Things I Do)

This is one of those writerly blog tour things where I've been tagged by another writer to discuss three things I don't write and three things I do, and where I'll pass on the baton to another three writers to blog their own thoughts. Needless to say, all these writers' blogs are worth reading and so is their writing. In my case, Stephen Palmer tagged me, and without further ado here are my responses:

Three Things I Don't Write:


Politics

It's rare that I touch politics in my fiction because I do...

Genius

The word genius is often banded about quite arbitrarily, and I've been thinking about who I consider fits such a description and what the word actually means.

There's the literal definition of course. The Oxford English Dictionary defines genius as "exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability". However I would qualify this with: "unprecedented amongst the subject's peers". Because if you are a genius within a group of geniuses do you remain a genius?

Simone de Beauvoir s...

Softwood

I've just received my contributor's copy of La Femme, an anthology published by NewCon Press, featuring my short story, "Softwood". As usual I'm blogging about the genesis of the story for those who might be interested. There may be spoilers for those who haven't yet read the work.

This is one of those strange instances where a story was written for one anthology and instead appeared in another, both as a result of how the story grew and also because of the direction the publisher decided...

Twenty Years Of Short Stories

I realised recently that my first published short story, "Pussycat", celebrates its 20th birthday this year. It's a mind-boggling piece of news to get my head around because it (almost) literally feels like yesterday. I certainly can't place where the intervening years have disappeared to, which is frightening and thrilling simultaneously. However, it did make me wonder which were my favourite stories that I've written between my first published story and the most recent that I've sold. With...

Guest post: Sophie: on being an outsider

Last night's poetry slam was an experience; my first. 
I am in awe. 
I applaud any one who stands on a stage & bares themselves in such a raw & honest way. I know it's something I couldn't do.
But as a writer there is an inherent part of me that wants to be read & admired. I want someone to say "I get it, this is cussing genius". Though I know that what I do is not what they do. I do not, nor feel that I should, call myself a poet. I know nothing of the form, nor do I read...

New Novel: The Immortalists

Very pleased to announce that my eighth book, "The Immortalists", was published by Telos over the weekend and is now available to buy both as an e-book and in paperback.

This is the first of two novels coming from Telos to feature my irascible PI, Mordent, who so far had only made appearances within a handful of short stories. The second novel, "Church of Wire", will be out either later this year or early next. A third ("People I Know Are Dead") has also been written and will hopefully be plac...

The Writer's Fear Of The Book Event

To be honest, I'm not particularly nervous before book events. I'm happy reading my material, doing workshops or signings, and talking about my work. But maybe my subconscious thinks otherwise. Here's the summary of a dream I had last night which addresses virtually every 'event fear' a writer might have in one simple nightmare:

1. Arriving at the wrong venue - I had the choice of two bookstores in my dream. I was sure the one I chose was the wrong one, but I didn't even check out the other st...