Andrew Hook's Blog, page 3

Some Pastel Morning

My short story titled "Some Pastel Morning" has just been published online in IZ Digital, the online sister magazine to Interzone. Initially it is presented as an IZ Digital supporter exclusive (print IZ subscribers also get access), however from 12 July 2023 it'll be free-to-read. It's very cheap to become an IZ Digital supporter. As usual, I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

Unlike many of my short stories, "Some Pastel Morning" ap...

So Close To Home

My short story titled "So Close To Home" has just been published in Languages of Water, an anthology edited by Eugen Bacon. As usual, I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

This anthology came into being via Eugen's short story, "When The Water Stops", which was first published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. "Languages of Water" - Eugen blogs - is a cross-lingual hybrid birthed from the Writers Immersion and Cultural Exch...

Thoughts After Reading: White Spines

I've decided to write a series of posts, when the fancy takes me, regarding books recently read. Not reviews as such, if you want those then check out my Goodreads page, but considerations. The first of these concerns "White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector", by Nicholas Royle.

I shortly began reading this book after the long Easter weekend. As we do every few years, my partner, Sophie, & I had decided to put all our books into author alphabetical order. When I say all our books, I'm not i...

An Absence of Ghosts

My short story titled "An Absence of Ghosts" has just been published in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #73. As usual, I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

This story developed from a couple of sources. Firstly, I tend to like trashy horror films but get bored of the tropes. I remember watching "Wrong Turn" and thinking why not make a movie called "Right Turn", where a bunch of teenagers take the better turning and get safely to their des...

Creating Time To Write Short Stories

Creating time to write when holding down a full time job and also working several part-time jobs around the full time job can be a tricky business. Since I've been writing short stories for some time now (with over 175 published) I've got to the stage where most of them can be completed in one sitting. But how best to create the time to do so?

For the past few years, I've answered that question by retaining around ten days of my day job annual leave which I then take each February and March, effe...

The Malaise Trap

My short story titled "The Malaise Trap" has recently been published as a standalone chapbook from the Brazillian-based Raphus Press, and as has become usual I'm writing a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

Like most of my fiction, the idea sprang from the title. I'm fairly certain I became aware of a Malaise trap whilst my partner was writing a themed series of insect poems. I often read facts about insects to her whilst she writes, which lubrica...

Cumulative quote story

During 2022 I read 70 books. Following each reading, on both Twitter and Instagram, I would post a picture of each book together with what I felt to be a pertinent quote from the contents. As I was devising my end of year list, it struck me that putting all these quotes together might form a short story, so - entirely without embellishment and wholly in the order in which the books were read - here it is. I think there's some really fluid segues! For those interested - which I imagine to be only...

The Best and Worst of 2022

Well, it's that time of the year when everyone is doing their 'best and worst of' lists, so here is mine. I'm going to list the books and movies and records I read/watched/listened to in 2022 and then pick my favourites. This isn't restricted to what was new in 2022, but what I actually watched and read and heard - some of these items might be very old indeed.

Books:

I read the following in 2022:

Georges Simenon – The Hanged Man of Saint-PholienMo Hayder – BirdmanJohn Hersey – HiroshimaAndy Cox (Ed...

My Writing Year 2022

As has become annual I thought I'd write a quick blog post as to my literary achievements during 2022.

Starting with short fiction, I wrote the following stories: "The Enfilade", "Content", "Keepers" and "An Absence of Ghosts". This is a further reduction of output in writing short fiction that has continued over the past few years, but it's not like I haven't been busy and I'm not complaining, because in addition to those stories I co-wrote the time travel novel, "Secondhand Daylight" with Eugen...

Throttle Body

My short story titled "Throttle Body" has recently been published as a standalone chapbook from Nightjar Press, and as has become usual I'm writing a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

Like most of my fiction, the idea sprang from the title. Having some issues with the car one summer my partner was looking through the manual and mentioned something called a throttle body. This is a tube-shaped housing that contains a flat valve (butterfly) that ro...