2023 in Review

2023 was another decent year for me on the writing front. I think I largely maintained the momentum I generated last year. One of my more ‘out there’ stories MyDarkside(dot)com was included in issue 22 (Spring 2023) of Phantasmagoria magazine and Finders Keepers, my collab with Michael McCarty, reprinted in his collection Biters: Tales of Zombies & Vampires. Concidentally, shortly afterwards my own biting story appeared in The Book of Drabbles on Shacklebound Books and later that summer my story The Old Tip Road was included in the Horror Library 8 where it sat uneasily alongside contributions by Bentley Little, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Ai Jiang, who is quickly becoming one of my favourite writers.

Of all the fiction I have ever written, String probably got the biggest reaction. Several readers actually contacted me to tell me how grossed out they were, which was very satisfying. If you want to see what all the fuss is about you can find it in the anthology That Old House: The Bathroom, compiled and edited by Angel Herrin for Voices from the Mausoleum. Towards the end of the year I also had short pieces published in Tiny Frights magazine and the Christmas anthology Macabre Minima Ho Ho Ho. Incidentally, that was my 91st published short story. When I first started writing back in the last century, I never thought for one minute I would get this far. I am living proof of how far being a stubbourn bastard can take you in life.

My big news in 2023 was the publication of my latest novel, The Wretched Bones, the first book in the Ben Shivers series of mysteries on Midnight Machinations, an imprint of Grinning Skull Press. Look at the awesome cover:

If you didn’t already know, the book is about paranormal investigator (PI) Ben Shivers who lives in a camper van with his rescue cat, Mr Trimble. When he is called in to probe a series of tragedies at an exclusive resort in the English countryside, he isn’t prepared for what he is about to uncover and soon realizes it isn’t always a good thing when dreams come true. As anyone who has written a book will tell you, that’s the easy part. Getting people to give a shit is far more difficult. Therefore, I spent most of the winter doing interviews and guest posts for various outlets as part of the Wretched Bones Blog Tour. At the same time I worked on a revised draft of the second book in the series, which is now called The Butcher and will be released by the same publisher later in the year. I call it a series, but each book is a standalone featuring the same main character(s).

Elsewhere, I somehow managed to write a new novella, mainly in my lunch hours at work (don’t tell the boss), untitled as yet, which serves as a loose sequel to my No Man’s Land: Horror in the Trenches. Of all the things I have written, that universe is the one most people encourage me to explore further. This one isn’t set in the Great War, though, I have moved the action on a couple of decades to World War II. Same problem, different war.

Here on da blawg, 2023 also saw us go through numbers 66 to 76 of the #RetView series of contemporary reviews of classic horror films, featuring such forgotten gems as From Dusk till Dawn, Cat People, Hellraiser and The Birds. My most popular blog post of the year overall with a whopping 703 views was my review of the Bruce Springsteen gig at Villa Park, Birmingham, though my review of Ryan (not Bryan) Adams’ take on Nebraska wasn’t far behind which I found surprising. I still find it strange how some posts just take off, while others that you have high hopes for sink withouta trace.

I hope you achieved your personal goals in 2023. If you didn’t, make sure you hit those targets in 2024 because if you die a hopeless failure you’ll only have yourself to blame. You’re steering your ship, nobody else, and it goes where you tell it to go.