Hello from an expat in exile

[William]

Hello from a Kilbirnie lad, living in Newfoundland since 2007.

A lot of my work, long and short form, is still set in Scotland, and much of it uses the history and folklore. There’s just something about the misty landscapes and old buildings that speaks straight to my soul. Bloody Celts… we get all sentimental at the least wee thing.

I grew up on the West Coast of Scotland in an environment where the supernatural was almost commonplace.

My grannie certainly had a touch of ‘the sight’, always knowing when someone in the family was in trouble. There are numerous stories told of family members meeting other, long dead, family in their dreams, and I myself have had more than a few encounters with dead family, plus meetings with what I can only class as residents of faerie. I have had several precognitive dreams, one of which saved me from a potentially fatal car crash.

I have a deep love of old places, in particular menhirs and stone circles, and I’ve spent quite a lot of time travelling the UK and Europe just to visit archaeological remains. I also love what is widely known as ‘weird shit’. I’ve spent far too much time surfing and reading Fortean, paranormal and cryptozoological websites. The cryptozoological stuff especially fascinates me, and provides a direct stimulus for a lot of my fiction.

I've also been influenced by many Scottish writers. Stevenson in particular is a big influence. He is a master of plotting, and of putting innocents into situations far out of their usual comfort zones while still maintaining a grounding in their previous, calmer, reality. His way with a loveable rogue in Treasure Island and Kidnapped in particular is also a big influence. Other Scottish writers who have influenced me include John Buchan, Iain Banks and, more in my youth than now, Alistair MacLean and Nigel Tranter. From them I learned how to use the scope of both the Scottish landscape and its history while still keeping the characters alive.

But I think it’s the people that influence me most. Everybody in Scotland’s got stories to tell, and once you get them going, you can’t stop them. I love chatting to people, usually in pubs, and finding out the weird shit they’ve experienced. My Glasgow PI, Derek Adams is mainly based on a bloke I met years ago in a bar in Partick, and quite a few of the characters that turn up and talk too much in my books can be found in real life in bars in Glasgow, Edinburgh and St Andrews.

See the the list below for more details of my Scottish Fiction. There will be more to come...

Novels

- The Concordances of the Red Serpent (paperback ( Seven Realms Press ) and e-book (Generation Next) )
- Watchers: Omnibus (ebook / KHP Press)
- Eldren: The Book of the Dark (e-book / KHP Press)
- The Midnight Eye Files: The Amulet (e-book / KHP Press)
- The Midnight Eye Files: The Sirens (e-book / KHP Press)
- The Midnight Eye Files: The Skin Game (e-book / KHP Press)
- The Road Hole Bunker Mystery (e-book / Generation Next)
- Generations (e-book / Generation Next)
- Island Life (e-book / Generation Next)

Novellas and Short Stories

- The Chronicles of Augustus Seton (e-book collection / Generation Next)
- Augustus Seton: The Silent Dead (Short Story / Alt Zombie / Hersham Horror)
- The Auld Mither (e-book novella / Generation Next)
- Sherlock Holmes: The Quality of Mercy (Short Story / Gaslight Arcanum anthology / EDGE)
- Carnacki: The Blooded Iklwa (Short Story / Dark Regions Press CARNACKI collection)
- Carnacki: The Beast of Glamis (Short Story / Dark Regions Press CARNACKI collection)
- Carnacki: The Dark Island (Novella / Dark Regions Press CARNACKI collection)
- The Midnight Eye: 1,2,3, Go (in my Variations on a Theme collection)
- The Midnight Eye: The Inuit Bone (in my Variations on a Theme collection)
- The Midnight Eye: A Slim Chance (in my Variations on a Theme collection)
- The Midnight Eye: A Slim Chance (A Cat of Nine Tales / Rookhaven)
- The Midnight Eye: Home is the Sailor (Holiday of the Dead anthology / Wild Wolf)
- The Midnight Eye: Rhythm and Booze (a novella in my Dark Melodies collection)
- From Between (Short Story / Wrongworld 2008 Choices edition)
- I've Seen Worse (Short Story / Wrongworld 2008 Invasion edition)
- Total Mental Quality (Nova Scotia anthology / Mercat Books)
- The Young Lochinvar (Short Story / The Mothman Files / Woodland Press)
- Morning Sickness (Short Story / Best New Vampire Tales 1 / BOTD Press)
- The Just One (Short Story / Monk Punk / Static Movement Press)
- The Colour of the Deep (Short Story / Call of Lovecraft / Evil Jester Press)
- Flower of Scotland (Short Story / All Hallows #11, 1996)
- The Strange Case of Dr. MacIntyre (Short Story / All Hallows #19, 1998)
- The Johnson Amulet and other stories (Enigmatic Press, 2000)
- The Kelp (Lamplight Magazine #1 / Lamplight)
- Professor Challenger: Ripples in the Ether (Pulp Heroes / Alchemy Press)
- The Dark Island (Innsmouth Free Press #18)

Online Appearances

- Wee Robbie ( Big Pulp )
- Just a Par to Win ( British Expat )
- The First Silkie ( Celtic Myth Podshow )
- In the Coils of the Serpent ( Pseudopod #109, 2008 )
- The Blue Hag ( Something Wicked )

Coming Soon

- The Terror that Came to Dounreay (Atomic Age Cthulhu anthology / Chaosium )
- The Midnight Eye: Call and Response (Cthulhu 2012 anthology / Mythos Books)
- Carnacki: The Island of Dr. Monroe (Steampunk Cthulhu / Chaosium)