Jessica – Liquid Imagination #29

My short story Jessica is now available in the new edition of Liquid Imagination, the place where reality and fantasy blur.

Jessica, a tale of young love, was fun to write. It was one of those stories that comes virtually full-formed in a dream. Wake up, bang, new story! The only difference is, I dreamed the ending first, then had to fit some kind of story around it. The hardest part was deciding what to call the girl, who is the real star of the show. I wanted something cute-sounding, maybe a little prim, but relatable. I hope the ending kicks you in the nuts.

When I write a new story, it usually sits on my hard drive for a few months, even years. Periodically I dust it off, re-write it, format it differently and just generally play around with it whilst submitting it to different markets. Not Jessica. This was written, edited, subbed and accepted, to the first market I sent it to, all within two weeks. If only everything was that easy.

Anyway, please give it a read, all it will cost you is a little time,  and let me know what you think! Diolch!

Liquid Imagination #29 – Jessica

Guest Post: “The Wreckers” by C.M. Saunders

Big thanks to the Horror Bookshelf for letting me stop by. Here I discuss one of the dark chapters of British history we seldom like to talk about…

The Horror Bookshelf

Today’s post on The Horror Bookshelf comes from C.M. Saunders, who is currently promoting his new novel Sker House, which is available now through DeadPixel Publications. I am excited to have Saunders on the site as I loved his novella Out of Time (review) and his riveting story of psychological horror “The Elementals and I” that appeared in Grey Matter Press’ Dark Visions – Volume Two. Saunders’ post takes a look at the practice of “wrecking” and the role it played in the history of the real-life Sker House. I love history, so I really enjoyed this post and learned a lot about the practice of wrecking, which is something I didn’t even know about. Wrecking plays a significant role in the novel and I look forward to reading how Saunders’ incorporates it into what sounds like a truly creepy haunted house story!

The Wreckers 

By…

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The Literary Hatchet #14

My short story, Never Go Back, can be found in the new edition of The Literary Hatchet (#14). It’s the third in a loosely connected collection of tales about a fictional village called Wood Forge, where some pretty weird shit happens. Ghosts and hauntings, trolls living under bridges, zombies, strange disappearances. You name it, Wood Forge has (or will have) it.

This story was rejected a bunch of times because of a particular scene which one editor called, ‘distasteful.’ He’s not wrong. But hey, I write horror, not pop-up books. I thought it was funny, in a twisted kind of way, so the scene stayed. Credit to The Literary Hatchet for having the balls to go with it and let me do my thing.

Coincidentally, The Literary Hatchet also published another Wood Forge story, What Happened Next,  (the sequel to What Happened to Huw Silverthorne) back in 2014. I’ve always been a fan, it’s a great quality mag with a huge reputation, and it’s an honour to be included. This bumper 318-page issue on Pear Tree Press also features fiction by Eugene Hosey, Cody Schroeder, Stanford Allen, Mary King, Molly Richard, Tim Waldron and a whole bunch of others, as well as some cool as fuck artwork. Don’t miss out.

 

“They always say never go back. I never really understood why, until I went back to Wood Forge, the little village where I grew up.”

You can download the PDF version for free, shell out for a physical copy, or you can be a chump and do neither. Your call.

The Literary Hatchet #14 is available HERE

Endings and Beginnings: Something Wicked

Renee Miller’s awesome post on our new band. I stole hers because it saves me writing a new one with all the same stuff in it. And she’s funnier than I am.

Dangling on the Edge of Insanity

So, very soon, DeadPixel Publications will be no more. The band is breaking up. Yep. That’s it, that’s all. It’s a bittersweet development for me, as I did enjoy the sense of community that a collective of authors provides. I’ll miss that and most of the new friends I made because of it. However, it leaves the door open for bigger and better, right? Right. This is what I’m telling myself and I’m running with it.

The decision to dismantle DPP has left me to re-examine my publishing path and the goals I’ve placed along the way. The group was a big part of what I’d planned over the past couple of years, so now I have to remove DPP from the equation, which changes things here and there.

While I gained a lot from DPP in terms of readers and my network, perhaps what I learned about myself and…

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