January 2024 saw the publication of my short story The Cunning Linguist in the long-delayed anthology Welcome to the Splatterclub, vol III on Blood Bound Books. You can probably guess what that one’s about. I have a long associated with BBB, and they’ve always been great to work with. That was followed by short fiction in Flash in a Flash, the Black Beacon Book of Ghosts edited by Cameron Trost, and Big Smoke Pulp, Vol I, which by my count became my 97th published short story (not including reprints). A second edition of Handmade Horror Stories, which includes my story Misshapes & Rejects, also came out.
On 27 March I released X6, my sixth volume of short fiction. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that X6 includes some of the darkest things I have ever written, including Holiday of a Lifetime, which I think has drawn the most reader complaints so far. My bad. Here’s the ToC. And here’s another look at the awesome cover by Greg Chapman.
I have been so involved in fiction over the past couple of years, I drifted out of journalism, apart from the day job. I enjoy writing about writing, and I have a lot of experience to mine, so I pitched a few articles to an American magazine called Writer’s Digest. WD is a bit of an institution, and definitely one to cross off the bucket list. I hadn’t been that excited since I wrote for Loaded. By the end of the year WD had published features about making the switch from writing for consumer magazines to the trade press, horror fiction markets, healthy habits for cultivating success, and finding your writing niche. There are also a few more in the pipeline.
Another writing magazine I have built up a good relationship with is Authors Publish. A couple of years ago they ran a piece I wrote about how I got my first book published, then late last year they contacted me out of the blue and asked if they could reprint the piece in a long-form book. Would I like to be paid twice for the same thing with no extra work on my part? Go on, then.
With the revised version of the second Ben Shivers mystery, The Butcher (working title), safely off to the publisher, at the beginning of the year I started shopping Silent Mine around, a horror western novella about a disillusioned cowboy on the trail of a missing husband. The last anyone heard, the husband went seeking his fortune at a place called Silent Mine, and he didn’t come back. Silent Mine is the first of a series featuring a character called Dylan Decker who does his level best to put the ‘wild’ in the West. A new publisher called Undertaker Books soon picked it up and did an amazing job with every aspect of it, from the editing to the promotion and cover art. They also asked for a first option on any more Dylan Decker books, which was music to my ears because I had another one under my belt. Meeting at Blood Lake (provisional title) will be out some time in 2025.
To bridge the gap, and to round out the year, I wrote a Christmas-themed short story, A Christmas Cannibal, again featuring Dylan Decker, which you can grab for free from THIS LINK. If you are a fan of horror fiction, you might want to sign up for the Undertaker Books newsletter.
Meanwhile, here on my faithful blog, judging by the site stats the most popular posts of 2024 were my eyewitness account of Bruce Springsteen’s Cardiff gig and, bizarrely, my review of Ryan Adam’s Nebraska cover album. My RetView series, which examines classic horror movies through a contemporary lens, is also still going strong. Recent entries include the ‘most controversial film ever made’ Cannibal Holocaust, the sublime Incredible Shrinking Man, and the simply superb King of Zombies. However, by far the most popular was The Mutations, another surprise.
If you want a summary of 2023, you can find that here. I have lots already planned for 2025, so watch this space and stay happy.
Remember, the harder you work, the more you achieve.
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