Category: short stories

Open submission calls: March 2022

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Buster Keaton typing

Since I started out writing a decade ago, I’ve treated the submission (and rejection!) process for short stories as an important part of the gig. I still find myself scouring submissions calls almost daily, even though I respond to fewer of them each year (mainly because I’m writing fewer short stories and more novels). I thought I’d turn this habitual activity into something useful, and post the most interesting submission calls here. Good idea? Yes, I think so.

I should make clear that I’m not directly affiliated with any of these venues. These are simply the opportunities that have caught my eye.

Lightspeed
Currently open to SF/fantasy flash fiction
Word count: up to 1500 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 1 May 2022 at the earliest
https://adamant.moksha.io/publication/lightspeed

Flame Tree Press: Shared Stories anthology
Speculative, fantastic or folkloric stories ‘inspired by stories of the first peoples in Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas’ by writers with appropriate heritage
Word count: Ideally 2000–4000 words
Payment: 8 cents/6 pence per word for original stories, 6 cents/4 pence for reprints
Deadline: 11 April 2022
http://blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-gothic/first-peoples-call-for-submissions-0

Weird Horror Magazine
Weird horror, obviously
Word count: 500–6000 words
Payment: 1.5 cents per word
Deadline: 31 March 2022
https://undertowpublications.com/weird-horror-magazine

The following calls aren’t open yet, but I figured that mentioning them now will give you a chance to write something to fit the requirements:

Shoreline of Infinity
Science fiction fairy tales for themed issue guest-edited by Teika Bellamy
Word count: up to 6000 words
Payment: £40 per 1000 words
Deadline: Open 4–14 April 2022
https://www.shorelineofinfinity.com/upcoming-submissions-call-science-fictional-fairy-tales/

Seaside Gothic
‘Seaside gothic literature’
Word count: Up to 1000 words
Payment: 1 pence per word
Deadline: Open 11–17 April 2022
https://seasidegothic.com/submissions/

Uncanny
SF/F novellas (‘We want intricate, experimental stories and poems with gorgeous prose, verve, and imagination that elicit strong emotions and challenge beliefs’)
Word count: 17,500–40,000 words
Payment: 10 cents per word
Deadline: Open 1–15 May 2022
https://uncannymagazine.com/submissions/

My Writing Year 2021

There’s certainly been a sense of things having come to a standstill in 2021. I’ve left the house a lot less than usual (even when it was allowed), and my starting point on that score was not much at all. However, in terms of my published work, I have to remind myself that things actually did happen, even though there was relatively little feedback when they did.

Sherlock Holmes: The Back to Front Murder

Despite having had no opportunity to speak to anybody in person about it, I published a novel this year: the Sherlock Holmes mystery The Back to Front Murder, which has gone across well, and seems to have satisfied Holmesians and casual readers alike, as far as I can tell. I’m particularly pleased that the consensus is that the novel captures Conan Doyle’s style and Watson’s voice, as this was the aspect I found most daunting, though it turned out to be the most satisfying to tackle.

Universal Language

And there was a novella, too: Universal Language is a locked-room mystery set on Mars, and I’m very proud of it. This is the publication that’s most suffered from the lack of conventions this year, and I hope it’ll find its way to more readers when things open up again.

It’s been a good year for short fiction, with fewer publications overall, but all stories I’m proud of having written, appearing in venues I really like and respect. They were:
– ‘The Andraiad’ in Interzone
– ‘The Living Museum’ in Shoreline of Infinity
– ‘Goodbye, Jonathan Tumbledown’ in Out of the Darkness (Unsung Stories)
– ‘The Cardboard Voice’ in Nightscript

While writing fiction has often seemed trivial compared to world events, I’ve done a lot of it in 2021 all the same. In fact, I wrote far more this year than I have in any other year to date – I’m honestly not quite sure how! I didn’t write at all in January due to lockdown and home-schooling, and all but gave it up during the summer holiday, too. Despite this, I spent more than 350 hours writing, and wrote more than 285,000 words. As always, I’m aware that quantity is relatively meaningless, and yet I’m proud that I’m dedicating so much time to my favourite activity.

The chart above shows my progress with longer projects. The dark red, dark blue and green data lines show three completed novels. One of these is my upcoming second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Defaced Men, which will be published in August 2022, one is a non-Holmesian Victorian mystery novel, and the third is a difficult-to-classify contemporary novel that’s currently with beta readers. The light blue line shows continued work on a huge, mad novel that I began during last year’s lockdown, which I’ll keep fiddling with in between other projects. The light red line shows the first 20k words of a commissioned novel I’m currently working on.

So, 2022 promises to be busy. After I complete the commissioned novel, I’ll return to the two other almost-finished novels to make changes before sending out to publishers, then perhaps I’ll return to the enormous novel that’s been running in the background for more than a year. After that, who knows? But it’s nice to know where I’m going for the time being. In terms of publications, there’ll be Sherlock Holmes: The Defaced Men in August, and my current project later in the year, plus a short story in an anthology I’m really excited about – in fact, getting to write this story is one of the most exciting things that’s happened to me as a writer so far, and one of the best Christmas presents I’ve had in adulthood. More details soon, I hope.

It’s a funny feeling, being quite glum about the future in wider terms, yet remaining so excited about writing and work. Perhaps we all need to be a bit introspective and self-centred in order to get by at the moment – is that fair to say? Either way, I anticipate having my head buried in work as much as possible next year.

Out of the Darkness – update

The Kickstarter campaign for the anthology OUT OF THE DARKNESS, which features horror and dark fantasy authors’ stories related to mental health issues, ended yesterday, and it was massively successful – more than 300% funded, with all stretch goals met! This is particularly welcome news, as all royalties, as well as editor Dan Coxon’s fees, will go to charity Together for Mental Wellbeing.

Over the course of the campaign Dan did a terrific job of raising awareness, and, along with other authors involved in the anthology, I contributed to a few articles:

Plus, here’s Dan speaking about the aims of the anthology in general, at Runalong the Shelves.

The anthology will be published by the wonderful Unsung Stories in August 2021, with the following tantalising lineup:

  • Nocturia – Nicholas Royle 
  • The Note – Jenn Ashworth 
  • Lonely Souls in Quiet Houses – Laura Mauro 
  • Seabound – Alison Moore 
  • Goodbye, Jonathan Tumbledown – Tim Major 
  • The Chorus – Aliya Whiteley 
  • Meet on the Edge – Gareth E. Rees
  • The Forlorn Hope – Verity Holloway 
  • Oblio – Richard V. Hirst 
  • Still She Visits – Eugen Bacon 
  • Bloodybones Jones – Sam Thompson 
  • Flotsam and Jetsam – Malcolm Devlin 
  • The Lightness of their Hearts – Georgina Bruce 
  • The Residential – Gary Budden 
  • Replacement Bus Service – Ashley Stokes 
  • Temple – Anna Vaught 
  • The Hungry Dark – Simon Bestwick

Out of the Darkness

Out of the DarknessI’m really proud to be involved in this anthology: OUT OF THE DARKNESS, edited by Dan Coxon and published by the always amazing Unsung Stories. Fifteen horror and dark fantasy authors present stories related to mental health issues, and all royalties will go to charity Together for Mental Wellbeing. As Dan says in his introductory video, this project is ever more meaningful after a year of Covid lockdowns and subdued panic – and I’m certain this’ll be a terrific anthology, featuring as it does some of my favourite writers.

The Kickstarter rewards are pretty immense too, such as MS critiques by Dan, or a £40 bundle featuring FOUR frankly outstanding books by Aliya Whiteley along with the anthology.

Head over to Kickstarter and take a look!

My writing year 2020

It comes as something as a surprise to discover that I’ve written more this year than during any year to date. How I found time to put down 215,000 words, despite long weeks of being unable to write anything at all due to coronavirus-panic paralysis, self-doubt and the requirement of homeschooling two young children for six entire months, I really can’t explain. Still, that’s what happened, and I must have put in intense sessions during the weeks in which I did write, as this was also the year I spent most time at my desk: 290 hours in all.

This year, I wrote:

  • An as-yet-unannounced commissioned novel, 70,000 words
  • Shade of Stillthorpe – a 30,000-word novella, a mishmash of folk horror and Patricia Highsmith-esque ‘wrong man’ thriller
  • 70,000 words of a novel begun as a response to lockdown – it’s likely to be huge, with three separate strands in different genres and more than thirty characters
  • ‘The Cardboard Voice’ – horror short story, 5000 words
  • ‘The Marshalls of Mars’ – SF short story, 7600 words
  • ‘The Andraiad’ – horror SF short story, 7000 words

BSFA Tim MajorAnd this is what I published in 2020:

  • Hope Island – my horror novel about creepy children, parental fears and sound was published by Titan Books in June (unfortunately, at a point when bookshops were still closed), but which went down well with reviewers – you can read reviews and find out more here
  • ‘The Pea’ – fairytale horror story (850 words), Fudoki, Jan 2020
  • ‘Red Sky at Morning’ – horror short story set on a lighthouse (2900 words), Unsung Stories, May 2020
  • ‘Simulation’ – horror short story set on a plane (2300 words), Strange Days anthology (Midnight Street Press), May 2020
  • ‘Praying To Her Thumbs’ – horror short story (2700 words) STORGY, Jun 2020
  • ‘The Slow King’ – folk horror short story set on a folk horror film set (5000 words), The Fiends in the Furrows II anthology (Nosetouch Press), Aug 2020, then featured as an audio reading on Pseudopod podcast, Dec 2020
  • ‘Into the Wound’ – YA SF short story (3000 words), Voyage, Oct 2020
  • ‘Dear Will’ – ETA Hoffman-esque horror short story (3000 words), Vastarien Vol 3, Issue 2, Dec 2020
  • Also, two stories were reprinted in year’s-best collections: ‘O Cul-de-Sac!’ in The Best of British Fantasy 2019 and ‘Concerning the Deprivation of Sleep’ in Best of British Science Fiction 2019 (both NewCon Press)

Next year, the certainties are the publication of a short story in an anthology I’m really excited about, plus the first of two commissioned tie-in novels and a Martian murder mystery novella, Universal Language, which will be published by NewCon Press. In terms of writing, I’ll be plugging away at my enormous lockdown manuscript, which may yet turn out to be an actual novel, and I’ll be completing a much saner second commissioned novel.

Best of British Science Fiction 2019

Best of British SF 2019I’m very proud that my story ‘Concerning the Deprivation of Sleep’ will appear in Best of British Science Fiction 2019, edited by Donna Scott, published by NewCon Press in July 2020.

The story was originally published in Synth #2, and it’s about a father transferring his rationed sleep credits to his young son. I wrote it when I was badly sleep-deprived myself, if that wasn’t already clear enough…

You can see the full line-up and preorder the book from the NewCon Press website.

New story: ‘Red Sky at Morning’

Unsung StoriesToday you can read (for free!) my story ‘Red Sky at Morning’ over on the Unsung Stories website. It’s about a lighthouse keeper in the Farne Islands in the 1930s… and monsters.

Unsung Stories has been on my publishing wishlist ever since I started writing seriously, after I read Aliya Whiteley’s duo of astounding novellas, The Beauty and The Arrival of Missives. For a small publisher, their list each year has been of the highest quality, and precisely to my tastes, such as the recent novels Always North by Vicky Jarrett, The Willow By Your Side by Peter Haynes and Dark River by Rym Kechacha, plus the excellent This Dreaming Isle and 2084 anthologies. I’m delighted to have finally published a story with Unsung – it feels like a real milestone.

Read ‘Red Sky at Morning’ for free here.

Stories of Hope and Wonder

Stories of Hope and WonderIan Whates at NewCon Press has achieved the impossible and pulled together the most enormous anthology of stories in just a few days. It’s available from today as an ebook, with all proceeds being donated to support NHS staff and other healthcare workers.

It really is enormous: 53 stories, 600 pages, 253,000 words of fiction. And the list of contributors is staggering, with giants of SF/fantasy and loads of terrific newer writers.

I have a story in there too: ‘Like Clockwork’, which is one of my idiosyncratic Mars stories, revolving around an engineer operating a millionaire’s full-size train set.

It’s for the best cause imaginable, and reading it would surely take you a week at least. I really think you should buy a copy.

NewCon Press page, including full table of contents.

Buy the Kindle ebook from Amazon.co.uk.

The Best of British Fantasy 2019

Best of British Fantasy 2019So happy to say that I’ll have a story in THE BEST OF BRITISH FANTASY 2019, edited by Jared Shurin and available in June from NewCon Press. ‘O Cul-de-Sac!’ first appeared in my collection AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM, published by Luna Press, and features a sentient house desperately concerned for the wellbeing of its peculiar new residents.

Congratulations to everyone included in the table of contents! It looks like a fantastic list, all round.

Another of my stories received an honourable mention, too – ‘The Forge’, which was also first published in AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM.

You can preorder THE BEST OF BRITISH FANTASY 2019 here.

Book birthday: AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM

And the House Lights Dim - Tim MajorThis came around fast… I’m happy to say that my first short story collection, AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM, is available as of today! It’s published by Luna Press and is billed as strange stories about houses, homes and families.

Here’s something I wrote about the collection when it was first announced:

AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM is my first collection of short stories, which were written over a three-year period. They’re pretty diverse, spanning weird fiction, horror and SF – but I confess that when I wrote them they seemed more diverse than they really are. It was only recently that I realised just how prevalent particular themes have been in my writing: houses, homes and family.

Perhaps it’s no surprise. The earliest of the stories was written when my wife was pregnant with our first child; one of the novellas was written in a mad hurry in the weeks before his birth; nowadays I write in a fog of fatigue due to my second child’s sleepless nights. I think about family constantly and as a freelance editor I’m trapped in my home for the greater part of every day.

In this collection are stories about a sentient house overprotective of its new occupants, a supernatural Greenland shark that attacks a family via sound, a married couple alone on a lengthy space flight, two young girls who live in isolation and in fear of the world beyond their walls, a camping trip that turns a family feral, a post-apocalyptic Center Parcs, a man who has defragmented his mind and another who splices a rival’s brain patterns onto his own.

Most of the stories have been published in various places, including Interzone, Not One of Us, The Literary Hatchet and anthologies published by Fox Spirit, Jurassic London and Hic Dragones. ‘Carus & Mitch’ was previously published as a standalone novella by Omnium Gatherum and was shortlisted for a This Is Horror Award in 2015. People have been very nice about it: Lynda Rucker said it was a ‘compelling, unconventional page-turner… blending a John Wyndham-esque melancholy with a dose of existential despair’. Adam Roberts called it ‘punchy and scary and tense and genuinely moving’ and James Everington at This is Horror said it was ‘an intimate, original, and character-driven take on the post-apocalyptic genre’, all of which made me feel awfully proud.

One thing I neglected to mention in that description are the stories that are new to the collection: O Cul-de-Sac!, The Forge and Honey Spurge. I’m particularly proud of O Cul-de-Sac!, the 10k-word story that opens the collection – though I’m also nervous on its behalf, as if I’m forcing it out into the world rather it being there on its own merits. It’s an unusual story, written once I recognised the theme of the collection – it’s narrated by a sentient house who is proud and then wary of its new occupants.

You can buy AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM direct from Luna Press or from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

By the way, the beautiful cover image is by Daniele Serra. Do check out his incredible work.

‘Throw Caution’ selected for Best of British Science Fiction 2018

I’m very happy to say that my Mars story ‘Throw Caution’ has been selected for the next volume of BEST OF BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION from NewCon Press, edited by Donna Scott. The story was originally published in Interzone #276.

It’s a terrific lineup, too! Here’s the full table of contents:

Providence – Alastair Reynolds
Talking to Ghosts at the Edge of the World – Lavie Tidhar
The Miracle Lambs of Minane – Finbarr O’Reilly
Territory Blank – Aliya Whiteley
Throw Caution – Tim Major
Golgotha – Dave Hutchinson
Salvation – Dave Bradley
Waterbirds – G.V. Anderson
Buddy System – Mike Morgan
Do No Harm – Anna Ibbotson
A Change of Heart – Hannah Tougher
Birnam Platoon – Natalia Theodoridou
Good – Sunyi Dean
Hard Times in Nuovo Genova – Chris Barnham
The Escape Hatch – Matthew de Abaitua
P.Q. – James Warner
The Purpose of the Dodo is to be Extinct – Malcolm Devlin
Cat and Mouse – David Tallerman
Before They Left – Colin Greenland
Harry’s Shiver – Esme Carpenter
The Whisperer – J.K. Fulton
Death of the Grapevine – Teika Marija Smits
Rainsticks – Matt Thompson
The Veilonaut’s Dream – Henry Szabranski
Doomed Youth – Fiona Moore
F Sharp 4 – Tim Pieraccini

Head over to the NewCon Press website for more information and preorder links. The book will be launched at WorldCon in August.

Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles

C.M. Muller’s doppelgänger anthology, Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles was released last month. It’s a beautiful book and I’m very proud to have a story included in it.

Indefatigable book-reviewer Des Lewis has been working his way through the collection, and had the following to say about my story, ‘The Bath House’:

42, as we know, is a significant age, and on this birthday, Mark (with seemingly plain backstory of marriage and two daughters back home) is given, by a friend, the gift of being hitchhiked as it were by a new self, via a ritual – which is compellingly imparted to us – within the genius loci of the eponymous replacement of an old church, a new baptism as it were where the water is hauled by Mark himself from a well, heavy by counterweight of his perhaps not-so-plain backstory’s ill-threaded pulley from the past, and the last line of this work is a particularly frightening one in the context of not only this work but also of the whole book so far. You will not forget that last line, I suggest.

Thanks Des – I’m happy with that summary! I found it pretty creepy to write, too.

You can get hold of Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles here.

Best of 2018 roundup

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Though I haven’t written any fiction yet in 2019, the year has got off to a good start in terms of votes of confidence in my earlier work…

I was pleased and surprised to find that my story ‘Throw Caution’ has been longlisted for the BSFA Awards. It was first published in Interzone #276 edited by Andy Cox. It’s a terrific list of nominees, with lots of writers who I now consider friends – I’m very proud to be listed alongside them.

Dev Agarwal at BSFA Vector included my books in his Best of 2018 article: “Tim Major, (who along with Shona Kinsella co-edits the British Fantasy Association’s Horizons magazine) published a young adult SF novel called Machineries of Mercy (ChiZine) and a non-fiction book that appeals to genre consumers, about the seminal 1915 silent film, Les Vampires (Electric Dreamhouse Press). In both works, and in his co-editing of Horizons, Major brings a clear and vivid sense of location and character to bear that makes his narratives — fictional and biographic — come vividly alive to the reader.”

On his Scattershot Writing blog, James Everington included ‘The House Lights Dim’ (from Dark Lane Anthology #2, Dark Lane Books) in his list of his favourite short stories read in 2018.

Finally, and now looking forward to 2019, I recently learned that my story ‘Concerning the Deprivation of Sleep’ has been picked up by editor C.M. Muller for Synth: An Anthology of Dark SF. There’s a list of my upcoming short story publications here, which includes a story in one of Muller’s other projects, Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles, due out in February.

My writing year 2018

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This year I wrote about 135,000 new words – more than any other previous year (I usually average around 125k, and in 2017 this fell to fewer than 80k as much of my free time was taken up with moving house, twice). I wrote:

  • Hope Island – novel, in progress (currently 85,000 words)
  • ‘Red Sky At Morning’ – weird short story (2800 words)
  • ‘Throw Caution’ – Mars SF short story (3000 words), published in Interzone #276
  • ‘What Can You Do About A Man Like That?’ – weird short story (8600 words) for unannounced anthology
  • ‘Concerning the Deprivation of Sleep’ – SF short story (2800 words)
  • ‘Dear Will’ – weird short story (2900 words)
  • Three pieces of non-fiction for as-yet unannounced projects, by invitation

This year, I spent 254 hours either writing or editing. I’m not sure if that sounds a lot, but on average it works out as 21 hours per month doing what I love doing – not quite 5 hours per week. When you put it like that, it doesn’t seem like much at all. In 2019 I’m determined that I’ll find the time to write for at least 10 hours per week.

When I wrote my summary of my writing year 2017, I noted that it had been a year of paving the way for an interesting 2018, and I suppose that panned out as I’d hoped. This year I had the following published:

  • Les Vampires – non-fiction book about the 1915 serial, as part of the Midnight Movie Monographs series (Electric Dreamhouse Press)
  • Machineries of Mercy – YA SF novel (ChiZine)
  • ‘The Pale Shadow and the Conjuror’ – mystery short story, Mystery Weekly
  • ‘To Ashes, Dust’ – Mars SF short story, Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #61
  • ‘Throw Caution’ – Interzone #276
  • ‘Cast in the Same Mould’ – Shoreline of Infinity Issue 13
  • Six of my older stories were reprinted, including two stories in ‘best of 2017’ collections: ‘The Walls of Tithonium Chasma’ in Best of British Science Fiction (NewCon Press) and ‘Eqalussuaq’ in The Best Horror of the Year Vol 10, edited by Ellen Datlow (Night Shade Books).

But, once again, this year has mainly felt like prep for a more exciting next year. Because the biggest news for me this year was the double-whammy of signing with Alexander Cochran at C+W literary agency, and securing a two-book deal with Titan Books. Snakeskins will be published by Titan in May 2019, a milestone around which much of my year will be arranged. (And Hope Island will follow in May 2020. Knowing that my novel-in-progress already has a home has changed my attitude to the writing process, though it’s hard to say whether the net result is that it’s more or less pressurised.)

Secondly, my first short story collection, And the House Lights Dim, will be published in July 2019 by Luna Press. Alongside 13 stories that have previously appeared elsewhere (including a novelette that was originally published as a standalone title, Carus & Mitch), there will be three new stories:

  • ‘O Cul-de-Sac!’ (10,600 words)
  • ‘The Forge’ (7000 words)
  • ‘Honey spurge: Confidential report into dispersal, growth and catastrophe’ (300 words)

Other stories not written this year but to be published for the first time in 2019 include:

  • ‘The Bath House’ – weird short story (4000 words), Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles anthology edited by C.M. Muller
  • ‘A Crest of a Wave’ – Mars SF short story (2400 words), Shoreline of Infinity
  • ‘Kraken Mare’ – Mars SF flash (250 words), Martian magazine
  • ‘Hangers-on’ – weird short story (2800 words) for unannounced anthology
  • ‘What Are We Going To Do With You?’ – horror short story (6000 words) for unannounced anthology

In addition, behind the scenes I’ve been lining up various events and projects. Next year is going to be busy. More on all that in the New Year.

Perhaps most importantly of all, I’m genuinely closing in on the one-million-new-words mark:

I have a story in BEST OF BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION 2017

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Well! I’m very – no, ridiculously – pleased to announce that Donna Bond has selected one of my stories for inclusion in BEST OF BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION 2017, which will be out in April from NewCon Press. And would you look at that lineup! Honestly, I’m feeling faint at seeing my name listed alongside these authors.

  1. Blinders – Tyler Keevil
  2. In the Night of the Comet (2017) – Adam Roberts
  3. The Walls of Tithonium Chasma – Tim Major
  4. 3.8 Missions – Katie Gray
  5. Over You – Jaine Fenn
  6. The Ghosts of Europa Will Keep You Trapped in a Prison You Make for Yourself – Matt Dovey
  7. Uniquo – Aliya Whiteley
  8. Looking for Laika – Laura Mauro
  9. A Good Citizen – Anne Charnock
  10. Mercury Teardrops – Jeff Noon
  11. The Nightingales in Plàtres – Natalia Theodoridou
  12. The Road to the Sea – Lavie Tidhar
  13. When I Close My Eyes – Chris Barnham
  14. Targets – Eric Brown
  15. London Calling – Philip A. Suggars
  16. The Last Word – Ken Macleod
  17. Voicemail – Karen McCreedy
  18. Green Boughs Will Cover Thee – Sarah Byrne
  19. Airless – N.J. Ramsden
  20. Product Recall – Robert Bagnall
  21. The Endling Market – E. J. Swift

Ellen Datlow picked my story for Best Horror #10

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It’s with a certain amount of disbelief that I announce that Ellen Datlow has selected one of my stories, ‘Eqalussuaq’, for THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR VOLUME TEN, which will be published by Nightshade Books. The story was first published in Not One of Us #58 in October 201, so thanks are also due to NOoU editor John Benson.

I don’t know if writers are supposed to play it cool about this sort of thing, but I’ve overjoyed as well as overwhelmed! To give some context, here’s a blurb about the BEST HORROR series from the Nightshade website:

“It’s no exaggeration to say that since its first volume in 2009, this series has compiled the absolute best horror short fiction published each year. Every volume has featured a wide variety of stories by well-known authors, from luminaries like Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and Richard Matheson, to genre figures as Catherynne M. Valente, John Langan, and Brian Hodge.”

The full table of contents for Volume Ten is below. I can’t tell you how happy I am that my story will appear alongside stories by so many writers whose work I love!

Better You Believe – Carole Johnstone
Liquid Air – Inna Effress
Holiday Romance – Mark Morris
Furtherest – Kaaron Warren
Where’s the Harm? – Rebecca Lloyd
Whatever Comes After Calcutta – David Erik Nelson
A Human Stain – Kelly Robson
The Stories We Tell about Ghosts – A. C. Wise
Endosketal – Sarah Read
West of Matamoros, North of Hell – Brian Hodge
Alligator Point – S. P. Miskowski
Dark Warm Heart – Rich Larson
There and Back Again – Carmen Machado
Shepherd’s Business – Stephen Gallagher
You Can Stay All Day – Mira Grant
Harvest Song, Gathering Song – A. C. Wise
The Granfalloon – Orrin Grey
Fail-Safe – Philip Fracassi
The Starry Crown – Marc E. Fitch
Eqalussuaq – Tim Major
Lost in the Dark – John Langan

And here’s the awesome cover!

Two new stories and an audio recording

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I’ve been lax about mentioning publications recently. Time for a roundup.

‘To Ashes, Dust’ is one of my series of Mars stories featuring crawler bases, shifting sand dunes and ‘aye-aye’ robots. It’s been published in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #61, available to download for free or to buy as a print copy for just over £3. Des Lewis has reviewed the issue and had this to say about my story:

“In a relatively short space, this moving story of a base on Mars captured me, even with its bespoke names for various factors, like the robots employed, and again, with this set of fictions, a treatment of old men and death, and an amazing concept of moving sand dunes that really NEEDS reading about to be inspired as I became by it and by what the dunes can contain.”

‘The Pale Shadow and the Conjuror’ is my first sale of a mystery story – it’s been printed in Mystery Weekly.

‘For a Tooth’, a spoofy space-opera flash story first published in Every Day Fiction, has been recorded as an audio reading – you can listen to it free at 600 Second Saga.
(Or via several other routes: iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter)

 

 

Short story collection: AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM

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Luna Press have released some more details about my first collection of short stories, which will be published in 2019 as part of the ‘Harvester’ series. It’s called AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM and features strange stories about houses, homes and family.

Here’s my statement about the collection in full:

AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM is my first collection of short stories, which were written over a three-year period. They’re pretty diverse, spanning weird fiction, horror and SF – but I confess that when I wrote them they seemed more diverse than they really are. It was only recently that I realised just how prevalent particular themes have been in my writing: houses, homes and family.

Perhaps it’s no surprise. The earliest of the stories was written when my wife was pregnant with our first child; one of the novellas was written in a mad hurry in the weeks before his birth; nowadays I write in a fog of fatigue due to my second child’s sleepless nights. I think about family constantly and as a freelance editor I’m trapped in my home for the greater part of every day.

In this collection are stories about a sentient house overprotective of its new occupants, a supernatural Greenland shark that attacks a family via sound, a married couple alone on a lengthy space flight, two young girls who live in isolation and in fear of the world beyond their walls, a camping trip that turns a family feral, a post-apocalyptic Center Parcs, a man who has defragmented his mind and another who splices a rival’s brain patterns onto his own.

Most of the stories have been published in various places, including Interzone, Not One of Us, The Literary Hatchet and anthologies published by Fox Spirit, Jurassic London and Hic Dragones. ‘Carus & Mitch’ was previously published as a standalone novella by Omnium Gatherum and was shortlisted for a This Is Horror Award in 2015. People have been very nice about it: Lynda Rucker said it was a ‘compelling, unconventional page-turner… blending a John Wyndham-esque melancholy with a dose of existential despair’. Adam Roberts called it ‘punchy and scary and tense and genuinely moving’ and James Everington said it was ‘an intimate, original, and character-driven take on the post-apocalyptic genre’, all of which made me feel awfully proud.

New Year writing roundup

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Phew, a fresh start. Actually, the arrival of 2017 is the first of a couple of fresh starts in quick succession for me – I’ll be moving house (and town) in mid-January, when I and my family will be packing up in Oxford and moving to York.

Still, this seems a good time to round up all the loose threads from the tail-end of last year…

You Don’t Belong Here

Screen Shot 2016-03-28 at 22.42.03Firstly, another positive and thoughtful review for YOU DON’T BELONG HERE, this time from Rising Shadow. The reviewer summarises the novel as ‘delightfully different from the time travel novels that have been published recently’.

Also on Rising Shadow, you can read an interview with me, in which I discuss SF influences, failed novels, the Infinite Monkey Cage and gratefulness.

If you haven’t read YOU DON’T BELONG HERE yet, it’s currently available on Amazon for only £6.88 for the paperback or £6.54 for the ebook. Bargain!

Short stories

Jonathan Green is currently prepping the Kickstarter for the followup to his popular Sharkpunk anthology, sensibly titled Sharkpunk 2. Alongside stories by James Lovegrove, Jon Oliver, Guy Haley and more, it’ll feature my weird horror story about the Greenland Shark, ‘Eqalussuaq’. You can join the Facebook group to receive updates.

Tunnel Vision

I also have new stories forthcoming in Hic Dragones’ Into the Woods anthology and the British SF magazine, Shoreline of Infinity. More info as and when.

You can read a reprint of my creepy primary-school story, ‘Tunnel Vision’, for free on the Pantheon website, which features the excellent illustration by Carrion House shown on the right.

See my list of published fiction for a full list of the stories and reprints I sold in 2016.

Writing progress

I’d been prepared for 2016 to be lacking in new writing, given the birth of my second son in June and a whole three months away from writing fiction. Somehow, however, I ended up writing slightly more than in each of the previous three years – around 126,000 words. My being freelance (and therefore more flexible) must have been responsible, despite the fact that it’s felt like more of a struggle finding writing hours.

Anyway, these 126k all-new words were plugged into just two projects. The first was BLIGHTERS, now available from Abaddon. The second project is a new SF novel, about a group of people who spontaneously produce clones. I’m nearing the end of a second draft and I’m hoping that a third will clinch it.

Other than that, I have two other writing projects coming up in 2017. They’re secret for now. It’s immensely exciting to be looking forward to what’s next.

British Fantasy Society Horizons #3

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I’ve just received the new issue of the British Fantasy Society’s Horizons journal and I’m feeling very proud at seeing my name tucked in there between Aliya Whiteley’s and Den Patrick’s. It looks like a great issue, and I’m looking forward to starting on it tonight.BFS 1BFS Horizons 2

Winter Tales from Fox Spirit

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Winter TalesFox Spirit’s new anthology, Winter Tales, is available today!

As well as having been edited by the very lovely Margrét Helgadóttir, and featuring terrific cover art by S. L Johnson, and featuring stories from a wealth of exciting authors, it also contains my story, ‘Winter in the Vivarium’, which was written specifically for the anthology.

The Amazon.co.uk link is up now.