My Writing Year 2016

As has become annual I thought I'd do a quick blog post as to my literary achievements during 2016.

I've had three books published this year. First was the long awaited (changed publishers so many times!) collection of short stories I co-wrote with Allen Ashley, Slow Motion Wars, from theEXAGGERATEDpress. Des Lewis reviewed it extensively and favourably, here (NB: all typos mentioned in the review have subsequently been fixed). Next up, my SF/F/H novella, The Greens, from Snowbooks (another change of publisher). Author, Kaaron Warren, was kind enough to blurb it as a vivid exploration of how the past affects the present. Andrew Hook provides an evocative, emotional read, with a final scene that will stay with you for a long time. And finally my fifth short story collection, Human Maps, was published at the end of the year by the wonderful Eibonvale Press. This collection brings together twenty-one previously published stories and I'm looking forward to feedback and reviews.

I wrote twelve short stories this year: "White Matter", "Blanche", "The Girl With The Horizontal Walk", "A Pageant Of Clouds", "The Smell Of Petroleum", "The Marble Orchard", "The Jayne Mansfield Nuclear Project", "Tokyo In Rain", "Fantôme", "The Six Cloud Thousand", "The Easy Flirtations", and "Sarcoline".

I sold twelve short stories: "The Al Pacino Appreciation Society" to Crimewave, "Somntuta" to Lighthouse, "White Matter" to Ghost Highway, "A Life In Plastic" (reprint) to Dark In The Day, "The Marble Orchard" to Ten Tall Tales, "Blanche" to Something Remains, "Beyond Each Blue Horizon" (reprint) to Do Something, "Making Friends With Fold-Out Flaps" to an anthology I am unable to name at present, "Clusterfuck" to Ambit, and the following three stories to Great Jones Street: ("Sarcoline", "Blood For Your Mother" and "Vole Mountain" - the latter two being reprints).

The following ten stories were published this year: "Somntuta" in Lighthouse, "The Day My Heart Stood Still" in Postscripts #36/37, "Beyond Each Blue Horizon" in Do Something, "A Life In Plastic" in Dark In The Day, "White Matter" in Ghost Highway, "Blanche" in Something Remains, "The Marble Orchard" in Ten Tall Tales, and "Sarcoline", "Blood For Your Mother" and "Vole Mountain" all over at Great Jones Street.

I also had an article, "Writing The Short Story: Character, Scene, Conflict", appear in the BSFA magazine, Focus. And I wrote and sold a non-fiction book, "Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel: a personal analysis", to Rooster Republic Press for publication in 2017. My sixth collection of short stories, "Frequencies Of Existence", should also appear from a publisher I'm not yet allowed to name for publication in 2018. And I have edited "Elasticity", an Elastic Press retrospective, which should appear from NewCon Press sometime in 2017.

Also this year I continued assisting my partner in her publishing venture Salò Press, where we published the anthology, A Galaxy Of Starfish edited by Sophie Essex, and a poetry collection, The Plural Space by Matthew Mahaney.

I have a handful of stories awaiting publication that were originally accepted in 2014(!)/2015/2016, and my next main project is a collection of themed stories, tentatively titled "Candescent Blooms", of which four stories out of a probable twelve have been written. A few novels are also under consideration by various agents/publishers, although I'm not writing a novel at this moment in time.

I guess that's not a bad year!

Sarcoline

My short story, "Sarcoline", has just been published over at Great Jones Street and as usual I'm blogging a few words about how the story came into being for those who might be interested. Beware, there might be spoilers.

A few words first about Great Jones Street. This is an App which describes itself as the Netflix of fiction and serves as a depository specifically for short stories. It is a great paying market, so not only are they passionate about the short story from the reader's perspective, but also from the writers. And the App itself is free, so pop along to their site and download it. "Sarcoline" is an original piece of fiction, however you will also find a couple of reprints from myself there too: "Blood For Your Mother" and "Vole Mountain".

Onto the story itself. "Sarcoline" is one of a series of stories I'm writing at the moment which I hope will form part of a new collection regarding Hollywood celebrity deaths of the 1920s through to the 1980s. These stories are told from the viewpoints of the celebrity at the exact moment of their (usually) tragic deaths - the results being kind of alternate autobiographies, fragments of memory, death assimilations, where fact and fiction intertwine as their souls vacate their bodies. In this instance, the story is based on the life and death of the actress, Grace Kelly. The word sarcoline means flesh-coloured, and I felt it resonated with Grace in a way which I could use.

Here's an excerpt:

In her room at the Barbizon Hotel for Women she lays diagonally across the bed. The tape recorder squeaks on rewind. She simultaneously presses record and play. Speaks: fairytales tell imaginary stories. Me, I'm a living person. I exist. On the bed beside her lies the script for Strindberg's The Father. She reaches for a pencil and taps it against her teeth. Her legs extend upwards, crossed at the ankle. Within a coffee cup, dregs congeal. This scene is lit by the non-Technicolor glow of her bedside lamp, its shade muted yellow as the beam.

Finally, I wrote the entirety of "Sarcoline" whilst listening to the song, "Sweeter Than You", by Dr John Cooper Clarke and Hugh Cornwell on repeat.

Human Maps

My fifth short story collection, "Human Maps", has just been published by Eibonvale Press and is now available for purchase in both hardback and paperback. The link to do so is here.

"Human Maps" collates twenty-one stories that cover a wide range of genres (in other words, slipstream). These pieces were originally published between 2010 and 2015 in magazines such as Black Static, Interzone, and Shadows & Tall Trees, as well as in anthologies from Eibonvale Press itself, NewCon Press, and others. As a taster, one of the pieces, "Old Factory Memories", can be read online here. What I find fascinating when re-reading these in one volume are the subconscious inter-story connections which create an overall gestalt that even I - who wrote them, after all - was not aware of. This isn't limited to my usual themes of identity, memory, and the nature of reality, but also subtle connections simply through the placement of each story within the book's running order. For example, my Japanese love doll story, "Monster Girl" is followed by my Mexican story, "Beyond The Island Of The Dolls", which features dolls of a different kind. Title story, "The Human Map", obliquely examines the effects of an alien race traipsing through our memories to unravel secrets, and this is followed by "Blue Sky World" where the human race itself are keeping aliens secret. Whereas it might sound as though these connections are intentional - and perhaps, clumsy - the reverse is actually the case. An intuitive placing of stories in a certain order not only emphasises my preoccupations and methodology, yet also has created something greater than the original works themselves. Because of this, the book feels fresh to me, and I'm thoroughly enjoying re-reading it now that it's in print. I hope my readers will likewise enjoy the experience.

A Life In Plastic (reprise)

My short story, "A Life In Plastic", which was originally published in Strange Tales V from Tartarus Press, has now been reprinted in the anthology of the weird, "Dark In The Day", edited by Storm Constantine. It seems opportune to resurrect my previous blog post about the gestation of the story for those who might be interested. Be aware there may be spoilers if you haven't read it.

This was one of the few occasions where the title was changed after I wrote the story. The original title, "The Plasticity of Identity", was taken from a review of another of my stories, "Drowning In Air", which appeared in Strange Tales IV. The reviewer being Peter Tennant of Black Static. As soon as I read the phrase I realised I wanted to write something with that title, but when Strange Tales originally accepted the story for publication they suggested I change it as it seemed a little clumsy. As it happens, "A Life In Plastic" is probably a clearer representation of what the story is about.

This piece is one of a series of Japanese stories I've been writing over the past few years. I've found Japan to offer a wealth of ideas, and in this case part of the story is based on the island of Okunoshima, an island where Japan produced poison gas in the second world war which has since become a haven for rabbits.

The plastic in the title is two-fold. Firstly, as a metaphor for the disconnect the main character has with emotion, particularly with regards to his estranged young daughter, but also with a preoccupation he finds with a window-dresser who resembles how he considers his daughter might look when she grows up. There is a gradual transformation of himself into a mannequin as the story progresses, as he decides to distance himself from his daughter after holidaying with her on Okunoshima.

To give a flavour of the story, here is an extract:

...some people were interested in speculating what might happen should a mannequin come alive, but for Oki the reverse were true. He wondered what it would be like to be the mannequin. he couldn't imagine his emotions being any more distanced than they already were, yet would like to try.

Des Lewis reviewed the story in its previous incarnation: "It is a wonderful and eventually disturbing description of unrequited fatherly love for a daughter who is somewhat estranged from him by his marital unfruition, then his taking her, when given access, as a small child on holiday to an island where the only entertainments are a golf course and a Poison Gas Museum, and later his visualising her as an older girl or woman in the form of a window-dresser in a shop window whom he obsessively watches dressing mannequins..."

Finally, I wrote "A Life In Plastic" whilst listening to "Cyber Trance" by the Japanese female singer Ayumi Hamasaki on repeat.

Dark In The Day also includes stories by Martina Bellovičová, J. E. Bryant, Glynis Charlton, Danielle Collard, Storm Constantine, Louise Coquio, Elizabeth Counihan, Krishan Coupland, Elizabeth Davidson, Siân Davies, Jack Fabian, Paul Finch, Rosie Garland, Rhys Hughes, Kerry Fender, Andrew Hook, Paul Houghton, Tanith Lee, Lisa Mansell, Kate Moore, Tim Pratt, Nicholas Royle, Michael Marshall Smith, Paula Wakefield, Ian Whates and Liz Williams. It can be purchased here.

The Marble Orchard

My short story, "The Marble Orchard", has recently been published in the anthology, "Ten Tall Tales", from NewCon Press and as usual I'm blogging about how the story came to be written for those who might be interested. Beware: there may be spoilers for those who haven't read it.

"Ten Tall Tales" is an anthology which marks part of the celebrations for the tenth year of publishing from NewCon Press. I've previously had several stories in NewCon anthologies, and they also published my 2009 novella, "And God Created Zombies", so it was with great pleasure to open an email from Ian Whates asking if I would be interested in contributing. The only guideline was that my story had to somehow include or revolve around the number ten and that also it needed to be no less than 5000 words.

If this sounds easy, then think again. The more I thought around the number ten, the harder the task became. Ideas were either too convoluted or too obvious. Ten is actually a difficult number to work with because it's so entrenched in our society; there are few quirks to be had with it. Initially I decided to write a piece based around Pythagoras who apparently considered ten to be a sacred number because ten equalled one plus two plus three plus four, with those numbers referring to existence, creation, life and the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. But whilst I found this an interesting starting point, I just couldn't wrestle sufficiently with the concept and the resultant story, "The Smell Of Petroleum", was so contrived and abysmally poor that I couldn't actually edit it because I found it too tiresome. A re-think was required!

Subsequently, I watched the 1941 b-movie "King of the Zombies", where one of the characters describes a graveyard as a marble orchard. I jotted the term down for a possible title and began to research graveyards, wondering whether I could work the number ten around it. I came across an article which mentioned an amendment to Section 74 of the London Local Authorities Act 2007 which (bear with me) empowered a burial authority to disturb human remains interred in a grave for the purpose of increasing the space for further interments where such a grave was over 100 years old. Essentially, due to a shortage of space, the law now meant that existing graves could be dug deeper to make space for new graves above them. Some of the articles mentioned the decimation of graves which - of course - means to reduce by the power of ten. Suddenly, I had my number. What if someone who managed a graveyard had to identify 10% of their graveyard plots to comply with the act? What kind of questions would that raise?

I try to shy away from the obvious in my fiction and this story could have developed in a number of formulaic ways, but hopefully I've done something a little different and - perhaps - surprising. Here's an excerpt:

He walked to the door, opened it. The sun had burnt through the cloud cover, dappling light across the vegetation; the evergreens almost visibly absorbing chlorophyll, with the deciduous trees yearning to push their buds through stiffened fingers. Nothing unusual was in sight. Ronson considered the light causing an optical illusion as it had refracted against the window, even as his legs took him down the steps and onto the pathway. He continued walking. His ears accumulating the sound of the breeze, the movement of the leaves, the birdsong, the faint echo of traffic. His movements were fluid, almost ethereal. After several minutes he reached the end of the pathway, which led in two directions around the older part of the cemetery, eventually meeting in a circle. He paused, listened. Nothing unusual. Why should there be? Ronson realised he still held his sandwich. He brought it to his mouth, bit.

As usual when writing short stories the entire thing was composed in one sitting whilst listening to music. In this case the Mercury Rev album, "The Light In You", played on repeat.

"Ten Tall Tales" also features stories by Paul Kane, Simon Clark, Lynda E Rucker, Maura HcHugh, Michael Marshall Smith, Edward Cox, James Barclay, Mark West and Sarah Pinborough, plus ten limericks by Ramsey Campbell and can be purchased here.

The Greens

My novella, "The Greens", has recently been published by Snowbooks and as usual I'm blogging about how the story developed for those who might be interested. Beware: there may be spoilers for those who haven't read it.

I believe "The Greens" has the longest gestation period of any of my fiction and some of the background has been lost in the mists of time. However there are three distinct story strands. The first is the twelfth century legend of the green children from Woolpit, Suffolk. The story goes that two young children - a boy and a girl - were discovered with green-coloured skin. They stated they came from underground, from St Martin's Land, which had it's own sun, and had become lost. Not long after their discovery the boy sickened and died, but the girl went on to marry a local landowner and her skin eventually lost its green tint. According to the legend, the girl bore no children. I remember hearing this legend and thinking: what if they did have children? What if there were descendants of the green girl living today?

Some time after this I watched a documentary regarding obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Previously I must admit I was a little ignorant as to the subject matter, other than that I knew sufferers might obsessively wash or needed to place items in specific orders. What I hadn't realised was that for some sufferers the need to do this was based on a genuine fear that harm would befall others - such as family members - if these rituals weren't adhered to. It was easy to understand how someone might feel trapped in this situation, because even if they understood the improbability there would still be the fear of ceasing the ritual. And then I wondered, what if this were true? What if the ritualistic behaviour of OCD sufferers actually was keeping evil at bay? And what if it turned out that all the descendants of the green girl suffered from OCD? What might they unconsciously be trying to contain?

The third strand was partially linked to the legend of the green children emerging from underground. I had long been interested in Hollow Earth theories. As a teenager I remember reading a book called "The Great UFO Breakthrough" which mentioned reports of an underground race called the Dero. These evil entities were 'detrimental robots' who originally appeared in a short story by Richard S Shaver in Amazing Stories, but who were subsequently believed to have a basis in truth. There's a fascinating article about them here. I had also subscribed to an email list for a company who were planning an - always aborted - trip to the Arctic to investigate Hollow Earth, and those emails provided me with useful information which I decided to work into the story.

So these were the three strands which became "The Greens". It was an ambitious book for me, as I usually work with more internalised dilemmas, and it took a while to structure it to my satisfaction. Without getting too technical I wrote the story from the perspectives of several different characters, but it was how I then ordered those accounts within the book which - I believe - became part of its strength.

Finding a publisher was also a long process. The seeds of the ideas came from 2005, I wrote the book in 2009/2010, and many of the publishers I submitted to either took an age to respond or accepted but were then unable to proceed with it. I began to wonder if the book was jinxed, but on a whim I submitted to Snowbooks and had an acceptance within hours! All the years of turmoil had worked as a channel to direct me to a serendipitous moment. My submission hit the spot at just the right time.

Here's an extract from the start of the book:

The fingers of her brother’s hand wriggled in her grip, but she had no intention of letting go. The noise came again, a distant tinkling of tiny bells reverberated the cool air. Their sheep were quiet, heads down, aware. She bent her knees and whispered in her brother’s ear. He nodded, but she knew he didn’t understand. Sometimes she felt she was the only one who understood anything.

Their sun was low in the sky, casting their faces in a sub-orange glow. The landscape here was barren, rocks pushed through the grass, stubbling the distant view. She tugged on her brother’s hand, but he was reluctant to move. If the sound of the bells entranced her, then they had hypnotised him. He didn’t waver.

She tried to release her fingers but whereas before she had reached for his hand, now it was him who held her tight. She shook her fist, hard, and almost knocked him to the floor. His eyes were a mixture of wonder and fear. The bells continued. When it came to the Unknown, neither of them had any experience. You couldn’t rely on rumour.

"The Greens" was published on the 23rd September and can be purchased here via amazon. So far there is one review, from respected horror writer Gary Fry: "Overall I enjoyed this offbeat adventure a great deal...it's very Andrew Hook and his capacity to take aspects of everyday life and make magic out of them. An intriguing, readable and satisfying piece." If you do read the novella, please take a moment to place a review on amazon or goodreads or comment here. Feedback is always appreciated.

Blanche

My short story, "Blanche", will shortly be published in the anthology, "Something Remains", from Alchemy Press, and as usual I'm blogging about how the story came about for those who might be interested. Beware: there will be spoilers.

Most of you reading this will be aware of Joel Lane, an excellent and wholly individual writer who amassed a great body of short stories, poetry, novellas, and novels before his early death at the age of fifty in 2013. Joel's death reverberated around the genre community, not only because of its suddenness, but also because of the great affection and respect he had gained within the scene - probably much more than he was aware of. I won't go into too much detail here (my blog post shortly after his death already covers this), but Joel strongly influenced my own writing and that of many others in the genre.

At FantasyCon 2015 Peter Coleborn of Alchemy Press announced an intriguing call for submissions. After Joel's death a large amount of unused material had been found - scraps of story notes, unfinished work etc. Peter had been approached by Joel's friend and fellow writer, Pauline Dungate, with a view to possibly using this material. From Pauline's introduction to the book: "My idea was somehow to resurrect the best of the ideas and ask some of Joel's friends to finish them." Peter had those notes with him at FantasyCon and invited those who might be interested to take a look.

I must admit my first thought was that this was something I wanted to take part in followed very quickly by reservations that it might be an unintentional ghoulish venture picking over scraps. Whatever the merit in the intention - and clearly neither Peter nor Pauline would have broached the anthology if they hadn't carefully considered it - would the result be somehow distasteful? I decided to look at Joel's notes purely out of curiosity, and it wasn't long before my reservations were overcome. Seeing Joel's handwriting made the proposal more personal. It would be a fitting tribute. Not only this, but it was clear that any writer taking part would be doing so for the same reason: to properly honour Joel's memory.

It wasn't long before I knew with absolute certainly which set of notes I wanted to work with. They show below:

"Blanche" resonated with me. I had previously named a character Blanche Noir, and whilst I didn't subsequently re-use that name in the story my mind was already working. Some of the other notes were more detailed, but I was looking for a skeleton, for themes which I usually work with, for a sketch. "The crowd in the flickering b/w stop-motion film of the disco" immediately appealed, as did the reference to Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire", and the nature of identity (Blanche being a female name applied to a male protagonist). The seeds were there. The story had to be written.

I won't go into too much detail into how these elements infused my subsequent story, but there is plenty of Joel in the telling and whilst it's definitely my story it does fit the guidelines as I believe Peter Coleborn intended them: not as a homage or a pastiche but as a continuation. I hope Joel would have approved.

"Something Remains" has a stunning list of contents:

• Foreword by Peter Coleborn
• Introduction by Pauline E. Dungate
• Joel by Chris Morgan (Verse)
• Not Dispossessed:  A Few Words on Joel Lane’s Early Published Works by David A. Sutton (Essay)
• Everybody Hates a Tourist by Tim Lebbon
• The Conscience of the Circuit by Nicholas Royle (Essay)
• The Missing by John Llewellyn Probert
• Charmed Life by Simon Avery
• Antithesis by Alison Littlewood
• Dark Furnaces by Chris Morgan
• The Inner Ear by Marion Pitman (Verse)
• Broken Eye by Gary McMahon
• Stained Glass by John Grant
• Threadbare by Jan Edwards
• The Dark above the Fair by Terry Grimwood
• Grey Children by David A. Sutton
• The Twin by James Brogden
• Lost by Pauline Morgan (Verse)
• Through the Floor by Gary Couzens
• Fear of the Music by Stephen Bacon
• Bad Faith by Thana Niveau
• Window Shopping by David Mathew
• Clan Festor by Liam Garriock
• Sweet Sixteen by Adam Millard
• Buried Stars by Simon Macculloch
• And Ashes in Her Hair by Simon Bestwick
• The Pleasure Garden by Rosanne Rabinowitz
• Joel Lane, Poet by Chris Morgan (Essay)
• The Reach of Children by Mike Chinn
• The Men Cast by Shadows by Mat Joiner
• The Winter Garden by Pauline E. Dungate
• Natural History by Allen Ashley
• The Second Death by Ian Hunter
• The Bright Exit by Sarah Doyle (Verse)
• Blanche by Andrew Hook
• The Body Static by Tom Johnstone
• You Give Me Fever by Paul Edwards
• The Other Side by Lynda E. Rucker
• Of Loss and of Life: Joel Lane’s Essays on the Fantastic by Mark Valentine (Essay)
• Shadows by Joe X Young
• I Need Somewhere to Hide by Steven Savile
• Coming to Life by John Howard
• The Enemy Within by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Afterword: The Whole of Joel by Ramsey Campbell (Essay)

All profits go to Diabetes UK, a disease from which Joel suffered.

Finally, I wrote this story in one sitting listening to one song seventy times on repeat: "The City Never Sleeps At Night" by Nancy Sinatra. Give it a listen. At least once.

My FantasyCon Schedule

As most of you will be aware the British Fantasy Society's annual event, FantasyCon, will be taking place in Scarborough over this coming weekend, and I'll be in attendance and taking part in a variety of events. No doubt there'll be a gazillion interesting programme items, but the guide below is a handy reference to those which I will be a direct participant in. Hopefully, some of you will be interested, but it's a useful aide memoir for myself - if no-one else!
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Friday, September 23 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Masterclass Room 108 (Grand Hotel)

Writing The Short Story: Character, Scene, Conflict - I'll be running this workshop and guarantee stories will be written following some simple - fun - guidelines

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Friday, September 23 @ 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Cocktail Bar (Grand Hotel)

Book launch - Midnight Street Press: "Ghost Highways". I have a short story, "White Matter", in this anthology and will be signing alongside Simon Clark, Ray Cluley, Neil Williamson and others

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Friday, September 23 @ 10:00 pm - 10:30 pm

Cocktail Bar (Grand Hotel)

Joint reading with myself and Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Saturday, September 24 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Main Ballroom (Grand Hotel)

Book launch - Alchemy Press: "Something Remains". I have a short story, "Blanche", in this anthology which is based on notes left behind by the much-missed Joel Lane. There will be a cavalcade of contributors at this event and the book should not be missed.

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Saturday, September 24 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Main Ballroom (Grand Hotel)

Book launch - Snowbooks - horror novellas. My novella, "The Greens", will be amongst the books launched at this event. Other attendees launching their novellas include Cate Gardner, Gary Fry, John Llewellyn Probert, Mark Morris and Ray Cluley. Come along!

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Saturday, September 24 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Main Ballroom (Grand Hotel)

Book launch - NewCon Press: "Ten Tall Tales". I have a short story, "The Marble Orchard", in this anthology. Other attendees who should be present to sign include Ramsey Campbell, Edward Cox, Simon Clark, Paul Kane, Maura McHugh, Lynda E Rucker and Mark West

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Sunday, September 25 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Palm Court Ballroom (The Grand)

Gold: panel discussion. I will be taking part in this panel which is sub-headed "The Value of Genre Awards", with Marc Gascoigne (chair), Stan Nicholls, Donna Scott and Margret Helgadottir

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Quite a packed programme for me this year! At all other times I will either be asleep, eating, or in the bar...