A Knot Of Toads

My short story, "A Knot Of Toads", has just been published in Black Static #38 and as usual I'm blogging about the genesis of the story for those who might be interested. There may be spoilers for those who haven't yet read the work.

Several ideas for this piece came about whilst I was on holiday in the Lake District last year: the diversity of tourists at Ambleside, the line about Cumbrian female accents sounding like men would sound if they were women (not intended to be disparaging, this is my character's view not mine!), and the "can I take your picture" line as an intro to picking up solo female travellers.

Meanwhile my partner had come across a list of collective nouns for animals and thought some of them would make good titles or jumping off points for stories. I agreed, and this idea was knocking around in my head for a while like a fly in a glass box, until I realised that the outdoors-ness of the nouns would tie in with my Cumbrian story. I tried to avoid the obvious (a murder of crows etc) and a knot of toads suggested a complex immersion in nature and it fit as a title, with other collective nouns as section headings.

The crux of the story is about a protagonist who believes he is instrumental in causing deaths after he has taken someone's photograph. These are natural deaths. He attempts to assimilate these coincidences rationally, has believed that seeing groups of animals is a harbinger for what occurs, but really he is fighting to impose a structure on something that isn't structured. At the end of the story my intention is to show that in fact there is nothing supernatural behind this, it is totally random. Given an infinite amount of time all permutations of existence are possible, as are aberrations. That's my reading of the story, anyway, although more traditional readings are also possible; my intention is that he feels bound to something where he is only a coincidental observer and any attempts to rationalise it are useless.

If you've read the story, I'd be interested in your comments.

Black Static #38 also contains stories by John Grant, Tim Waggoner, Maura McHugh, Danny Rhodes and Malcolm Devlin. The issue is dedicated to the memory Joel Lane, and Nicholas Royle pays tribute in "The Conscience of the Circuit". Further information here.

Fur-Lined Ghettos #4

The new issue of Fur-Lined Ghettos edited by my partner, Sophie, is now available. To celebrate we've redesigned the website, gone black on white instead of white on black. As always, we enjoy poetry, prose, short stories, dreams, automatic writing, essays, conversations, musings, fact, fiction, art, theory, nonsense and surrealism. We also enjoy you buying our magazine.

Issue four features poetry and prose from Tara Abrahams, Matthew Antonio, Jim Davis, Peter Cole Friedman, Howie Good, Shirley Kuo, Tom Pescatore, Joseph Reich and Ig Zjoot.

The cool cover art is by Narm. This is a print magazine, so please support us by buying a copy and get something tangible in your hands. We're also open to submissions for issue 5.

Interference

My short story, "Interference", has recently been published in Chiral Mad 2 and as usual I'm blogging a few comments about how the story came into being.

Chiralty was the theme behind the first Chiral Mad anthology published in 2012. My story, "The Perfection of Symmetry" was published in that book and I blogged about the story's journey here. It's worth reading that post as I quoted from Wikipedia as to what chiralty is all about as it's quite a complex idea to get your head around. When I saw editor Michael Bailey was planning on a follow-up anthology I was determined to write another piece that would nail the concept down. One of the ideas which came into my head revolved around an aspect of chiralty concerning writing backwards and certain letters which are chiral (those whose properties remain identical when looked at in a mirror, such as my main character's name, MATT). I decided my character would become obsessed by chiralty to the extent that he preferred to view the world through mirrors: something which would impact on his entire life and relationships.

Whilst researching the story it was interesting to see who else practised mirror writing, a list which included Leonardo Da Vinci who wrote most of his personal notes that way. Da Vinci was left handed and there is an argument that mirror writing is actually the most logical way for left handers to write as it is less awkward for the hand on the page. I also read articles which mentioned that sometimes those who are brain damaged or suffer from neurological diseases might start mirror writing despite never having done so before. Some research also included instances where children who mirror wrote were 'persuaded' to write 'naturally'. My character has his mirror writing untampered with since childhood and he views everyone else as being out of sync with the world, not himself.

It's a subtle story. Whilst the book features psychological horror stories mine might easily be seen as mainstream fiction. Nevertheless, I'm very pleased the editor enjoyed the story amongst the 650 submissions he received and has included it in the book alongside the other 23 writers who made the cut, including Ramsey Campbell, Gary McMahon, Jack Ketchum, and John Palisano to name but a few. Also - as per the first anthology - all profits from the book go to Downs Syndrome charities (the first book raised $5000), so buy a copy here.

Finally, I wrote the story whilst listening to the "Widowspeak" by Lydia Lunch on repeat. Music which I felt suited the theme.

My Writing Year 2013

I thought I'd do a quick blog post as to my literary achievements during 2013.

Early in the year I completed one novel begun at the tail end of 2012, an SF-apocalyptic future thing titled "Body And Soul". And today I've just completed a new novel, "People I Know Are Dead", which is another crime pulp neo-noir featuring my irascible PI, Mordent. This year I've sold two other novels featuring Mordent, "The Immortalists" and "Church Of Wire", to Telos Moonrise for publication in 2014/2015.

I wrote twelve short stories this year: "Bullet", "Dirty Snow", "Burning Daylight", "Shoot For The Moon", "The Frequency Of Existence", "Blood For Your Mother", "Making Friends With Fold-Out Flaps", "Softwood", "Soapsud Galaxies", "Interference", "The Opaque District", and "A Knot Of Toads".

I sold ten short stories: "Rain From A Clear Blue Sky", "Bullet" and "A Knot Of Toads" to Black Static, "The Aniseed Gumball Kid" to PostScripts, "The Caged Sea" to Unspoken Water, "Beyond The Island Of The Dolls" to Postscripts To Darkness, "Interference" to Chiral Mad 2, "Shoot For The Moon" to Monomyth, "Softwood" to an anthology from NewCon Press I cannot name til next year, and "The Opaque District" to the Horror Uncut anthology.

The following six short stories appeared in print this year: "Rain From A Clear Blue Sky" in Black Static #33, "The Caged Sea" in Unspoken Water #4, "Bullet" in Black Static #34, "The Cruekus Effect" reprinted in Best Weird Fiction Vol.3, "Tetsudo Fan" in the Rustblind and Silverbright anthology from Eibonvale Press, and "Kodokushi" to PostScripts #30/31.

I have a handful of stories awaiting publication that were accepted in 2012/2013, a novella, two short story collections, and one novel under consideration, and a collaborative story collection still awaiting publication. I am also in the process of editing an anthology of punk inspired stories, titled "punk!Punk!" for DogHorn Publishing, and I have also worked on two issues of Fur-Lined Ghettos with my partner.

Not bad considering this little one is getting more adventurous, and also that I work full-time Monday to Friday, work part-time alternate Sundays, freelance typeset and proofread often in the evenings, and have one hundred and one other things on my mind. Seasonal trumpet blowing time yet again!

The Best and Worst of 2013

Well, it's that time of the year when everyone is doing their 'best and worst of' lists, so here is mine. I'm going to list the books and movies I read/watched in 2013 and then pick my favourites. This isn't restricted to what was new in 2013, but what I actually watched and read - some of these items might be very old indeed.

Books:

I read the following in 2013:

Allen Ashley (editor) – Where Are We Going?
Williams Burroughs – Cities of the Red Night
Gus Van Sant – Pink
John Dickson Carr – The Hollow Man
Ernesto Sabato – The Tunnel
Ira Levin – Rosemary’s Baby
Jonathan Letham – Girl In Landscape
Ken Kesey – One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
James Vance Marshall - Walkabout
Kenneth Fearing – The Big Clock
Jose Saramago – Death At Intervals
Megan Abbott – Die A Little
David Mazzucchelli – Asterios Polyp (Graphic Novel)
Craig Thompson – Blankets (Graphic Novel)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – In Evil Hour
Paul Auster, Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli – City of Glass (Graphic Novel)
Milan Kundera – Identity
Charles Bukowski – Tales of Ordinary Madness
Hans Helmet Kirst – Night of the Generals
Kinky Friedman – Armadillos and Old Lace
Rhys Hughes – The Percolated Stars
Sam Hawken – The Dead Women of Juarez
David Zane Mairowitz – Crime and Punishment (Graphic Novel)
Italo Calvino – If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller
Gwen De Bonneval & Fabien Vehlmann – Last Days of an Immortal (Graphic Novel)
David Rix (editor) – Rustblind and Silverbright
John Peel – Margrave of the Marshes
Haruki Murakami – Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Koji Suzuki – Ring
Simon Morden – Equations of Life
Flann O’Brien – The Third Policeman
Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go
Georges Simenon – The Man On The Boulevard
Ned Beumann – Boxer Beetle
Conrad Williams – Rain
Lavie Tidhar - Osama
Guy Delisle – Pyongyang
Raymond Chandler – Killer In The Rain
Jean Rhys – Wide Sargasso Sea
Primo Levi – The Periodic Table
Graham Greene – The End of the Affair
Kafka/Jaromir 99/Mairowitz – The Castle (Graphic Novel)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Strange Pilgrims
Mohsin Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Vladimir Nabokov – Tyrants Destroyed
Charles Bukowski – Hollywood
Taichi Yamada – Strangers

I find it quite an interesting list. I read a lot more books this year than last year, partly because of more opportunity to read at work now the TV has gone but also because I discovered graphic novels! Definitely the worst of the bunch was Saramago's "Death At Intervals" which I loathed with passion. Megan Abbott's "Die A Little" almost made my top three. Nabokov's story collection was fantastic in places, yet trifling in others.

In reverse order, these are my top three:


"Asterios Polyp" by David Mazzucchelli

The first graphic novel that I've ever read, and one which made me realise that the emphasis is on novel just as much as it is on graphic. Intelligent, engaging, and I cried at the end.

"The Tunnel" by Ernesto Sabato

An extraordinary book which is a deceptively simple yet utterly compelling account of obsessive love. Not a word is wasted in this short novel. A story which anyone who has ever been in love can relate to. I know I could.

And the winner is:

"Osama" by Lavie Tidhar

Sheer genius. There's so much to admire in this book: it's audacity and its subtlety, the exceptional high quality of the prose and the dreamlike style, the overall plot and the succinctness of its engagement. Also, it made me jealous. This is the novel I should have written! It's absolutely perfect.



Movies:

I watched the following in 2013:

The Imposter

Oslo, 31 August

Midnight in Paris

The Silence

Detachment

Django Unchained

Usual Suspects

Santa Sangre

Nostalgia for the Light

Woyzeck

Fiend without a Face

Corpo Celeste

Children's Hour

Gran Casino

Moonrise Kingdom

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Martha Marcy May Marlene

To Rome with Love

Death Proof

I Heart Huckabees

Tout Va Bien

Drive

El Topo

Manhattan

The Master

The Wasp Woman

Invaders From Mars

Phantom Planet

Holy Motors

Amour

Broken

Tsosti

The Dyatlov Pass Incident

Night of the Hunter

Whip It

La Maman et la Putain

Rust and Bone

Fishtank

Cabin in the Woods

Chico and Rita

The Place Beyond the Pines

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc

The Hunt

The Prestige

We Are What We Are

Beyond the Hills

Ginger & Rosa

Nosferatu

Fargo

Surviving Life

Like Someone in Love

London to Brighton

Maria Full of Grace

Interesting to see the impact having a child has on movie watching. Last year I saw 93 films, this year it's 53. Whilst our baby was born in May 2012 her sleep patterns now mean it's often past 9pm by the time I'm even thinking of sitting down and movies are pushed aside through tiredness. This year it's been very hard thinking of my top three because - like last year - I'm discounting movies I've previously watched. So, the wonderful and heartbreaking "Children's Hour", which is one of my favourite films ever, can't be included, nor can the notoriously wacky "El Topo" (which I was fortunate enough to see on the big screen this year), or the wondrously perfect "The Prestige" which was even better second time around and can't be faulted.

Coming close are "Beasts of the Southern Wild" which would probably be in my partner's top three, "Moonrise Kingdom" because whilst I loved it it was no more than I expected it to be, "Drive" because it worked on it's own terms, "The Master" with a great performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman, and "Like Someone In Love" which oozed style over - but not to the detriment of - substance.

Again, in reverse order, my top three: 

"La Maman et le Putain" - Jean Eustache

I can't deny this was a slog at times. It had been recorded for me and I hadn't realised the duration (215 minutes) so after an hour I kept expecting it to finish in 30 minutes every 10 minutes. Yet it's a veritable feast of end-of-New-Wave French Cinema which led to two separate story ideas, so in terms of influence it deserves this placing and is well worth a watch.

"La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" - Carl Theodor Dreyer 

Like "El Topo" and also "Nosferatu" I was lucky enough to be able to see this on the big(gish) screen at my local arthouse cinema, and it definitely benefited from this experience. A searing classic with an intense and brilliant central performance from Maria Falconetti, this German silent movie of 1928 by Carl Dreyer is haunting, heartbreaking, and ultimately devastating.

And the winner is...

"Django Unchained" - Quentin Tarantino

What's not to love about this movie? It has everything you would expect from Tarantino and is so lovingly, stylishly, and beautifully put together that it's a perfect box which puts Hollywood blockbuster pap to shame. I'd hoped this would feature high on my 2013 list and wasn't disappointed. Tarantino knows what makes film tick, which is why I regard him so highly as a director and this is what makes his films so delicious.

Predictions for 2014? I'm hoping Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac" will be as perfect as "Melancholia" and "Antichrist".

Joel Lane

On Tuesday night, after I finally got our baby to bed, I returned to the living room to find the TV off and my partner, Sophie, telling me that she thought I should sit down. All kinds of things run through your mind at that point, but I certainly didn't expect her to quietly say: "Joel Lane has died".

Joel was a writer I had known through his work from 1994 onwards and had met and spoken to on several occasions from 2003 onwards. It's hard to understand how such an overwhelming sensation of loss and grief can come from the death of someone that I could hardly claim to 'know' in the 'friend' sense of the word, until I realised that his impact was far greater than a simple friendship might have been. Because I also knew him through his work, through the intensely brilliant and often very personal short stories that were charged with the inner visions that defined him, and through the respect that I had for him due to the honesty and integrity with which he wrote and conducted himself.

My first published story, "Pussycat", in the 1994 Barrington Books anthology, "The Science of Sadness" edited by Chris Kenworthy had introduced to me a group of like-minded individuals that I hadn't even known were in existence at that time. These included Nicholas Royle, Conrad Williams, Tim Nickels, Brian Howell, and Joel Lane. His story "Like Shattered Stone" in that anthology is one that I've never forgotten. And in the anthology as a whole, I think it's not too extreme (or even ridiculous) to suggest that I had found family. Whilst I didn't attend conventions until I began publishing as Elastic Press in 2003, between 1994 and that date I had read the work of these independent press writers avidly and felt that the cohesiveness of their body of work (both collectively and individually) expressed my own feelings and desires, and in turn, impacted on my own writing.

I met Joel at FantasyCon 2003 where I had an Elastic Press dealer's table for the first time. A somewhat reticent man in black shirt, blue jeans, and carrying a carrier bag of books examined all I was selling and then bought the lot. I remember glancing at the name badge and realising it was Joel and then having a bit of a fanboy moment and gushing something along the lines of "You're Joel Lane!" It's rare that I get such a feeling of inexpressible admiration - and I've subsequently met a lot of people who I admire and respect, in both literature and music - but thinking back to that first meeting today it indicates how enamoured I was of his work.

I was lucky enough to publish Joel's short fiction twice with Elastic Press (in anthologies both edited by Allen Ashley), and also very happy that he agreed to write an introduction to my story collection, "Beyond Each Blue Horizon", back in 2005. Within the introduction was a line I re-read yesterday that seemed to summarise his own fiction:

Writers of the past were able to construct dystopias; writers of the present have to negotiate them.

Joel was a writer who was very socially aware of the power fiction had to both reflect and comment on the times. Perhaps more than that - he felt it imperative that it commented on injustice wherever it occurred. His work co-editing the anthology, "Never Again", is an obvious illustration of this, and the fact that he was editing an anthology of austerity-themed stories before his death is another reflection.

He emailed me asking if I could write a story for the latter book in September this year. Whilst I did so, and he acknowledged receipt, I guess I will never know if he read my hopeful contribution. I very much wanted to get into the book because it mattered to me that Joel would get my story. Joel was someone whose opinion I wanted as a writer. He was part of the family.

Joel had mentioned in his email that he had been diagnosed with a sleep problem and was taking medication which unfortunately meant he was sleepwalking and having fits and problems with concentration. That email on the 9th October was to be my last communication with him - I mentioned I hoped to see him at World Fantasy in Brighton in November but unfortunately his mother was ill and he couldn't attend (I think he would have been staggered at the whoops which resulted when it was announced his collection, "Where Furnaces Burn", had justly won a World Fantasy award). He also mentioned he hoped to write a story for the punk anthology I am editing, based on Joy Division, epilepsy, and their song "She's Lost Control". It would have been stunning, I'm sure of it.

However, I am glad I made the effort to attend the launch of the Eibonvale Press anthology, "Rustblind and Silverbright" in London in August, as it was the last time I would see Joel. Even if I can't recall the details of our conversation - it was just good to see Joel again. As it was always good to see Joel. And Joel's support, mutual respect, and enthusiasm for the genre was ever present.

Despite those early days of that Barrington anthology which lauded Slipstream as the new genre, Joel always considered it was horror that he wrote. Even when his story, "Alouette", was published in "Subtle Edens" (Elastic Press's swansong publication dedicated to slipstream) he knew it was really horror. We had these discussions from time to time, always with wit at the heart. In my copy of his Nightjar Press chapbook, "The Black Country", he inscribed it with: "To Andrew - Maybe horror is the new slipstream! - Joel x".

I think it's clear to say that Joel was a respected and much loved member of the genre community. The outpouring of shock and grief on facebook, discussion boards, and emails since his death is tantamount to that. I wish I knew him more than I did, I regret that I won't get the chance to do so. I wish there were more conversations and more stories to read. I wish Joel were here.

Writing is such a solitary profession - and within it Joel seemed more solitary than others - but as mentioned above I have certainly found it to be family. In Graham Joyce's acceptance speech for his British Fantasy Award for best novel this year he touched on it beautifully, and this is the same message which has been repeated in all the discussions since Joel's death. I would go further to state that it's actually more important than family - my own family will never know me to the depth that those writers do who have read my work. Our community is a family that knows us intimately and accepts us for what we are, through our work which reflects, illuminates, and lays bare our inner selves. That's why it hurts so much when one of us passes. And Joel reflected, illuminated, and laid bare vividly, with great compassion, incisiveness, and - in conversation - humour. This is why he will be missed. Although acknowledging this doesn't stop the tears from flowing.

Joel at the Subtle Edens launch, London, 2008

Kodokushi

"Kodokushi" is a story I've recently had published in the new PostScripts anthology, "Memoryville Blues", from PS Publishing, which also contains fiction by John Grant, Lavie Tidhar, Alistair Reynolds and Ramsey Campbell amongst many others. As has become common in this blog, I'm going to post about how the story came about for those who might be interested in the 'where do writers get their ideas from' thing. Naturally, this post might contain spoilers for those who haven't read the story.

Memory is a strange thing. I wrote this tale back in October 2010 and it was accepted for publication three days later. I think it was last year or the beginning of this year that the signing sheets came around for it together with a request to write an intro to the story. Foolishly, I didn't re-read it, and over time I came to mis-believe that 'kodokushi' is the name of the place my character visits in the story, hence the confusing intro for those who have the book. On re-reading, however, I realised 'kodokushi' actually refers to 'a lonely death'.

I've been writing a series of Japanese-themed stories, touching on the quaint absurdities that the country seems prevalent to. In this case, 'a lonely death', relates to those who have died but have remained unburied for long periods of time. Often because they have no relatives. But also as I was researching this story I became aware of a newspaper article about relatives who hid the death of their relatives in order that they could continue claiming benefit for them. In my story, an estranged family member returns home to discover her father died three years previously and his body has yet to be buried. The story takes on a slight fantastical feel when she then visits Ryōan-ji (the false 'Kodokushi' of my memory) where fifteen boulders have been placed in such a way that only fourteen can be seen simultaneously (unless from the air). It is traditionally said that only through attaining enlightenment would one be able to view the fifteenth boulder. My elegiac ending fuses the experience in discovering her father with the trip to the zen garden. It's an ending prone to interpretation and - I think - almost too subtle unless the story is re-read and possibly re-read again. I do like to make the reader do some work! On re-reading, however, this story has become a favourite of mine. As with much of my work, fusing two seemingly separate story strands creates (or uncovers) something greater than both of them. It will be interesting to see how this story fares in review.