It’s that time of year again! Trees indoors, presents, mulled wine, and horror stories, of course. The grand tradition of telling scary stories goes all the way from the Victorian period (Dickens, Blackwood and others) and on down the line to Gremlins. Last year, in the spirit of the season, I released a small book … More Something was Stirring
Ah Thursday, home of the Throwback Thursday. That’s kind of what this whole week has been like on here. (If you’ve been reading, thank you very much! Feel free to skip to the second paragraph. If not, read on…) The Kindle editions of my books are all free this week, ending tomorrow, and for each … More Summer Book Giveaway Day Four
Hera sat beneath the reindeer skeleton. It was made of aluminium and flashing fairy lights; its innards were red and gold baubles. It towered three metres above, from bolted-down hoof to the tip of its great antlers, where the electric cable fed into the window of the department store. And in the space between its … More The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
McKinney got the football for Christmas. It arrived on the 24th, last post till after New Year. John got chocolate and a card. He ate half the bar in one go, then gave the rest away, brick by brick. He kept the card under his tin hat. They sang hymns that morning, Christmas Day. They … More War is Over
I was in New York last December on holiday. Following both guide book recommendations and obvious curiosity I visited McSorley’s Old Ale House on East 7th Street in Manhattan. There’s no relation here, just coincidence. Inside, it hasn’t changed much since John McSorley (my father’s name, another coincidence) opened it in 1854. The unvarnished wooden … More Folktale of New York
Unfortunately, Pista was also a weedy kid. He was poor, wore ragged second-hand clothes, had sallow skin like a Romani, had no parents, and lived in the orphanage on Rubik Utca in the eighth district. Each of these alone was reason enough to make him a target. But, unfortunately, Pista was also a weedy kid. … More Miracle on Rubik Utca
Ho! Ho! Ho! In the sprit of the season I’m releasing a free ebook of Christmas horror stories. In a tradition that dates back to the Victorians – and mostly carried on today in films – people would gather around the fireplace on Christmas Eve and terrify each other with tales of ghosts and goblins … More Something was Stirring: Seasonal Tales of Horror
One of the most famous and lauded storytellers of all time, Charles Dickens may seem an unlikely character to pop up in a blog about authors who influenced my book of pulp stories, but the way Dickens’s stories contained scenes of poverty and violence which shocked and outraged the public of the time and were … More Pulp 2 influences: Charles Dickens
Saaaantaaaa! I know him! Time to get excited about Christmas! And, in the old fashioned tradition, time to scare each other with Christmas ghost stories around the fire. My short story The Sixpence in the Pudding (excerpt below) features in the new Christmas horror anthology, O Horrid Night, by Fundead Publications. It sits alongside 19 … More Read The Sixpence in the Pudding in O Horrid Night
Really excited to have a short story accepted for FunDead Publication’s Christmas horror anthology. Yet to be named, it’ll be coming out later in the year – a perfect Christmas stocking present, maybe? – full of scary tales in the vein of Charles Dickens and Algernon Blackwood. My own story, The Sixpence in the Pudding, … More FunDead Christmas horror
