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A Yearly Round Up – 2018

2018 has been one hell of a year: personally and politically; for my immediate circle and globally. There have been tragedies and triumphs of human spirit alike. It has taken me places I never thought I’d get to or even knew I wanted to be. In January, I transitioned from working full-time at a call centre (taking 150 phone calls a day and feeling this oppressive weight on my spirit) and fitting writing and editing around that, to working part time on a reception desk and running this business alongside it. That was a huge step for my sanity and health. If you want to read more about that, I did an interview at Kendall Reviews about it. However, I made another leap mid-way through the year, quitting the part time job. I’ve now been running this editing and writing business full-time for six months. It fees like a dream and I honestly can hardly believe my luck. I’m thankful every day for this opportunity to do what I love.

Getting here wasn’t easy, but I am grateful for all the amazing friends, family, and fans who have supported me to be here. I wanted to write an article summing the year up, in part to thank those people, and also to direct you towards some of the awesome things that have been happening that may have passed you by – because who wants to be tuned in to news all the time? Some of these things are fantastic creative projects by people I admire, know, love (or all three). Some are pieces of work that have helped keep me going or inspired me to produce content. I hope they equally inspire you with whatever project you may be working on, whether it’s a year-end budget for work, or an epic poem.

–Speaking of which, the first item on our list: My father has been working on an epic poem, The English Cantos, inspired by the work of Dante Alighieri, particularly his Inferno. This poem depicts his descent into hell while suffering from cancer in the ward of Bournemouth General hospital. It is a vivid, phantasmagorical, heart-wrenching story. He has published the first three Cantos on the Society of Classical Poets’ website. You can also find me doing a reading of the poem’s opening here. The film was directed and produced by my good friend and unacknowledged genius Robert Monaghan. You can look for some more collaborations from us next year…

– Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy is another descent into hell. I don’t seem to be able to stop rewatching this movie. It is cosmic, visionary, gruesome, disgusting, hilarious, heroic, disturbing, spiritual and anti-religious, all at once. Cage’s acting is nothing short of spell-binding and the mythology Cosmatos has created is rich and layered, drawing from both Arthurian and Greco-Roman legend. I cannot recommend you get this horror DVD enough – if you can stomach it! Mandy wasn’t the only great horror cinema we got. Other wonders include Hereditary, Annihilation, Halloween and more! A good year for horror!

– …In games too! Puppet Combo, twisted genius behind Power Drill Massacre, The Night Ripper and many other retro PS1-aesthetic horror games, released his masterpiece Babysitter Bloodbath in limited edition hard-copy (limited run of 100). His work embodies the words of Stephen King that horror is all about ‘emotion’. The atmosphere of tense dread in his games is like no other, an adrenaline kick not to be missed! If you’re curious, you can read my interview with him here.

– I discovered an awesome book series Empires of Dust by Anna Smith-Spark, which is one of the most brutal, grimdark fantasies I’ve ever read. It is poetic and dark and riveting and utterly brilliant. Well worth time and energy for any fantasy lover but also any horror fan too.

– Further in publishing, my good friends at Storgy Magazine successfully crowdfunded their very, very weird (and very, very awesome) Shallow Creek anthology. It’s a collection of tales all set in the same fictional creepy American town, with a cast of characters that the authors have been able to play with. It sounds innovative and exciting. Not only that but they hit a whole host of stretch goals too, adding three stories by top writers Aliya Whiteley, Richard Thomas and Sarah Lotz.

– In the realm of Weird Fiction, things seem to be stirring in the depths. Dan Coxon launched the second volume of the Shadow Booth anthology as well this year, which has writing from some incredible authors, new and established. Shadow Booth is a benchmark of quality and well worth your time checking it out. Zero pretension, just great words and weirdness.

– My mother took part in London Art Battle III this year, where she produced work live in front of an audience. The event was hosted at Red Gallery and is created by the quirky Kiss My Art. I honestly deeply admire her for this. I know how it is going to Spoken Word / Rap Battles from my brief foray into performance poetry. To produce art live and improvised, any type of art be it music, words, visual pieces, or dance, is extremely nerve-wracking and pressured and she performed incredibly well! Proud son!

– She also exhibited her artwork at Upton House Gallery earlier this year. The exhibition was called ‘Unveiling Souls’ and tackled spiritual themes. My mother loves figure-work and iconography and is honestly a hugely underrated force of artistic talent, as well as love and kindness, in this world. You can check out a video of what it was like here. To see more of her artwork, you can check out her website. Alongside my mother’s art was poetry by my father from his collection The Lyre Speaks TrueThe artwork my mother made for the cover of that poetry collection is below.

– My baby 13Dark Issue #2: CURSED CROSSINGS launched! This collection features four amazing stories by authors: Richard Thomas, Christa Wojciechowski, Andy Cashmore and Anthony Self, totalling 41,000 words of content. I’m super biased because I edited this collection, but still! The first issue of 13Dark was hailed for the quality of its stories and design and the second issue is a right treat with some killer horror tales. Both issues are available from Lulu. To find out more about 13Dark, you can visit this webpage. It includes some brilliant interviews with 13Dark authors by the great Christa Wojciechowski.

– Speaking of which, my good friend, and writer in Issue #1 of 13Dark, Ross Jeffery, has published a slew of brilliant stories this year, including ‘A Time for Everything’, up at Soft Cartel, ‘Judgements’ at Idle Ink, and ‘Toilet Trauma’, available to read in the latest issue of Schlock Magazine. He also has a story in Storgy’s previous anthology Exit Earth.

– The great Max Booth III’s amazing new werewolf novel, Carnivorous Lunar Activities, is available for pre-order here. Earlier this year I reviewed his incredible novel The Nightly Disease and it was honestly one of the best books of the year.

– My novel Gods of the Black Gate finally released in November! This is horror-sci-fi was described as ‘True Detective in space’. It has had some radical preliminary reviews, including a 5* one up at Kendall Reviews. You can buy it from either Amazon UK or Amazon US.

– I also had a bunch of short stories published and wrote a bunch of articles on how to write fiction and horror and epics. They were all immensely fun to write and if you want more of a particular thing (or less), please let me know, because I love feedback and love hearing what you think about my work. You can drop me a line here.

WHAT TO EXPECT NEXT YEAR…

Well, I’ll still be editing, so if you have that novel you finally want to get publication-ready, or you want me to collaborate with you on a creative project, then I’m here! I’m working on a whole bunch of new material too. I’m currently shopping five novels (yes, five!) to different publishers – so the aim is to get them homes by the end of 2019. I’ll be on Richard Thomas’ awesome Novel Writing course too, working on a big, big project that will take most of the year. I’m also taking on some slightly different creative endeavours. I mentioned collaboration with the great Robert Monaghan, well, there are two potential projects unfolding next year involving our twisted minds. Here’s a teasing screenshot of one of them…

I think you know what it means!

Have happy holidays and happier New Year! I hope the future is a blessed place for you and that every goal and intention you are moving towards comes to pass. I’d invite you, if you haven’t already, to join our supportive community. The tide is turning. We’re moving. We’re going to take over the world.

In a nice way…