Dan Grace's Blog

Another story, ‘Salt Water’, appeared in Fictive Dream. It’s free and it’s here.

There will be another (very short) one, ‘Sheaf, Loxley, Porter, Rivelin, Don‘, later in the year, in Empyreome. Approx publication date 15th September.

Some more floating around, getting rejected.

Also poetry, not published but written. No one wants to publish my poetry these days.

Finally, some progress on the next novella, ‘Spring’. Might actually finish writing it this year. No promises though.

cloud clears

from the tops

and we slip

the boulders lee

arrayed below

edging locks

and burns

waits an army

in full song

their battle hymn

diesel engines

rising wind

that catches

lost limbs

from torsos

rough trimmed

where the water

runs brown

like tea

and not

a single bird sings

and the silence

flattens time

makes you long

for night

the stars

and deer leap

from the pine

to be broken

by cars

So, one in Capricious it’s called The Young Republic and I like it very much. Do buy.

Another in Shoreline of Infinity it’s called An Infinite Number of Me and I am equally fond of it. Do buy.

Ta.

First, other peoples stuff…

Best novel/novella/whatever published (almost) this year what I read:

Grief is the thing with feathers by Max Porter

Best short story published this year what I read:

Flyover Country by Tim Maughan

Best novel/novella/whatever I read all year that was published before I could read:

Little, Big by John Crowley

Other things I read which were ace:

The Arrival of Missives



by

Aliya Whiteley

A Whole Life by

Robert Seethaler

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by

Becky Chambers

Some Rain Must Fall: My Struggle Book 5 by

Karl Ove Knausgård

A Fraction of the Whole



by

Steve Toltz

Now me…

I published a novella/novellette/whatever. It got some nice reviews. It’s cheap and short and made of electricity. Please buy it.

Also, it was on Den of Geeks books of 2016. Which is nice.

I also squeezed in a cheeky short story just before the official deadline of New Years Day. It’s in The Future Fire and it’s called Immaterial.

Two whole things published. Expect more this year.

…later in the year, with multiple protests against proposed hydraulic fracking on greenbelt sites across the UK. These actions saw the raising of the first banner bearing the emblem of what would become the Green Man movement: the now familiar face with wide-open eyes, flared nostrils and gaping mouth from which a mass of oak leaves radiate (see Appendix 3 for examples). Little noticed at the time, this would prove to be one of the most significant events in 2016, at least for the future of the UK.

Overshadowed as it was by larger political events (the vote to leave the EU, the assassination of President Elect Trump, the continuing success of the Kurdish revolution in the Middle East, etc.) few if any commentators, or even those involved in the protests themselves, realised its importance. Of those who did, and of whom are publicly recorded as noting it, the most important is Robert Moss, then a journalist for the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian, a local newspaper with a small circulation. Moss would, of course, go on to become a key figure in the group in the lead up to the disturbances of ‘22, and one of the so-called ‘moderates’ who negotiated the ill-fated ceasefire of ‘25…

everyone I
know is pretty fucked up

we thought,
we hoped, you know

after the
upload, it’d all be fine

meat gone,
problems gone

the heart
is just a pound of protein, we said

muscle
pumping blood, that’s all

…is quite nice:

“This book is as much an experience as a story, one that reaches inside
the reader, as unsettling and chilling as that epic Scottish winter. It
is a wonderful debut on a fine new imprint and I, for one, will be
following both.“

stop

look up

breathe

stretched
so

thin
you’ll see

daybreak

through
me

see
my pulse

a
clockwork flood

of
blue light

a
string

of
possibilities

a
summer

the
taste of tinfoil

the
heat

a
delusion

there
is no heat

just
the rain

passing
through

me
through

this
city

I
lack

the
necessary

regiment

routine
peels

back
to reveal

a
heart

nothing
special

just
a heart

if my shoes

last the year

I’m impressed

not that I go

heavy

on them

my foot sits

odd against

the floor

so I’m told

angled in

not landing

flat so the sole

wears uneven

the inner rubs

away

at the heel

still strange

how shoes

don’t last

so long

how time

wears thin

so fast