It's been a while since I blogged, and I'd like to claim it was because I've been busy doing all sorts of exciting things…but it's not, it's mainly that I'm lazy. Anyway, some stuff has happened, so here it is: update time!

First, Pete Tennant has reviewed quite a few of my stories in Black Static #19 (whilst reviewing lots of different anthologies). Of the five stories he reviewed, he liked 4 (calling 'Mami Wata' from The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #21 a 'highlight' of the collection!). The only one he wasn't convinced by was 'Traffic Stream' from The Black Book of Horror 6, which he described as being like a real life Pacman (an oddly accurate description of what was in my head when I wrote it!) and he didn't like the fact that the characters were named Bird and Samuels. Oh well, can't win 'em all!

I've finally finished the horse demon story, which is now called 'The Fourth Horse'. It's been submitted, so fingers crossed…

Work on Quiet Houses is now well and truly underway. I've completed (to second draft level, anyway) two of the main stories and three of the wraparound sections, and aim to have another underway by the end of the coming week. I'm happy with what I've done so far, and have some ideas that I'm looking forward to messing around with in later tales. As ever, whilst writing one of the stories, 'The Elms, Morecambe', odd little sentences were bubbling out that will have an influence on later stories, which is really exciting. My portmanteau character suddenly feel real as opposed to a useful cypher for moving between the stories, which is great because that means he's an actual character as opposed to a cardboard one. More news as and when it arrives…

M is for Monster - available now!

In other news, my copies of M is for Monster have arrived, and  a lovely looking thing it is too. The cover picture (by John Prescott, who also compiled the book) is eyecatching, the back cover has a lovely background detail of scaly flesh behind the blurb… The contents, I'm sorry to say, I've not read, but there are some excellent authors in there. I've noticed a couple of typos so far, but for an essentially one-man show, I think John's done a great job. It'll be interesting to see how it translates to Dark Contents, where John will be part of a wider team – it does strike me as a really good sign both for Dark Continents and also for my collection with them! M is for Monster is for sale through Amazon as both hardcopy or download (Amazon.com currently, with Amazon.co.uk to follow), but if you're in the UK, you can buy it directly from me – it's £10 plus postage, copies will be signed (and personalised if you want), contact me direct for details. However, you might want to move quickly as my copies are selling fast – the Old Pier Bookshop in Morecambe has agreed to sell copies for me, so have taken half my stock and may need more if it goes well there…

On Thursday 28th, I finally did my reading for Cancer Research UK in Morecambe. We had a good crowd (about 25 people in all – the shop was completely full) and feedback on the event was overwhelmingly positive (mostly, it has to be said, for the fantastic cupcakes Wendy made!). Overall, we raised nearly £150 for the store, and may make more yet as I still have some of the chapbooks specially produced for the event to sell. It's an extended version of the 'Pennine Tower Restaurant' true story, and it's £3 inc postage (to the UK – overseas I have to charge a bit  for postage, I'm afraid), of which Cancer Research get £1. I also have one or two copies of  my original Ghostwriter Chapbooks (containing the stories 'Marley's Haunting' and 'Button') for sale, and will donate part of the profit from them to Cancer Research as well. Because of their rarity, these are £4 each inc. postage (more for overseas, as above), and again can be personalised/signed as desired. Anyone interested, contact me direct…

…and an interesting thing came out of the reading: Willie Meikle, fellow horror author, has decided to jointly edit an anthology called The Big C, for release next year, an anthology to raise money for cancer research charities both here and in the US, and he's asked me to be involved. I'm really pleased to have been asked, and have of course agreed to write something (no idea what yet, though!), as have Gary McMahon, Steve Duffy, Allyson Bird, Johnny Mains and a whole bunch of other great authors. It's another great project to be involved in, and from my perspective shows again how genuinely intelligent, caring and proactive are my friends and peers in the horror field. We may never lead the world, but we may yet change it for the better…

And there's more (as Jimmy Crickett used to say): it's been confirmed that I'm doing a reading as part of the Chorlton Book Festival. It'll be on November 12th at 7pm in Chorlton Library. I'll post links when I get them, but as far as I know, it's a free gig. If you come along, you'll have the opportunity to watch/listen to me read two stories with my entire family (including grandparents) in attendance, which means no swearing or jokes about masturbation. Damn, that's most of my repertoire gone… I'm also fairly sure that I'm doing something in Liverpool on the evening of November 26th (no, a reading, not just getting drunk!). Again, more details as I get them.

I think that's it for news, but I wanted to bring up one thing that's been on my mind a bit recently: ebook readers. My initial approach to them was to say, NO! Very Luddite, I agree, but it seemed to me that we had created something that we simply didn't need – books being a near-perfect machine as far as I'm concerned. However, I'm beginning to change my mind a bit. Part of the reason is pragmatic: ebook readers are clearly here to stay, and assuming they work as well as people claim they may be useful (lighter than books, for one) and extremely good for things like textbooks (having the Community Care Law and other legal stuff with me on an ebook reader when I'm training would be fantastically useful!). The other reason is that more and more of the companies I work with are focussing on ebook publications either solely or in part, and I'd like to be able to have all the available versions of the works I'm included in. So, I can feel a 'can I have a Kindle' request approaching soon…. Anyone got any thoughts/advice on this?

Oh, one last thing: I've seen the early version of my website and it's great – special thanks to Andrew for building it! I need to write some stuff for it, and then we hope to launch it properly in a week or two. Watch this space…

Right, I think that's your lot. Back again soon, Lords and Ladies!