Okay, okay, I know, I know. But I’m back now, so let’s get to it.
“Mildew Manor” has been published by Banksia Journal and you can read that for free here. Also, as this issue went to press (ahem), Foofaraw published “Of Stuffed Frogs and Unshod Gods”, which you can peruse without payment here. And those are my only two publications so far this year. What the hell, right? It’s been a tough old slog, has 2024. The only other acceptance I’ve had so far (discounting other stuff we’ll get to in a minute) is for a reprint of “Jaws of Glass” (co-written with my dad) to appear in an anthology to benefit animal shelters. Otherwise, every morning I seem to wake up to another rejection email, which is quite disheartening. Experience tells me that it’ll soon be balanced by a run of acceptances, but man, in the meantime, it does tend to suck the wind out of one’s sails.
(Update: between writing and posting this, I had an acceptance. “Blood of the Moon” has been selected for publication in an upcoming anthology of erotic horror, so hey, there’s that! It’s an older story that isn’t horror in the usual accepted sense, though the ending may haunt you. More details when announcements are made.)
Adding to this, I recently learned that my first collection, If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, will shortly be going out of print. I’ve ordered as many copies as I can afford to keep on hand for stocking store shelves and personal sales, but if you want to get yourself a first edition — and I have no idea when I’ll find a new home for the book, though offers are very welcome! — you can still do so here.
Anyway, in more positive news, I’ve had a publisher shortlist one of my novel manuscripts and I’ve also had a short story shortlisted for an anthology, so it’s not quite all bad news…
Speaking of, I didn’t win any of the Aurealis and Australasian Shadows Awards for which I was nominated. Didn’t make the Shirley Jacksons, either. Ah, well. There’s still the Ditmars. And it’s not all about awards, anyway, even if they are a lovely sop to the ego and look good in a bio. It’s about getting the good work done, and once I’ve got this house in order, I’m going to write the novel I’ve been planning out for the past few years.
Speaking of said house: the big news around these parts is that I’ve found a new home. Yep, after six months of attending open house viewings across the width and breadth of Adelaide (over sixty in all), throwing offers into the ravenous meatgrinder that is the Australian housing market, and finally coming out on top, it’s farewell Somerton Park and hello Morphett Vale! I’m writing this in my new home, which I’ve been in for three weeks now and is still being shaken into some semblance of order, and not only that, but in my new office — the first time I’ve had such a thing, my desk surrounded by towering bookcases stuffed with work from all regions and tastes. Ah, lovely! Meg will be joining me in a little while, and we’ll be weirding the place up to suit our strange selves. I fancy writing a post about my last house, since it featured in my life and off for seventeen years and saw a lot of things happen within its walls, but I can’t be stuffed right now, so we’ll see how that goes. Followers of this blog will not be holding their breath.
What else has been happening, then? Christ, Neil Gaiman. Of all the people to be revealed as a skeezy sod… he was one of the Good Guys. We trusted in his decency, and this feels like a hard betrayal. I don’t know how things are going to play out from here, but many of us will never feel the same about him and his work, and whilst the great artistic canon of known creeps and bastards has historically proven to be almost bulletproof, a lot of the magic is gone. Fuck. Thanks, guy.
On a brighter note, I’ve been to a couple of gigs lately: Cave In back in June, with The Ocean and LLNN, and last weekend, Thou with Full of Hell. Thou frontman Bryan even brought some merch over with him so I didn’t have to pay exorbitant shipping costs, and then refused payment at all. What a guy! Their set was crushingly heavy, pulverising the old Crown and Anchor venue on the very night it was announced as safe from predatory developers (though we’ll see how that turns out), and Cave In rocked hard too, proving themselves a very satisfying experience twenty-one years after I discovered them through the Antenna album.
Oh, and I almost forgot: here’s a video interview with Kayleigh from Happy Goat Horror!
Listening:
Umbilical, Thou — What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?, Public Enemy — Sweet FA, Love and Rockets — Coagulated Bliss, Full of Hell — In Cauda Venenum, Opeth
Reading:
The Underhistory, Kaaron Warren — The Amulet, Michael McDowell — Women as Demons, Tanith Lee — Ghosts of the Neon God, T.R. Napper — Perdido: A Fragment, Peter Straub
Watching:
Doctor Who: Series Fourteen (Season One) — She Killed in Ecstasy — The Witch Who Came from the Sea — Black Sabbath — Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen
Bye bye, be well,
MRD
Matthew R. Davis 