Okay, a lot of little things to report!
My novelette “Ruby’s Syzygy” will appear in The Black Beacon Book of Horror this October. I wrote this psychological shocker after working in box offices at the Royal Adelaide Show last year — fourteen shifts in nine days, pretty intense stuff — and I’m quite happy with the way it turned out. It’s kind of in a dark Shirley Jackson vein, featuring a woman having a mental breakdown at a crowded fairground due to its triggering of a deeply traumatic past; I did one of the polishing drafts whilst Meg and I were in Hillville, NSW, last year to visit her family. Black Beacon Books has already commissioned and published an interview with me, and you can read that here.
“Herald Angles” appears in The Nameless Songs of Zadok Allen & Other Things That Should Not Be, just released by JayHenge Publishing, and you can find it here. It’s a strange Christmas-set tale that touches on an element of Nigel Kneale’s classic The Stone Tape. Originally set in Australia, I moved it overseas for an earlier, more wintery submission call and chose a location based on a joke from the absurd 1990s UK sitcom Sean’s Show: “You live in a world of your own: Telford.”
“Oraculum Tenebrae” appears in Eidolotry #5: Terrors from Down Under, an Australian-themed issue of a digital zine from PsychoToxin Press which is now available here. This tale is set in an expensive penthouse apartment and deals with the high cost of getting what you think you want; it reminds me a little of Stephen King’s “Everything’s Eventual” with added debauchery.
My frank personal essay “A Ramble in a Tangled Wood” will appear in You’re Not Alone in the Dark, a collection of non-fiction writings from Independent Legions that’s set to feature a star-studded TOC and benefit a good cause.
And my poem “Queen of Swords” has just been published in JOURN-E Vol. 2 No. 1, a diverse magazine of genre fiction and poetry from Minds Eye Publications — the physical edition is available here and the digital one here. This piece is dedicated to the wonderfully darksome Chelsea Wolfe, who served as its inspiration when I wrote it back in 2014.
I also learned this week that Bites Eyes and Supermassive Black Mass have turned up on a book torrent site, so yay, I’ve now joined the ranks of authors whose work has been pirated.
Wow, that’s quite a bit, isn’t it? That’s not even mentioning the rejections I’ve had or the raft of submissions I’ve sent lately. I also have an article up on Shepherd next week — here’s a recent one by the lovely Eugen Bacon that recommends The Dark Matter of Natasha, amongst other strong and strange Australian works. Oh, and I wasn’t shortlisted for any Aurealis Awards this year — a bit of a comedown after two noms last year — but I’m planning to attend the ceremony in Canberra in June to catch up with a whole bunch of my lovely spec-fic writing chums. There are also plans in motion for a talented friend to come over and launch a cracking new book here with me in Adelaide… stay tuned!
I’ve also attended a couple more gigs lately, bands I’ve been wanting to see a long time. I finally caught Megadeth at the AEC and then, the week later, Ash at the Governor Hindmarsh. Two great shows, and along with Phoebe Bridgers’ performance at Laneway in February, a good sign of further live adventures to come this year!
And Meg is smashing her studies at the Centre for Creative Photography, wowing her fellow students and teachers alike, and I’m dead proud of her. One of her images was chosen for the cover of Kerryn Tredrea’s new poetry collection this is no ordinary rapture…, her second such commission through the reprobates at Paroxysm Press.
Listening:
Memento Mori, Depeche Mode — Fantasy, M83 — Cryptic Writings, Megadeth — Islands, Ash — Compton: A Soundtrack, Dr. Dre
Reading:
A Child Alone with Strangers, Philip Fracassi — Full Immersion, Gemma Amor — Jirel of Joiry, C.L. Moore — The Stranger, Kathryn Hore — Screams from Beyond the Crypt, Darkwell Bled
Watching:
Bones and All — Doctor Who: City of Death — Doctor Who: Inferno — Doctor Who: Enlightenment — Monsters Inc.
Be weird and be well!
MRD
Matthew R. Davis 