Welcome to another year! In this edition of my sporadic blog, we’ll be catching up with recent events before we take a look at some of my favourite stuff from 2023.
First of all, the big news: I’ve signed with a publisher to release my second full collection of short stories! This book will feature thirteen tales, one previously unpublished, five nominated for (or winners of) awards. I’m keeping schtum about the title, publisher, and contents for the moment, because I want to drip-feed these to the world as we lead up to the release date, which is looking to be sometime in September. Suffice to say I’m very pleased to have this volume coming out and I believe it represents some of my very best work in the realm of dark short stories and novelettes.
Speaking of: “Effigy in Flagrante” will be appearing in The Black Beacon Book of Ghost Stories this October, from Black Beacon Books (natch), and “Water is the Womb of the World” will be published in Spawn 2: More Weird Horror Stories About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies, due in November from IFWG Publishing. Both are shoo-ins for my third full collection, which already exists in loose, ever-changing form deep within my files.
I’ve had a whopping five pieces published since my last blog post three months ago: “Ruby’s Syzygy” in The Black Beacon Book of Horror, “The Maker Remade: Mary Shelley in Fiction” in A Vindication of Monsters, “Drones and Dominions” in Midnight Echo 18, “Il re giallo” in Strange Aeon: 2023, and “A Walking Wound” in Another Name for Darkness.
To recap my 2023 in rather broad strokes: I had my first chapbook published, a collection of flash fiction; I attended two baby showers; I won Crystal Lake Publications’ monthly flash fiction contest and got to select the shortlist for the following month; I met the lovely Sophie Aldred (Ace from Doctor Who) and gave her one of my books, which she insisted I sign for her; I experienced the live comic stylings of Jon Brooks and Randy Feltface; I flew to Canberra with Meg for the Aurealis Awards; I returned to Canberra for Conflux 17 and spent three days hanging out with some of the loveliest, most talented people you could hope to meet; I met editor extraordinaire Ellen Datlow, who hugged me goodbye; I was nominated for my first Ditmar Award; I convened my first discussion panels with some lovely fellow writers; I got to see Meg excelling at her coursework and achieving High Distinctions; I caught up with a few dear old friends I hadn’t seen in far too many years; I explored more unusual and/or derelict sites and locations with Meg; I saw Suspiria and Friday the 13th on the big screen; I carved my first pumpkin for Halloween; I worked at Laneway Festival, Illuminate Adelaide, and the Royal Adelaide Show; and I got to see Phoebe Bridgers, Megadeth, Ash, The Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, Amyl and the Sniffers, Ethan Davis, Skyhammer, Thraxas!, Ghostsmoker, Foo Fighters, and L7 live on stages of varying size. And through it all, I spent a lot of precious time with my beloved soulmate Meg, who means more to me than anyone and makes life not only tolerable but downright beautiful. (Also her cat, Juniper, who is wonderful despite her inclination toward pestiferousness and who just celebrated her first full decade of thinking she owns the world.)
So, what have I been doing this year? Well, I’ve already written a novel! Of sorts, anyway; it’s an adaptation. I spent six days smashing out the first draft (calm down, it was only 36,000 words) and then another two working solidly on the second; I’m catching up with a couple of reprobates tomorrow to discuss the project further. It’s in an unusual vein for me, but it’s turned out quite well. Yes, I am being cryptic, and yes, I may have already spilled the tea on this one ages ago if you were paying attention, but never mind. This will be a cool little crossover oddity well worth owning…
What else is going to happen in 2024? I’m going to complete my Cert IV in Library and Information Technology, keep working one job and look for more, move house (this one, sadly, is set for demolition soon — I may base a future post around it and its long history), and just try to be the best artist, partner, and person I can be. It can be hard sometimes — I’m almost foaming at the mouth with frustration today, trying to deal with a hundred mundane irritants and some brand new unexpected ones — and I don’t even feel like I know how to live most of the time. (Oh, that’s another thing — I’ll be continuing to see my psychologist.) Author-wise, I’ll have at least one and perhaps as many as three books out, as well as the usual slew of anthology appearances, and I’m hoping to make it to all the interstate events that take my fancy, and I need to kick things up a few notches on the career front — and I have so many tales I want to tell…
Well, that about wraps it up for the new deets. Now let’s take a look at some listy goodness.
TOP 25 NOVELS
Small Mercies — Dennis Lehane
The Shards — Bret Easton Ellis
Maeve Fly — C.J. Leede
The Strange — Nathan Ballingrud
Sister, Maiden, Monster — Lucy A. Snyder
Silver Nitrate — Silvia Moreno-Garcia
All the Sinners Bleed — S.A. Cosby
How to Sell a Haunted House — Grady Hendrix
Mister Magic — Kiersten White
The Lonely Lands — Ramsey Campbell
The Curator — Owen King
Holly — Stephen King
The In-Between — Christos Tsiolkas
A Haunting on the Hill — Elizabeth Hand
Looking Glass Sound — Catriona Ward
Conquest — Nina Allan
Some Desperate Glory — Emily Tesh
Don’t Fear the Reaper — Stephen Graham Jones
Dark Mode — Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Hell Bent — Leigh Bardugo
What Kind of Mother — Clay McLeod Chapman
Everything the Darkness Eats — Eric LaRocca
The Marigold — Andrew F. Sullivan
Lowdown Road — Scott von Doviak
(tie) Doctor Who: Warriors’ Gate and Beyond — Stephen Gallagher; Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars — Phil Ford; Doctor Who: The Zygon Invasion — Peter Harness; Doctor Who: Kerblam! — Pete McTighe; Doctor Who: Planet of the Ood — Keith Temple
TOP 5 NOVELLAS
The Wind Began to Howl — Laird Barron
Bitters — Kaaron Warren
The Salt Grows Heavy — Cassandra Khaw
The Devil and the Loch Ard Gorge — Leanbh Pearson
Winter’s Gifts — Ben Aaronovitch
TOP 7 COLLECTIONS
Fearful Implications — Ramsey Campbell
Vandal — Kaaron Warren, Aaron Dries, J.S. Breukelaar
White Cat, Black Dog — Kelly Link
The Coiled Serpent — Camilla Grudova
No One Will Come Back for Us — Premee Mohamed
Pre-Approved for Haunting — Patrick Barb
The Beast You Are: Stories — Paul Tremblay
TOP 7 NON-FICTION
What About Men? — Caitlin Moran
Dish — Rhys Nicholson
Love and Pain: The Epic Times and Crooked Lines of Life Inside and Outside Silverchair — Ben Gillies, Chris Joannou & Alley Pascoe
Into the Void: From Birth to Black Sabbath and Beyond — Geezer Butler
Consent Laid Bare: Sex, Entitlement & the Distortion of Desire — Chanel Contos
Goth: A History — Lol Tolhurst
Big Meg — Tim Flannery & Emma Flannery
TOP 18 ALBUMS and EPs
Memento Mori — Depeche Mode
Purge — Godflesh
This Heathen Land — Green Lung
In Times New Roman… — Queens of the Stone Age
Stone — Baroness
Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts — The Smashing Pumpkins
72 Seasons — Metallica
Race the Night — Ash
Goodnight, God Bless, I Love You, Delete. — Crosses
Unicorn — Gunship
The Age of Pleasure — Janelle Monáe
Los Angeles — Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee
Blackbox Life Recorder 21f/in a room 7 f760 EP — Aphex Twin
Resurrection of the Flesh: Triumph of Death Live, 2023 — Triumph of Death
Trouble and Their Double Lives — Cradle of Filth
I Inside the Old Year Dying — PJ Harvey
Fantasy — M83
Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd — Lana Del Rey
TOP 15 FILMS and TV SHOWS OF 2023
(Okay, stretching a little as some of these movies premiered in 2022 but received wide release in 2023. In no particular order.)
Talk to Me
No One Will Save You
Totally Killer
Luther: The Fallen Sun
Evil Dead Rise
M3GAN
Meg 2: The Trench
Bad Girl Boogey
Doctor Who: The Star Beast/Wild Blue Yonder/The Giggle/The Church on Ruby Road
Poker Face
The Fall of the House of Usher
Krapopolis: Season 1
Rick and Morty: Season 7
Yellowjackets: Season 2
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Okay, that’s it for another retrospective. Thanks for reading! Hope to get a whole bunch more of you tucking into my work in 2024.
Cheers, and good luck,
MRD
Matthew R. Davis 