Supermassive Attack!

I’m pleased to report that my novelette “Supermassive Black Mass” has been picked up by Demain Publishing for their Short Sharp Shocks! series, which includes authors such as Hellraiser Cenobite actress Barbie Wilde, and is currently available for preorders here and here.  I’m told a paperback version will be in the offing later in the year.  Here’s the cover:

Art by Adrian Baldwin.

Demain’s head honcho Dean M. Drinkel interviewed me about “Supermassive Black Mass” for their blog, and you can read the result here.

“Under the Bridge Downtown” appeared on The Horror Tree last month, and you can read it here.

So, I didn’t win the Aurealis Award for which I was shortlisted, and neither was I shortlisted for any Australian Shadows Awards this year.  These events can be a bit of a blow to one’s ego – I didn’t actually expect to win the Aurealis, but I had two strong novelettes submitted to the Shadows and was fairly confident of being shortlisted – and when that happens, it’s a reminder to not get carried away over such fripperies.  So you didn’t achieve something – so what?  Serves you right for expecting anything at all.  Do the work and do the work, and when others achieve, help boost the signal.  Chris Mason, whose story “The Black Sea” was published along with my “Andromeda Ascends” in Beneath the Waves:  Tales from the Deep, has had that tale shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards, the Shadows Awards, and the flipping Shirley Jackson Awards.  She’s a lovely lady whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting three times, and while she hasn’t put out much work yet, it’s consistently strong – keep an eye out for it in Steve Dillon’s Things from the Well anthologies, and expect to see it spreading in the near future, much like the Black Sea of which she wrote…

And I know I keep going on about an announcement I’m yet to make, but I’m going to put it off a little longer – even though I’ve already let the cat out of the bag in recent interviews.  Yes, there’s a book coming, but I want to hit you with a big ol’ press release type blog post, complete with images and release date, and we don’t have those just yet.  Patience…

Hope you’re well, and stay that way,

M.

The Endless Pilgrimage to Acceptance

Acceptance updates:

“Waylay and Warp” has been selected for Tiny Tales Vol. 1: Curses & Cauldrons, from Blood Song Books.

“Under the Bridge Downtown” will appear on The Horror Tree website shortly.

“Steadfast Shadowsong” has been accepted for Dig Two Graves, from Death’s Head Press.

Breach #10, featuring my story “Pilgrimage”, is out now and can be acquired here.  As the blurb notes, my tale was inspired by the legendary Lemmy Kilmister.  Watching the live stream of his funeral was a moving experience, and though I’m not much of a Motörhead fan, I very much respected his huge heart and felt compelled to pay tribute to the man.  It took a couple of years, but here it is.

In even better news, my story “Andromeda Ascends” (from Beneath the Waves: Tales from the Deep) has been shortlisted for the Best Horror Novella category in the 2018 Aurealis Awards!  I’m up there alongside fellow Beneather Chris Mason, plus genre stalwarts Kirstyn McDermott and Kaaron Warren and more besides – so not much pressure, then, I’m only up against the best!

And yes, there’s still an announcement to come shortly… stay tuned…

M

It’s 2019: Where are the Blade Runners we were promised?

Welcome to 2019!  I was going to post this in early January, but life got in the way – I’ve been packing, cleaning, moving and unpacking, for starters.  I’m now living in the house where I was lodging nine years ago, when I notched up my first professional publications, and where I have worked on a number of demos, EPs and albums with Blood Red Renaissance and icecocoon – so in a way, it feels like I’ve come full circle.

Transcendence, a new anthology of stories based around dreams, hallucinations and the like from Transmundane Press, is out now!  You can get a copy here.  You can also read my guest post for their blog here, and check out their interview with me here.

As well as publishing “Pilgrimage” this month, Breach Magazine will have an interview with me up soon – I’ll share the link when it’s posted.

I decided to take some time off of professional reading after judging for the Aurealis Awards two years running, but that didn’t last long – now I’ve been tapped for the 2018 Australian Shadows Awards.  I’ll be judging in the Novel category, so at least there won’t be a conflict of interest this year, as I didn’t publish any books in 2018.  However, I’ll be making an announcement very soon…

I messed around with a number of year’s best lists for this post, extensively detailing my favourite novels, films, albums, TV shows etc, but it felt kind of dorky and pointless – just kind of nerding off into the void, so to speak.  So maybe I’ll keep it succinct, to give you a fleeting taste of what I liked best in 2018.

NOVELS:  We Sold Our Souls (Grady Hendrix), Halcyon (Rio Youers), Blood Standard (Laird Barron), Unbury Carol (Josh Malerman), Space Opera (Catherynne M. Valente), The Outsider (Stephen King), The Cabin at the End of the World (Paul Tremblay), Cross Her Heart (Sarah Pinborough)

NOVELLAS:  Shiloh (Philip Fracassi), Overnight (Philip Fracassi), The Atrocities (Jeremy C. Shipp)

ANTHOLOGIES:  Beneath the Waves:  Tales from the Deep (ed. Steve Dillon), Flight or Fright (ed. Stephen King & Bev Vincent), Petrified Punks (ed. Claire Fitzpatrick)

FILMS:  Suspiria, Hereditary, Paddington 2, The Endless, Avengers: Infinity War

TV:  The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Who – Series 11, Inside No. 9 – Series 4

ALBUMS:  Eat the Elephant (A Perfect Circle), Dirty Computer (Janelle Monáe), Suspiria – Soundtrack (Thom Yorke), Islands (Ash), Bad Witch (Nine Inch Nails), Simulation Theory (Muse), Rainier Fog (Alice in Chains), Kamikaze (Eminem), Dark All Day (Gunship), I Loved You at Your Darkest (Behemoth)

There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?  Which is more than can be said for 2018 in general, I’m afraid.  It was an excruciating year for me, and the pain I’ve caused and suffered still lingers.  But there were positives, and there will be more this year.  Keep looking forward.  We’ll get there.

MxRxDx

Shadows, Colours, Everything & Time

Hello once again.

First up:  “This Impossible Gift” has been shortlisted for the Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction in the 2018 Australian Shadows Awards!  I made this shortlist last year with “The Heart of the Mission”, so let’s hope it’s an annual thing!  I’ll be attending the awards ceremony at Continuum this weekend, which will be a first and, I imagine, quite a lot of fun!  Fingers crossed for the win – although, as I’m up against Angela Slatter and Kaaron Warren, they’ll need to be crossed pretty damn hard!

Next:  “Colours that Flicker in Water” will be appearing in Petrified Punks, an anthology of punk/new wave/no wave/goth etc. flash fiction from nifty Australian crew Oscillate Wildly Press.

And:  “Everything is Red in this World” has just been accepted for the Transmundane Press anthology Dreams, Nightmares, Visions and Hallucinations.

Also:  Beneath the Waves:  Tales from the Deep is available now, featuring my story “Andromeda Ascends”, along with a great accompanying illustration by Will Jacques.

In other, non-writing news, I put together the album sleeve for my brother Ethan’s first record, Time is My Worst Enemy.  I came up with some visual concepts and travelled to Port Pirie to do the shoot with my partner Meg, who loved snooping around in the railway carriage graveyard outside of town.  I’m quite proud of the work she’s done and the way the sleeve turned out, and also of Ethan’s debut opus – I’m inspired to get to work on another record myself now!  Here’s the Bandcamp link, and here’s the cover:

My little brother’s first album – #2 coming soon! Album sleeve by MRD, photography by Meg Wright/Red Wallflower Photography.

Cheers.  See you soon.

M

In which we contemplate the duration of infinity.

And once again, we rejoin our feckless hero after a too-long period of silence…

My story “Andromeda Ascends” will appear in the fourth Things in the Well book, Beneath the Waves:  Tales from the Deep, available in April.  That’s four out of four so far – and this time I’ll be sharing the pages with H.P. Lovecraft and Brian Lumley!  This tale came together at the last minute, which may account for some of its feverish nature; also, I wrote the second draft as I curled up crippled on my couch with a sprained back, two sprained wrists and a bashed knee.  Fun times!

Speaking of Things in the Well, the third book – Behind the Mask:  Tales from the Id – is available now, and you can find it here.  It features “The Bloody Rag”, and once again I’m sharing a table of contents with Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell, amongst other notables.

I performed in three spoken word shows with Paroxysm Press during the Adelaide Fringe Festival; I’ve always wanted to be in a Fringe show, so there’s another box thoroughly ticked.  All the gigs were rambunctious, freewheeling and diverse as all get out.  I had a blast!  More, please.

Wording @ Broadcast Bar, 25.2.18. Phone snap by Meggins McGee.

The new icecocoon album (I say new, but I won’t mention just how long the damn thing’s been in gestation), entitled How Long is Forever…?, has finally been released.  Due to the nature of the recording sessions, I only played bass on two tracks, although I did put the album sleeve together and edit the video for “The Great Aerial Ocean”.  You can watch the clip here and wrap your ears around the whole record here.  Apparently we’ll be continuing the recording of the next album very soon, and in the meantime, I’ll be flexing my visual-artist muscles by doing the sleeve for my brother Ethan’s upcoming CD, Time is My Worst Enemy.

Painting by Elena Maslarova, who also played guitar for the band in an earlier and largely female incarnation.

On a more personal note, I’ve now moved into a house with my girlfriend and our cat.  So long Ghastly Manor, and hello la Casa del M!

Oh, and I don’t want to say too much just yet, but there’s been an expression of interest from a small publisher in a collection of my short stories.  More news as that develops…

Thanks for your time and patience,

MRDx