2017 – My Writing Year

It’s been quite a year.

It started with DarkFuse publishing my novel FUNGOID to great reviews, only for the publisher to fold just as sales were starting to take off, leaving the book, and all my other DarkFuse titles in limbo. I’ve since managed to place all the works at Crossroad Press who are doing a sterling job of getting old and new books into ebook, print and audiobook. They’ve already brought out the new novel SONGS OF DREAMING GODS and the reprint of THE HOLE, as well as the three Sigils and Totems novellas. Next up from them is RAMSKULL, a Scottish Hammer horror tribute with Satanism and bloody mayhem on a small Scottish island, so look out for that.

DarkFuse weren’t the only publisher to disappear. Dark Renaissance finally ended their on-again, off-again dance, leaving me with another couple of books to home. My Sherlock Holmes novel, THE DREAMING MAN, found a home and was published in the spring by the ever reliable Gryphonwood Press, and my third Carnacki collection, THE EDINBURGH TOWNHOUSE was published in the Fall by The Lovecraft Ezine imprint to some very satisfying reviews.

On the personal front, my wife fell very ill, and a lot of the late Spring and early Summer for me was spent in worry that has thankfully abated a bit with her recovery. It left me with some catching up to do on the writing front that I’ve just about managed to handle.

I’ve been involved in the ROWAN CASEY / VEIL KNIGHTS series cooperative venture with some great fantasy writers, and that’s been fun, playing out of my usual comfort zones.

And towards the end of the year I’ve seen the publication of my big-bug creature feature INFESTATION at Severed Press, and, most recently, and the current focus of much of my activity, my Victorian supernatural short story collection, THE GHOST CLUB from Crystal Lake Publishing. It’s picking up great reviews. Which is nice.

2017 also saw me making some inroads into the German language market, with THE AMULET and SHERLOCK HOLMES: REVENANT being published by Blitz Verlag in ebook and very nice mass-market format paperbacks. I have THE INVASION coming from them soon, and have also sold a handful of novels to Voodoo Press for publication in German, so watch this space.

With all of that, my short stories in anthologies and magazines have taken a bit of a back seat this year, but I’ve had some great appearances, including one alongside the likes of Joyce Carol Oates and Joe Lansdale among others, and I’ve repeated my success with sales to Night Land Quarterly in Japan, had my sixth sale to NATURE FUTURES, and some nice appearances in Dark Regions Press anthologies. I also took great delight in providing a James Bond novella to April Moon Books’ BOND UNKNOWN. (Contrary to S. T. Joshi’s well publicised belief, I am not actually trying to make a career out of Carnacki pastiches.)

I hope to get more time next year to hit some short story markets, but it’s already looking to be a busy one.

Coming up I have…

• The Boathouse (novel) / Crossroad Press
• Ramskull (novel) / Crossroad Press
• The Green and The Black (novel) / Crossroad Press
• Operation: Antarctica (novel) / Severed Press
• Fungoid (novel) / New Edition coming soon from Crossroad Press
• The Dunfield Terror (novel) / New Edition coming soon from Crossroad Press
• The Exiled (novel) / New Edition coming soon from Crossroad Press
• Night of the Wendigo (novel) / New Edition coming soon from Crossroad Press
• Tormentor (novella) / New Edition coming soon from Crossroad Press
• Clockwork Dolls (novella) / New Edition coming soon from Crossroad Press

There’s also the novella, BLACKTOP coming in Dark Regions Press’ huge I AM THE ABYSS anthology that I’m really looking forward to, and work in another handful of anthologies waiting to be published, including a story in Jeffrey Thomas’ PUNKTOWN setting that I think is close to the best thing I’ve ever written.

As for the writing schedule, I’ve got another novel, OPERATION: SIBERIA to write for Severed Press, I’ve got book 3 of a fantasy trilogy I’m working on with Steve Savile to complete, and I’ve had a tickle of interest from a publisher interested in a set of Victorian ghost stories.

I’ve got my 60th birthday in January. I always thought I’d be dead or at least stopped writing by now, but it seems I still have stories to tell.

Busy, busy, busy.

Onward.