SeventyEight Time
Okay, so, more news!
Firstly, the Quiet Houses launch has been formally confirmed as taking place on Saturday 1st October at 8pm, in the Bar Rogue of the Royal Albion Hotel, during FantasyCon! Huzzah! The launch will be shared with DCP stablemate Dave Jeffrey’s Campfire Chillers and the Hersham Horrors anthology Alt-Dead. So, as well as being able to get my book you’ll be able to pick up those two fine tomes as well. And, of course (just to encourage you to come in the room), there’ll be free wine. Yes, that’s right, FREE wine. I’ll also be wearing a lovely garish shirt (I’ve not yet decided which one yet…watch this space!) and I promise to stay sober and write nice things in your book (unless you want me to write something unpleasant?). So, what’s stopping you?
Well, okay, you might not actually be going to FCon (and if you’re not, that’s a shame – why don’t you change your mind and come along?). If you’re not, but you want a signed copy, fear not! I’ll be selling signed copies via here (and my new website, to be launched later this month I think) as soon as I get back from Brighton. If anyone wants to pre-order a copy now, that would be great – no money up front, but if you want a copy and can let me know now, I can make sure I order enough. I think it’s going to cost £10 a copy plus £2.50 P&P if you buy it direct from me, and I’ll sign and personalise copies. And, while we’re talking about Quiet Houses, here’s the final cover
Quiet Houses
Other news: I got some good feedback on a story I submitted, and have rewritten it as a result of the editor’s comments. I can’t say much more about this, as I’ve been asked not to by the editor, but I’m excited about both the story and the anthology. I will say this, however: zombies. More news as I’m allowed to release it.
I think that’s about it. Back to your lives, lords and ladies, and let’s get those pre-orders rolling in!
SeventySeventh Time
A good week. Well, okay, a good fortnight or so since my last post, if you’re being picky. Still, better than the months-long gap I sometimes leave. You’ve got to admit, I’m getting better…
Right, so what’s been going on? Well, the most important thing is that Quiet Houses is completed! Completely! On Thursday of this week, I placed the acknowledgement and notes sections into the manuscript and then sent it all off to John Prescott, my handler at Dark Continents Publications. Julia, the editor from DCP, has done a great job is curtailing some of my longer sentences and pointing out my wilder grammatical inaccuracies, and I’m really, really pleased with the final text. All that remains is for John and me to have a discussion about the internal layout of the book, and then my work is genuinely done. After that, it’s just a case of talking Quiet Houses up, launching it, selling it, generating reviews and good word of mouth and it becoming a bestseller. Easy. Marvellous.
The other fun this this week was that I made my third appearance at Lancaster’s spoken word and music night, Spotlight. As ever, I struggled to find a story to fit into the fairly short time frame (15 minutes), as my best stuff is longer than that, and I don’t like doing sections but prefer instead to do full pieces. Also, I’m beginning to realise that what I consider my best written work is not necessarily the best spoken work: the stories that work best out loud tend to be the ones that I call my ‘twilight zone’ stories, less emotional horror and more pulpy. ‘N is for Noodle’ and ‘Borough Station’, both of which I consider to to be good but essentially slight, work really well as spoken pieces whereas something like Baking of Cakes I don’t think would work at all. It’s partly, I think, because reading the emotional stuff is hard and listening to it is harder: it’s slow, and internalised and not plot-driven, whereas the actions in the pulpier stories are quick, external and therefore have a better flow. They’re exciting. Interestingly, people laugh at key points in the stories, which I’d never realised they would do – it’s a good laugh, incidentally, one to break tension rather than because of any any unintentional comedy on my part. Well, I hope so, anyway… For this Spotlight, I decided on an older story, ‘Button’. I spent the week rewriting it to make it better for performance, adding and removing and generally buggering about with it, until I had it in a version I was happy with and that I felt I had the measure of, and on Friday night at about 9.45 I got up on stage and read it. Did it work? See for yourself!
If the link doesn’t work, go to Youtube and type in Simon Kurt Unsworth! While you’re there, check out the other performers from the night: the ace Norman Hadley, whose poetry tends to leave me wishing I could write that well, and the fab Mollie Baxter, who was airing some of her new songs, which are as superb as her old ones. There was also some great short poetry from Rowena Ward and performance poetry from Mihkel Hassan. Headline act were the grammy award nominated The Low Countries, and they were also excellent. Check it out, lords and ladies, you won’t be disappointed!
So, what next? Well, I’m getting back into the novel. I’ve reread what I’ve written so far and have tentatively started to add to it, and will be plotting and carrying on with the rest of it soon. I also have the additional stories for the Spectral Signature Edition to do, and will no doubt feel like writing some stories just for the hell of it. I’m wondering about another Spotlight appearance, have this year’s Halloween Cancer Research appearance to sort out and am going to look at trying to arrange other events in support of Quiet Houses‘ launch (including, possibly, one with Dave Jeffries, whose Young Adult collection Campfire Chillers is being released by DCP at the same time as Quiet Houses). Should be a busy, fun few months!
Right, that’s your lot. Back about your business, lords and ladies, and I’ll see you soon.
SeventySixth Time
More news on Quiet Houses! Here’s the full blurb for this forthcoming collection…:
“Quietly impressive, quietly ambitious and loudly terrifying.” – Gary McMahon
THE HOUSES ARE QUIET. IT IS THEIR RESIDENTS WHO ARE SCREAMING…
“No-one could be that unhappy and be alive…” A chambermaid’s seemingly innocent request is granted, an act of kindness that has dire consequences for a guest at THE ELMS, MORECAMBE…
“I wish I had been right; I wish that it had been a man, or death alone, that had found her…” An unearthly light in an abandoned bungalow resolves the mystery of a missing child, but no human force has taken her. An entity that fishes for children is in THE MERRY HOUSE, SCALE HALL..
“Go beyond the graves, and they will come to you.” An invitation to a clifftop graveyard leads to a harrowing chase by things that remain unseen, their hunger unknown and never satisfied, BEYOND ST PATRICK’S CHAPEL.
“The great delight in being part of the Save Our Shit crew was that sometimes they could persuade those designers of the present and the future to save or incorporate the past into their designs.” In THE OCEAN GRAND hotel, work is underway to upgrade the building but something is stalking the workers…
“Something white came out. Something white, screaming and screaming…” Jobs fit for heroes, they were promised after the Great War. They were given something else in THE TEMPLE OF RELIEF AND EASE.
There is a hidden agenda to paranormal researcher Richard Nakata’s investigations into these houses. A commission that witnesses cattle lowing in the cowsheds of STACK’S FARM long after they’ve been slaughtered, and a reckoning in the showhouse of 24 GLASSHOUSE, as he and his colleagues pay the price for creating their own ghost…
Simon Kurt Unsworth reinvents the classic English ghost story with a portmanteau collection that takes the haunted house genre and makes it scream…quietly.
Because the most terrifying screams are the silent ones.
“A major new talent in the horror genre.” – Pete Tennant
Quiet Houses flyer
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