2011 is over, and I was chuffed to get a copy of Kerrang's album of the year - Mastodon's "The Hunter" right at the death of the year, in HMV in Perth on the 31st December, and also chuffed to see that I had managed to pick up some of "Jazzwise" magazine's best albums of the year almost by accident, like ...
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Apart from a ghost story that's appeared in the latest issue of the Journal of the British Fantasy Society (and I'll say no more about that - no spoilers here), I was runner up in the Scotia Bar's Poet Laureate competition, sandwiched in between John Savage (in first place), and Ray Evans (in second place). As reigning short story laureate,or whatever I'm called, I couldn't quite do the double. Sadly, Read Rawers Wullie Purcell and GW Colkitto were not in the top three, but it was a very stro...
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The Winter 2011/12 issue of The BFS Journal has gone to press and should be with all contributors by Christmas. Its packed full of fiction and non-fiction, and might be my last issue as poetry editor - haven't heard to the contrary so fingers crossed
The contents are:
Ramsey's Rant - Ramsey CampbellThe Fi...
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What ghost? What armadillo? Well, I'm talking about the fantastic cover for "Unspoken Water 2" by Denny Marshall which is on sale now.
Great, isn't it? Go to the "Buy Online" page to get your copy now.
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Crikey, has it been that long since I've posted to my blog, so.....
ON THE POETRY FRONT
Sold a poem to "Star*Line"
And "Spidersilk and Spaceships"
Have two/three poems in the "Tannahill 200" anthology and will be taking part in it's follow-up launch events.
Took part in a couple of Scottish mental health week events.
Read at the Halloween West End Wurdz.
Shouldn't forget that my epic poem "The Fall of Tam Lin" was in the British Fantasy ...
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Jennifer Egan's novel "A Visit from the Goon Squad" won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction this year, and it's a book that is told in a series of inter-connected short stories. We start with Sasha who steals things, out on a date with Alex, and her tale shifts between that date and her sessions with her therapist. She works for Bennie's record label, and she features slightly in the next story when Bennie visits a g...
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I've been a member of the British Fantasy Society since the 1980s and this year is its fortieth anniversary and I'm delighted to have an epic fantasy poem called "The Fall of Tam Lin" in a special anthology called "Full Fathon Forty" edited by Chairperson David J. Howe which features "works by members and friends of the Society past and present. Here you will find angels and vampires, w...
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This, taken at the graveyard at the Dalzell Estate in Motherwell.
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Caught a double-bill at the Glasgow Jazz Festival last night.
First up was NeWt "a hyper-imaginative and unconventional jazz trio formed by Australian trombonist Chris Greive, Aberdonian guitarist Graeme Stephens and American drummer Chris Wallace." Sadly, they had just missed out on a Scottish Jazz award for best group, but Stephens picked one u...
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Spooky, or what? But on the flight down to London from Edinburgh, there I was sitting reading the latest issue of "Black Static" (only the greatest horror magazine in the world), and in particular Peter Tennant's "Case Notes" which had a feature on Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" and several books that it has spawned recently, when a woman sits down beside me and she's reading Kim Newman's "Anno Dracula", arguably the best of the featured bunch, although Reggie Oliver's "The Dracula Papers" (wh...
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Yes, over here, some possible words of wisdom about writing, and the like from yours truly. Make sure if you visit to read the previous guest bloggers and read the ones in days ahead, there's some good advice in there....
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"Kerrang!" is seemingly the noise guitar strings make when strummed in a heavy metal fashion. Whatever that is, you can work out for yourself, but it was 30 years ago today that the first issue of Kerrang appeared, and it's one of the few magazines that I subscribe too, although I probably only read the reviews, gig reviews, and certain features, and almost all of the posters end up in Sophie's room especially if they are ones of "Evanescence", "Green Day", "Bullet for My Valentine", "Paramor...
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You can never keep up with what the members of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers Circle are doing, but I'm glad to steer you in the direction of Hal Duncan's "A to Z of the Fantastic City", which is coming out from Small Beer Press which publishes the likes of Poppy Z.Brite, and Scottish writer, Alasdair Gray (that's his drawing of me on the home page from back in the day (BC...
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Our darling boy, Alexander, is 18 years old today, in fact he was born about 6.23am eighteen years ago after a long and difficult labour. He was due to be born on the 1st, and appeared two weeks late; and funnily enough, his little sister Sophie was due on the 1st a few years later, and she also appeared two weeks late, must be a family thing. I'd never ...
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These people are busy, busy, busy.
Courtesy of Jim Steel, Circle member and book editor for Britain's premier science fiction magazine, "Interzone", we have details about ...
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Just turned in nine reviews to Jan Edwards for the British Fantasy Society and one to Craig Lockley. That's on top of some other reviews I've also handed in to Jan as well. The "one" to Craig was for Cardinal Cox's great little poetry pamphlet "A Sack of Midnight: Leaves from the Mabinogion" inspired by the collected ancient Welsh folk tales, search it out if you can. Great poems, and great illustrations, just don't get me started on the cover.
Also reviewing this, for "Interzone":...
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Yes, just like it says on the label, I won the first Scotia Short Story competition after taking part in the last of the four heats - which, according to the judges was one of the toughest ones. I read my story "The Cutting Edge of Art" which is a darkly humourous piece about a desperate artist who resorts to "Stalker Art - a creative invasion of privacy" as his next big project and makes someone's life hell in the process. I've read it before at WordDogs (Glasgow's semi-regular spoken word e...
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Just to say thanks to everyone for the deluge of poems, stories and artwork for the first issue of "Unspoken Water". I'm wading through submissions as quickly as I can manage - honest.
The submission period closed on the 31st March, and will be reopening on 1st July....
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Due to some technical difficulties - as they say in the trade - the website has been down for a while, but we're back, minus some "stuff", so I'll be doing a catch up on the blog and Vaults pages, watch these spaces....
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