The nice people at bookreel.tv have just published an interview with the humble author, which can be found in all its rambling glory at
During the interview I manage to mention Dracula, dogs, dinosaurs, zombies, plague, J.G. Ballard, poltergeists, graphic novels, bodysnatching, music and H.P. Lovecraft. So all the usual suspects are present and correct, then.
A few days ago I wrote that an essay I had written was selected for the shortlist of the prestigious THRESHOLDS International Feature Writing Competition, run by the University of Chichester, ‘home of the international short story forum’.
Today (Wednesday 25 April 2012) the winner was announced.
Me.
Crikey.
The winning essay, ‘We Recommend: H.P. Lovecraft’ can be found on the THRESHOLDS site, http://blogs.chi.ac.uk/shortstoryforum/?p=9723.
Comments from the judging panel: ‘an instantly engaging essay’; ‘sharp, rigorous but highly readable’; ‘exquisitely polished’; ‘rich in its use of language’; ‘wonderfully wry and stylish’; ‘expert, nuanced, energetic’; ‘I’ve never been particularly interested in Lovecraft but I certainly am now’.
What has Manchester ever given us? Well, let’s see, there’s Joy Division, and New Order, and the Happy Mondays, and the Chameleons, and the Durutti Column, and John Cooper Clarke, and Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, and Magazine, and Doves, and the Smiths, and Frank Sidebottom, and the Passage, and the mighty Fall, and the mightier Van der Graaf Generator…
But apart from some of the greatest musical artists of our epoch, what else has Manchester given us?
Well, how about the Manchester Monster Convention? Two days of talks, films and discussions, featuring, inter alia, Doctor Who, zombies, cryptozoology, horror fiction, graphic novelists, an H. P. Lovecraft movie, serial killers – and yours truly.
The MancMonCon is the brainchild of an organisation called Hic Dragones, which is Latin for that most famous of descriptions on ancient maps, ‘Here Be Dragons’. Good name, good name.
The Convention is at the Sachas Hotel, near the Arndale Centre in central Manchester, on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th April. Tickets are a measly £10, and on the Saturday I’ll be ranting on about ‘Tales from the Crypt – Two “Real-Life” Vampire Cases’, with a book signing for Paranormal Cumbria to follow. I’m still trying to work out a way of smuggling a Fall/Mark E. Smith joke into the talk….#
Full event information can be found on the event information page!