Tag Archives: scotland

In which the Author proofs his next book: Bloody British History…

Bloody British History is my next non-fiction book for The History Press. It deals exclusively with the sanguinary

moments in British history, from prehistoric cannibals and the reality of  Iron Age warfare to First World War

Zeppelin raids and the Gestapo’s detailed plans for ‘rationalising’ an occupied Britain in 1940.

Along the way you will encounter bloody massacres, revolting peasants, battles at sea and on land, foul murders,

royal executions, piracy in the English Channel, and a multitude of inventive punishments. There are also

explorations of the tactics of Roman Special Forces, how to boil people to death, and a medieval case of sex, lies and witchcraft.

William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, Mary, Queen of Scots and the seven putative assassins of Queen

Victoria all get a look-in as well. Other episodes instruct you how to use medieval chemical weapons to blind your opponents, why the Wars of the Roses were like the longest football match ever, and the use of cheese as an

instrument of torture.

Yes, cheese.

One of the key moments between an author delivering the manuscript and the book actually being published is the revising of the proofs. These are the pages of the book printed out on double-sided A3 pages. The author combs

through the proofs, correcting any typos, formatting errors, incorrect image captions and so on. I’ve just completed this stage, and it’s a pleasure to see my prose matched with full-colour images on every page – not to mention

liberal splashes of graphic designer gore.

Here’s a preview of the cover, which may change a little between now and publication. Bloody British History will

be published in September. Bloody History of Britain cover

And so: there shall be blood.

In which the Author takes part in the Creative Process Blog Tour…

The Creative Process Blog Tour

My thanks to Hilary McGrath for nominating me for this round of the Creative Process Blog Tour, where writers get to answer four questions and whitter on about their innermost creative processes.

Note: every word below is the absolute unvarnished truth.

Except for the lies.

What am I working on?

1) VAMPIRES. 

I’m sending my completed iconoclastic vampire novel Palefaces out to literary agents. The tagline:

Cops – vampires – vampire cops.

There will, almost certainly, be some blood.

 

There will, almost certainly, be some rejections.

the vampire

2) CRIME. 

I’m half way through the writing of Sex, Lies and Croissants, a softboiled crime novel set in southwest France,

featuring a handsome but irredeemably grumpy British detective mixed up with porn stars, religious maniacs and

drunk Frenchmen with guns. First in a series, if the gods be kind.

3796019-gun-and-blood-splatter-murder-scene 5875090-fresh-croissants

3) BLOODY HISTORY. 

I’m working through the proofs for The Bloody History of Britain, which will be published by The History Press in September. This will be my 31st non-fiction book. Expect:

Cannibals from the Dawn of Time

Anarchy in the UK (12th century style)

Pirate Monks

The Six Executions of Henry VIII

Plus Norman genocide, Nazis, Zeppelins, Jacobites, and a surfeit of lampreys.

All this and murders, torture, massacres, punishments, castrations and executions galore. You’ve got to laugh,

haven’t you?

16833yovdsxdqbr

4) SEX.

 I’m using allure, coquetry and a packet of powerful pheromones in the hope of attracting agents or publishers to a non-fiction book on some of the stranger but universal aspects of sex and sexual culture.

 

5) SHERBERT LEMONS.

Notes are being made and ideas corralled for a YA fantasy involving cryptozoology, time travel and sherbert

lemons. There may also be a fantasy/high-tech film screenplay incarcerated in the oubliette.

Book Collage for Site

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My natural tendency when I am writing is to upset the apple cart of expectations.

When writing about vampires, I want to destroy the entire accepted vampiric mythology and create a completely

new take on their origins, behaviour and sexuality.

If I’m setting a crime novel in rural Gascony – beloved by Terry Wogan and other Brits – my hero has to loathe

other expats and everything they stand for.

In The Bloody History of Britain I avoid the clichés of history and tell stories from the shadows: how Scotland

invented the concentration camp, the reason the Wars of the Roses were like a football match, and why King John was marginally better than that narcissistic psychopath Richard the Lionheart.

My ghost books are sceptical about ghosts. My paranormal books interrogate the paranormal rather than just

going ‘Woooh!’ Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, it is my pleasure to tamper with accepted ideas and default genre preoccupations. Punk iconoclasm, that’s what we need.

 Zombie-Geoff_MONOThe Guide to Mysterious PerthshirePoltergeist Over Scotland

Why do I write what I do?

I wrote my very first book, The Guide to Mysterious Perthshire, because I was living in Perthshire and it was

something I wanted to read – but there was simply nothing like it on the market. I write non-fiction on the weird and the strange because of a longstanding conviction that the world is weirder and stranger than most people think,

and that some of the data gathered may actually lead, one day, to a paradigm change.

And I write fiction because it is a socially acceptable way to kill people.

Zombie workshop the Arches Glasgow 30 Jan 2012 18-61

How does my writing process work?

I don’t actually have any ideas myself. I pay a subscription to an ideas-generating company based in the Cayman

Islands and they send me ten creative suggestions a month.

 

Who I nominate next…

I now pass the baton to those fine individuals and writers Kirstie Swain and Moore & Reppion. Good luck, chaps.

In which the Author has a bodysnatching review on the Spooky Isles site…

That fine institution the Spooky Isles website has just upped a nice review of my book

Scottish Bodysnatchers: A Gazetteerscribed by Fortean writer Mandy Jane Steel Collins. You can indulge your

eyeballs at the Spooky Isles site here, while the book can be reached here, and I’ve a video trailer here.

Scottish Bodysnatchers came out a couple of years ago so perhaps it’s worth a brief recap. It aims to provide a

comprehensive guide to every physical remnant of the bodysnatching era in Scotland, from mortsafes and

morthouses to watch towers and other protection devices. It tells you where to find these relics (whether in

graveyards, churches or museums), and what to look for. Many of the sites are obscure, hidden, long-forgotten or have not previously been written about. Yes, the fieldwork research was fun…

In addition, there are anecdotes and news stories from the bodysnatching era, some of which may be early

versions of urban legends. Burke and Hare of course make an appearance, but bear in mind that they were serial killers, not bodysnatchers, their murders being driven by greed for the cash being offered for fresh corpses.

Scottish Bodysnatchers - A Gazetteer

The book covers not only the well-trodden bodysnatching paths of Edinburgh and Glasgow, but sites across the

country, from Aberdeenshire and the Highlands to the Scottish Borders, Ayrshire, Perthshire, Fife, Dundee and

Stirling. Given that there really isn’t any similar book out there, a number of readers have written to me describing how useful the book is for those interested in hunting out bodysnatching sites in their area – “well-thumbed” is a

typical comment. “An invaluable reference work” was another.

Happy to be of service, fellow bodysnatching fans. And remember to wash the dirt from your hands before

handling food…

In which the Author is the guest of the Scottish Society for Psychical Research…

This Saturday (9th November) I’m talking at the National Conference of the Scottish Society for Psychical Research (SSPR), a fine institution if ever there was.

The day long event promises to be a belter, with talks including:

Anthony Peake ‘Cheating the Ferryman: A New Blueprint for Post Mortem Survival’

P.G. Maxwell-Stuart ‘Poltergeists and Witches: Unruly Sisters’

Brian Allan ‘The Dark Messiah: Magick, Gnosis and Religion’

And a guest panel featuring Joan Charles.

As for your humble author, he’ll be waffling on about ‘Sex, Lies and Paranormal Glasgow’ – expect the usual coalescence of vampires, poltergeists, zombies and scepticism. Plus sex and lies of course.

sspr copy

The event is at the Hilton Glasgow Grosvenor Hotel in Glasgow’s West End, and runs from 10am to 5pm. Tickets and more details here.

In which the Author digs up some bodysnatchers at Scone Palace (and gets filmed by le French TV)…

TALK: ‘THE BODYSNATCHERS OF SCONE (plus the puma, the witch and the severed head)’

On Saturday 26th & Sunday 27th I’m talking about bodysnatchers at Scone Palace near Perth, as part of the palace’s ‘Spooky Halloween’ Weekend. Both talks start at 1pm and will include a question and answer session and book signing.

Bodysnatchers CVR

On the Saturday a TV crew from TF1, the French equivalent of BBC1, will film both the talk and me mooching about in the nearby Old Scone graveyard, talking more about bodysnatching. They’re filming a ‘Halloween in Scotland’ special for the early evening magazine show ‘50 MInutes Inside‘, to be broadcast on 2 November.

Here’s the press release for the Scone Palace event:

“Renowned Perthshire author Geoff Holder is set to bring a chill to the spine of visitors to Scone Palace, with a special illustrated talk during this year’s Spooky Hallowe’en Weekend, from 26th to 27th October.

In 1820, under the darkness of a winter’s night, a group of bodysnatchers sneaked into Scone churchyard and dug up a corpse, a corpse that they would later sell for a good price. Unfortunately for them, the body had belonged in life to a much-loved 80- year-old retainer at Scone Palace. The Earl of Mansfield was not best pleased, and went on the warpath…

Join Geoff as he delves into the dark world of the Resurrectionists, the strange collaboration of hardened criminals and respectable medical men who broke into coffins and stole bodies for the dissecting tables of the anatomists. What happened to the Scone corpse? Which Perth doctor was a member of the gang? And why did one of the bodysnatchers end up in South America?

And if such skulduggery wasn’t enough, this unique talk also covers other historical mysteries of Scone  – sightings of big cats, the Scone witch and her black book, and the enigma of the missing preserved head of a saint.

Talks will be held daily at 1.00pm in our Murray Room Suite here at Scone Palace.

Tickets are £10.00 per person including Grounds Admission. Places are limited and we adivise early booking to avoid disappointment.

To book your place, please call 01738 552300.”

Scone palace

 

In which the Author talks bodysnatching in Dundee’s ‘Courier’ newspaper…

On Monday 21st October the “Life Matters’ section of The Courier  featured some beardy bloke holding a sheep

skull and grinning inanely. Oh wait, that was me….

The piece by Caroline Lindsay comes a few days before I’m giving two talks on ‘Bodysnatching in Scone’ at Scone Palace. AND, people, goodness me there are strange things afoot, for during the Saturday talk I’ll be filmed by a

crew from TF1, the French equivalent of BBC1, for a ‘Halloween in Scotland’ special. Come along and you too

could be on le French telly…

027CE2110COAThe talks, which are suitable for over 16s, will take place at 1pm on 26th and 27th October, in the Murray Suite at Scone Palace. Tickets, which cost £10 per person and also include grounds admission, must be pre-booked by

telephoning 01738 552300 or emailing visits@scone-palace.co.uk. The full range of Spooky Hallowe’en Weekend events can be found at www.scone-palace.co.uk

Venue: Scone Palace, Scone, Perth PH2 6BD.