Tag Archives: vampires

In which the Author writes his 36th book, guests on Stage 32, and aims for movies & graphic novels…

The site was down for a while recently, but now the internet elves have been fed and all is well. Apologies for the

communication breakdown.

In the interim, there have been a few developments here at Holder Towers.

Firstly I had a guest blog on the splendid film & TV website Stage 32, discussing writing scripts for corporate videos. My thanks to RB, Shannon and Andre at Stage 32 for facilitating this, and to all those who responded to the blog

and their kind comments.

Then I delivered the manuscript for my 36th non-fiction book, another on weird history. Further news on the

publication of this series later in the year.

I’m also delighted to announce that I’m collaborating with a talented illustrator on a vampire-themed bande dessinée (graphic novel). Once the 5-page sample is honed to perfection we’ll be pitching it to French BD publishers.

While all this is happening I’m continuing with the ProSeries screenwriting course at ScreenwritingU, which is superb. I’m slightly in awe of some of my fellow students and their abilities. Me, I’m working on a supernatural western

feature script for the course. I’m also taking a class on writing horror films with a Hollywood producer, which is the

bees’ knees. And I’m writing an entry for the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest.

So, movies, graphic novels, weird history – exciting times ahead, girls and boys.

In which the Author embarks on a Halloween ‘tour’ of Scotland…

This Halloween I’m giving a series of talks on spooky subjects at various places in Scotland. Zombies, poltergeists, vampires, witchcraft – there’s something for everyone.

1. SUBJECT: SUPERNATURAL SCOTLAND

WHEN: Tuesday 28th October, 7pm

WHERE: ABERFELDY – Breadalbane Campus, Aberfeldy, Perth & Kinross PH15 2DU

DETAILS: A medieval monk describes an outbreak of zombies in the Scottish Borders.  A poltergeist case in

Edinburgh ends up in court. The Maggie Wall Witchcraft Monument in Perthshire is a complex fake. A ghost

sighting in Dundee provokes a mini-riot. And hundreds of Glasgow schoolchildren invade a graveyard hunting a

vampire with iron teeth. Based on meticulous original research, prolific author (and highly entertaining speaker) in

this Halloween special Geoff Holder reveals some of the historical and modern mysteries of the Scottish

paranormal experience. Welcome to Supernatural Scotland. It’s stranger than you can imagine.

COST: £5

MORE INFO: http://www.pkc.gov.uk/article/9844/Supernatural-Scotland-with-Geoff-Holder

 

2. SUBJECT: ZOMBIES FROM HISTORY

WHEN: Thursday 30th October, 7.30pm

WHERE: EDINBURGH – Skeptics in the Pub, Banshee Labyrinth, 29-35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG (just off the Royal Mile).

DETAILS: It’s the night of the living dead… Zombie culture didn’t start with George Romero. Here be medieval

chroniclers’ sworn-to-be-true tales of the plague-spreading undead, including the pugilistic zombie of Paisley and

the zombie monk of the Scottish Borders; archeological evidence from graveyards of Anglo-Saxon and Romano-

British fear of the walking dead; several ‘Ladies with the Ring’, all supposedly revived in the grave by jewel-stealing gravediggers; the men who were hanged and buried – and then revived; the Cumbrian Crusader whose corpse

was still bleeding 800 years after his death; and the ancient bog body that accidentally solved a modern murder

mystery.

Warning: contains corpses.

COST: FREE

MORE INFO: here 

 

3. SUBJECT: SEX, LIES AND POLTERGEISTS! at the FIRST EVER SCOTTISH PARANORMAL FESTIVAL

WHEN: FRIDAY 31ST OCTOBER, 3.30PM

WHERE: Albert Halls, Albert Place, Dumbarton Road, Stirling FK9 4LA

DETAILS: Activity which has baffled paranormal investigators for centuries. Focusing on Scotland, Geoff will

discuss the earliest recorded Scottish poltergeist, a witchcraft episode from Stirling, and an Aberdeenshire

example kickstarted by young lust.

A canvas of commonsense-defying mysteries that stretches from the year 1635 to the present day.

COST: £5

MORE INFO: http://www.paranormalscotland.com/presentations/geoff-holder-sex-lies-and-poltergeists/

 

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?

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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 gives a creative writing class…

The third in the ongoing monthly series of creative writing classes here in SW France will take place on Saturday

24 May, at Nogaro in the département of the Gers.

The full-day course will be on the subject of ‘writing the plot’ and is aimed at all writers and novelists, whether

you’re just starting out or have almost finished your novel.

We have people coming from the neighbouring départements of the Landes and Haute-Garonne, as well as from

various other parts of the Gers/Gascony. There are still a few places available.

The details: 10am-4pm with a break for lunch. The fee is €20. To book or to enquire further send me a message

via the electric internet on geoffholder1@mac.com.

I’ve just finished a vampire novel, where you can solve all kinds of plot problems with a bit of biting and

bloodsucking: I’m conscious, however, that this may not entirely work for writers of chicklit or police procedurals,

so I’ll have to rein myself in. Oh well.

WRITING CLASS 3

In which the Author writes a vampire novel…

After writing dozens of non-fiction books on mysteries, witchcraft, zombies, ghosts, poltergeists, murders,

bodysnatching and other gleeful subjects, I’ve finally finished my first novel.

It’s a vampire novel, which will perhaps surprise no one given my genre tastes, but in addition to featuring serial

killers, explosions, bodily naughtiness, and jokes about Jimi Hendrix, it is also an alternative history.

Basically, I’m attempting to do nothing less than replace the current standard vampire mythology with an entirely

new one based around evolutionary biology and cutting-edge archaeological thinking.

I know, modesty has always been one of my greater faults.

Now that the novel is finished, the real hard work begins: trying to find a publisher or agent. Despite having written 31 non-fiction books, when it comes to getting a first novel published I’m back on the starting block.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

In which the Author is interviewed on The Spooky Isles…

 

That splendid website The Spooky Isles is currently carrying an interview with the humble author, conducted by MJ Steel Collins. Amidst the waffling, poltergeists, vampires, dinosaurs and the Maggie

Wall Witchcraft Monument all get a look-in, as do H.P. Lovecraft, Aleister Crowley and the late great John Peel.

 

Have a gander here: http://www.spookyisles.com/2013/07/geoff-holder-paranormal-author-interview/