“The Croglin Vampire: England’s Earliest Vampire Legend?” is published by Withnail Books. It contains my detailed research into the deep background of the supposed vampire.
The story is that in the 19th century a vampire was active in the small village of Croglin, in Cumbria. Over the years the narrative developed and grew, depending on who was telling the story, until now the vampire is an established part of British supernatural folklore.
I investigated the legend’s various twists and turns for my non-fiction book “Paranormal Cumbria” in 2012 (spoiler alert: there never was a vampire). Withnail Books reprinted that chapter with permission in the chapbook, adding a number of fantastic illustrations, both historical and contemporary.
Sadly you can no longer order the 40-page chapbook, as it sold out in just two days. But you can read about it on their website, https://lnkd.in/eqV4HXib
And if you are ever in Penrith, it’s a great bookshop. Uncle Monty says so!
Tag Archives: vampires
VRYKOLAX folk-horror script wins Special Prize at Tallinn
My folk-horror screenplay VRYKOLAX was selected for development by the European Genre Forum. After workshops in Zagreb, Amsterdam and Tallinn, it was pitched at the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, where it won the Special Mention Prize. It’s now being pitched further afield.
VRYKOLAX tells the story of a troubled British artist who tries to find the truth about his family on a remote Mediterranean island, where the locals are in fear of a Vrykolax, a revenant from Greek folklore which returns from the dead to wreak havoc on its relatives. The Vrykolax or Vrykolakis is in some ways similar to the more familiar vampire, although reports predate the Slavic vampire by several centuries.
The script is co-written with the film’s director, Achilleas Gatsopoulos. The producers are Minos Nikolakakis and Vassilis Economou.
If you are a potential investor and would like to know more, a pitchdeck is available. Please get in touch here.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
