Tag Archives: geoff holder

In which the author talks vampires in Manchester and travels in the duophobic lift…

 

This weekend past I was speaking at the Manchester Monster Convention, which was a blast. My talk dealt with two so-called ‘real life’ vampire cases, while other speakers and authors covered the waterfront in terms of werewolves, psychopaths, dragons, cryptids, zombies, and, uh, Japanese zombie whales. We watched clips from the forthcoming Yorkshire-based zombie horror film Before Dawn, and stayed deep into the night to take in a brilliant triple bill of Island of Lost Souls (1932, with Charles Laughton as Dr Moreau, and Bela Lugosi as the half-man Sayer of the Law – wooo!), The Whisperer in the Darkness (a top-notch adaptation of a Lovecraft story by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society) and Reel Zombies (in which a bunch of Z-grade filmmakers craft a rubbish zombie movie during an actual zombie apocalypse). Many thanks to Hannah, Linda, Linda and Rob for the invite and the hospitality.

 

There was however a bizarre episode at the venue. Delegates and speakers alike would venture into one of the lifts – and not be seen for many minutes afterwards, making talks start late and overrun. The reason? The main convention venue was on the second floor, but if you pressed the button for that level, the lift would take you to the third floor (while sneakily telling you were on the second floor). Subsequent attempts to return to floor 2 resulted in the lift ascending to the sixth floor (indicated as the fifth floor) before jostling between floors, including the basement. As a consequence people found themselves wandering around random corridors in the Hotel of Lost Souls…

 

 

The lift only had a problem if the first button to be pressed was for floor 2, so the malign intelligence that controlled it was clearly duophobic…

 
 

In which the author heads to the far south – Manchester…

 

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!

 
 

In which the author guests on Lakeland Radio…

 

On Tuesday 10th April I’m the guest on the Dan Beale show on Lakeland Radio, the commercial radio station for South Lakeland. I’ll be wittering on about Paranormal Cumbria, Bownessie, and the Victorian mystery of how Lady Mabel Howard located some stolen jewellery using the divination technique known as automatic writing. And there’s a competition to win free copies of Paranormal Cumbria.

 

Lakeland Radio is at 101.1 and 101.8FM. The interview goes out at 11.10am and can be listened to again for a week or so via http://lakelandradio.co.uk/presenter/dan-beale/.

 
 

In which the author writes for The Author…

 

The Spring issue of The Author, the quarterly magazine of the Society of Authors, features an article I wrote on how writers can get the best out of giving talks and presentations. And speaking of such, my thanks go out to the staff of North Ayrshire Libraries for inviting me to give an illustrated talk at the North Ayrshire Heritage Centre in Saltcoats on Thursday 22 March.

 

As the talk was on the subject of Scottish Bodysnatching, and as the venue is a former church, I delivered the first part of talk in the graveyard, giving the audience a quick lesson in grave-robbing, nineteenth-century style. This involved audience participation (well, someone had to be the corpse), a theme that continued back inside, where three audience members enthusiastically took on the roles of bodysnatchers.

 
 

In which the author visits the Ghost Club and meets some mummies…

On Saturday 17th March I was in London, the guest of the Ghost Club. My thanks to Alan Murdie and Philip Hutchinson for honouring me with an invitation, and for providing an exemplary example of a well-organised and hospitable event. The capacity audience tolerated my antics and rants about the Jacobites and the Supernatural with good grace, and a fine time was had by all.

 

 

 

On the way to the talk I popped into the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road, which has now barged into my list of favourite museums. The permanent Medicine man‘ contains such gems as

 

disease demons

amulets and headdresses made of human bone

skeletons of silver

votive phalli

a painting of William Price (the ‘druid’ of Llantrisant)

a piece of philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s dissected skin

several tattoos removed from dead bodies

Charles Darwin’s skull-topped walking stick

and a complete Peruvian mummy, huddled in the foetal position.

 

Entry into this enchanting modern day Cabinet of Curiosities is free. If you’re in the area, you really should visit.

In which the author gives a talk on bodysnatching – in a graveyard…

 

On Thursday 22 March I’m at the North Ayrshire Heritage Centre in Saltcoats giving a talk on Scottish Bodysnatchers.

 

The venue, formerly the North Ayrshire Museum, is housed in an eighteenth century church, so the first few minutes of the talk – how to rob a grave, bodysnatcher-style, will start in the graveyard itself. Then we’ll relocate to the comfort of the museum for the illustrated talk on bodysnatching across Scotland in general, with many Ayrshire examples.

 

The event is FREE and starts at 7pm. Call 01294 464174 to reserve a seat.

 

North Ayrshire Heritage Centre, Manse Street, Saltcoats KA21 5AA. Map here.