Author News: The Delight of Boxes

It is with great pleasure that we announce that “The Delight of Boxes” is now available in paperback: post-apocalyptic fiction with an unreliable narrator, exploring themes of family, truth and trust.  This week only (18th to 25th April), you can enter our GoodReads giveaway here for a chance to win a free copy!

You can also check out his previous collections for tales of love, hope and betrayal, from fractured fairy tales to unexpected superheroes. What will you discover?

Author News: Who Killed All the Radio Stars?

This was originally posted on the Transmundane Press blog for the anthology “After the Happily Ever After”, published December 2016

We’ve been reading a lot about the curse of 2016. As writers, we’re in the causality business. Those of us who write horror are wise to exploit superstition in all its forms. Just how solid is our grasp of cause and effect, and is it all we need to succeed?

Author News: A Grace Given in Sorrow – Stories as Soulcraft with Edward Cooke

This was originally posted on the Transmundane Press blog for the anthology “After the Happily Ever After”, published December 2016

Bruno Bettelheim has had a bad press. He’s been pilloried for extending the influence of nurture much further than we’re comfortable with. He was even so unfashionable as to believe we could all be nurtured by exposure to stories. In The Uses of Enchantment he puts it like this:

“Explaining to a child why a fairy tale is so captivating… destroys… the story’s enchantment. Adult interpretations rob the child of the opportunity… through repeated hearing and ruminating about the story, to cope successfully with a difficult situation. We grow, we find meaning in life and security in ourselves, by having understood and solved personal problems on our own, not by having them explained to us by others.”

A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls is probably my top film of this year: beautifully made and heartrendingly emotional. Both the film and the original book were written by Patrick Ness and the film opened in cinemas last week.

The story revolves around Conor, a 13 year old boy trying to cope with his mother’s cancer as she tries one treatment after another. He is plagued by a recurring nightmare where a huge sinkhole opens up and almost swallows both him and his mother if only he holds tightly to her.

Short Stories With a Twist: Arcana by Edward Cooke

Opening this week’s theme is Arcana, a collection of 21 short stories by Edward Cooke, which you can read on your Kindle or computer for just £2! These are stories to make you think, and my favourite has to be “Insulating Roll”, which takes a wry look at sustainable living…