12/27/2024

Favourite Short Stories 2024

2024 - quite a year, huh? But it means it's time for my annual favourite short stories of the year post. Same 'rules' as before (you can find links to lists from previous years here). For each story, I've linked to the publication where I read the story, which isn't always where they were first published. Enjoy!


J.G. Ballard: Memories Of The Space Age (The Penguin Book Of Modern British Short Stories, Penguin)
James Bennett: The Apostle (The Dark #113)
Elizabeth Bowen: The Demon Lover (here)
Sasha Brown: This Party Fucking Sucks (Sans. Press website)
A.M. Burrage: Smee (Moon Mausoleum site)
Daniel Carpenter: Habitual (For Tomorrow, Black Shuck Books)
Vivian Chu: Perfect Vaca, No Filter (Flash Fiction Online)
Dan Coxon: Bumblethatch (Come Sing For The Harrowing, Weird Little Worlds)
Dan Coxon: Vile Jelly (Come Sing For The Harrowing, Weird Little Worlds)
Ray Cluley: As I Want You To Be (For Tomorrow, Black Shuck Books)
Malcolm Devlin & Helen Marshall: Finger & Palm (For Tomorrow, Black Shuck Books)
Kayleigh Dobbs: Omega (The End, Black Shuck Books)
Kayleigh Dobbs: Catch Fire (The End, Black Shuck Books)
Steve Duffy: Screen Burn (Supernatural Tales #53)
Steve Duffy: Home For Christmas (Supernatural Tales #54)
Corinne Engber: Satellite Office (Stranger, Sans. Press)
Kim Fu: Bridezilla (Oprah Daily)
J.L. George: Star Jelly (Mouthfeel Fiction #2)
Adam Golaski: Refridgerator-drone (Stone Gods, No Press)
Adam Golaski: Open Houses (Stone Gods, No Press)
Adam Golaski: The Great Blind God Passed Through Us (Stone Gods, No Press)
Helen Grant: Nabrok (Supernatural Tales #54)
Ivy Grimes: The Food Fellow (Ivy Grimes' Grime Time, Tales From Between)
Ivy Grimes: Picturing Her Hands (Ivy Grimes' Grime Time, Tales From Between)
Ivy Grimes: Shadow Dress (Cover)
Lucie McKnight Hardy: Carrion (For Tomorrow, Black Shuck Books)
David Hartley: Anama (Stranger, Sans. Press)
Philippa HollowaySubject Matter (Uncertainties 7, Swan River Press)
Dan Howarth: Minutes Of The AGM (Bleakwood podcast)
Ted Hughes: The Rain Horse (The Penguin Book Of Modern British Short Stories, Penguin)
Kazuo Ishiguro: A Family Supper (The Penguin Book Of Modern British Short Stories, Penguin)
Shirley Jackson: Nightmare (Just An Ordinary Day, Penguin)
Shirley Jackson: The Story We Used To Tell (Just An Ordinary Day, Penguin)
Shirley Jackson: Mrs Melville Makes A Purchase (Just An Ordinary Day, Penguin)
Shirley Jackson: One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts (Just An Ordinary Day, Penguin)
Timothy J. Jarvis: A Copy Of A Copy Is Like A Memory Deteriorating (Carmen Et Error #9.5)
Michael Kelly: The Night Will Let In (The Dark #114)
Oliviah Lawrence: Pickles (Roi Faineant Press)
Alison Littlewood: The Operculum Necklace (The Dark #111)
Roger Luckhurst: You (Supernatural Tales #56)
Rachel Abbey McCafferty: I Start My Day By Reading An Article About Climate Change (Maudlin House)
Ian McEwan: Solid Geometries (First Love, Last RitesPicador)
Katie McIvor: Once There Was Water (The Dark #111)
Gary McMahon: All The Things We Never Said (Weird Horror #8, Undertow)
Gary McMahon: A Sitting Tennant (Strange Little Stories newsletter)
James Machin: The Borges Society (Supernatural Tales #53)
Tim Major: Ends Abruptly (Uncertainties 7, Swan River Press)
Laura Mauro: In The Kingdom Of Flowers (author's website)
Laura Mauro: Wiremother (The Dark #112)
Alison Moore: Rigor (Weird Horror #8, Undertow)
Mark Morris: Sad Face (Uncertainties 7, Swan River Press)
Lauren Mulvihill: Myself And I Alone (Stranger, Sans. Press)
Diana Olney: Underworld Essentials (Small Wonders)
Sara Omer: The Sea-Change (The Dark #109)
Eva Papasoulioto: In Blue Light (Uncanny #57)
Carl Rosenberg: The Good Old Days (Uncertainties 7, Swan River Press)
Sarah Royston: Long Player (Fernseed, The Brag)
Sarah Royston: The Well At The End Of The World (Fernseed, The Brag)
Martin Ruff: Braunhoffer's Coaches (Supernatural Tales #56)
Salman Rushdie: The Prophet's Hair (The Penguin Book Of Modern British Short Stories, Penguin)
Steve Shell: What Would You Do With This Room? (Twitter)
Robert Shearman: Lo! He Abhors Not The Virgin's Womb (We All Hear Stories In The Dark, PS Publishing)
Clive Sinclair: Bedbugs (The Penguin Book Of Modern British Short Stories, Penguin)
Phil Sloman: Fourteen (author's website)
Michael Marshall Smith: The Handover (The Best Of Michael Marshall Smith, Subterranean Press)
Michael Marshall Smith: The Gist (The Best Of Michael Marshall Smith, Subterranean Press)
Michael Marshall Smith: They Also Serve (The Best Of Michael Marshall Smith, Subterranean Press)
Michael Marshall Smith: Author Of The Death (The Best Of Michael Marshall Smith, Subterranean Press)
Muriel Spark: The House Of The Famous Poet (The Penguin Book Of Modern British Short Stories, Penguin)
Ashley Stokes: The Crumbling Edifice (For Tomorrow, Black Shuck Books)
C.J. Subko: Any Good Surface (Small Wonders)
Graham Swift: Seraglio (The Penguin Book Of Modern British Short Stories, Penguin)
Tia Tashiro: Mirage In Double Vision (Uncanny #58)
Jeffrey Thomas: Still Life With Extinct Animals (The Offspring Of Nightmares)
Jeffrey Thomas: He Shall Put On The Semblance Of Man (The Offspring Of Nightmares)
Mary Thorson: Lockerbie, 1988 (Cotton Xenomorph)
Mary Thorson: American Girl Doll (Reckon Review)
Steve Toase: The Ercildoun Accord (Dirt Upon My Skin, Black Shuck Books)
Steve Toase: Traverse (Dirt Upon My Skin, Black Shuck Books)
Steve Toase: Breach! (Dirt Upon My Skin, Black Shuck Books)
Molly Wadkins: I And Myself (Spillwords Press site)
Rebecca Weinert: Rent (Stranger, Sans. Press)
Neil Williamson: Bunting (The Dark #113)
Angus Wilson: More Friend Than Lodger (The Penguin Book Of Modern British Short Stories, Penguin)



9/28/2024

Millionaires Day

So, Kit Power's latest book is an odd one, even for him. You'll have seen the title of this post - "Millionaires Day" - and already had a reaction I'm sure. Either you remember that day vividly (despite the fact that, post-Covid, no one ever seems to talk about it) or you'll be denying it ever happened, that it was all just internet bollocks. Two tribes.

I was reluctant to even post this piece, to be honest. I'll probably not check my DMs for awhile after it goes live.

But Kit's wrote a whole book about it, so god knows what his messages are going to be like.

The book's being marketed as 'fiction' for reasons obvious to anyone who's spent any time on the internet (especially that message-board...) so, yeah - fiction. Sure. So as part of Kit's research for his FICTIONAL book he asked some fellow writers to send him their FICTIONAL recollections of that time. I don't know in what mischievous and ingenious ways Kit will have used what I sent him, but I thought I'd post the original piece on here to help promote Millionaires Day (which is being formally launched at FantasyCon in Chester in a few weeks). 

So: this is just a piece of make believe, if that's what you want to think. Just a story. Don't @ me.


#millionairesday

Did it happen? I remember it happening, but when I look online, at what other people apparently think they remember, I’m not sure how much proof that is.

When I go outside to my—well, it’s not a garden, but the few metres of dead grass I call a garden—when I go outside to the garden, I still expect to see the black scorch marks. Look up and I still expect to see smoke, and that the sky might snow this winter. But there are no scorch marks, and we’ve fucked the weather too much for snow.

But what I do remember is this: how surreal it seemed, after having made a cuppa from yesterday's reused tea-bag, after having checked the expiration date on the dried noodles I’d got from the food-bank despite the fact that I'd nothing else and would have to eat them regardless… - I remember how surreal it felt to find all that money under my sagging bed. Finding a tenner would have been cause for celebration; finding all that—I felt elated, but scared too, almost. Like something had gone wrong and I’d be held accountable.

I unlocked my phone, to open social media—because that’s what you do, isn’t it, when something special or untoward happens? You check social media. But it was down, all of it. Every site. I reasoned I’d just not paid some bill or other. I looked again at the case of money under my bed; I could pay those bills and debts now. More importantly, I could eat.

But I still felt uneasy. Like when someone gives you something and you’ve not got a gift to give them back. Or like when you have to go to a food bank.

I took some of the money, planning to buy a load of booze—and I mean a load—and food. It was only when I left the house I realised that what had happened to me hadn’t only happened to me. Already half he shops were shut as the owners partied, and in those that remained open the prices—felt-tipped over the original, printed ones— looked as surreal as the cash under my bed had done. I bought the booze but not the food; back home I had vintage Champagne and Hakushu whisky and dried, out-of-date noodles… and I felt a bitterness as I heard the cheers and whoops from outside. Everyone else was doing the same as me, minus the noodles. I’d felt special for a moment, different, but barely hours later I was back to being the same as everyone else, but shitter.

I remember, I’m sure I do, that I took the case of money outside to the ‘garden’, poured BBQ fluid over it, and set it alight. As the black smoke rose into the sky I looked up and saw that it had started to snow—in my drunken vision it looked like a blizzard and it was like I’d caused it, like because of me we’d have a white Christmas. Because of me.

And then I saw the swirls and eddies of black smoke rising up all over the estate, and I shouted swear words at all the other fuckers, all the other trapped fuckers like me running down the same rat-runs, and then I must have blacked out or passed out—stupid, I don’t even like Champagne—and when I woke up my tiny garden was blackened and sooty, but the sky, the sky was still snowing and we did have a white Christmas, all of us, despite what the weather records say that year.

That’s what I remember.


9/05/2024

'Hell Is' - Supernatural Tales 56

Pleased to say my story, 'Hell Is', appears in the latest issue of Supernatural Tales, edited by David Longhorn. This is my fourth appearance in ST, so I must be doing something right.
 


Supernatural Tales #56, (UK | US)

Print Versions 


(Cover art by Sam Dawson)

7/15/2024

'Self Expression' in STRANGER from Sans. Press

 Really excited by this one: my story, 'Self Expression' is out now in the wonderful looking STRANGER anthology from Sans. Press:


"Between doppelgängers and shape-shifters, magical healers and clever tricksters, you should trust no one – including yourself!

In the #7 Sans. PRESS anthology, 15 writers try to find answers to how we can truly know each other; on the way, they find psychedelic worms, supernatural roommates, new dimensions and the deeply rooted question of how to know even ourselves. With stories by: Scott Beggs, Phil Cummins, Corinne Engber, James Everington, David Hartley, Tim Jeffreys, LL Garland, Lauren Mulvihill, Lily Nobel, Elaine O′Connor, Elin Olausson, Diana Powell, Shalini Srinivasan, Claire Watson and Rebecca Weinert. This edition is digitally signed by the writers!"

 

The book is available in hardback, paperback, and ebook formats - and as you can see from the image, it looks magnificent. All links to buy here