Supernatural Tales

(Please note, this is a cross-postular event from my other blog , which is no more exciting that this one, but is a different colour. Consumer choice, and so forth.)   'This groin and pungent land...' Shakespeare, the Mermaid Tavern, just after closing time .   England has a rich and fascinating history of folk traditions that some people made up in the 19th century, then cleverly backdated to the era of King Ulfwang the Far Too Sarcastic (c. 897-897). But how significant are our ancient customs and practices in these materialistic times? I’ve no idea but I thought I’d list a few anyway: In the village of Monty Stubble in Suffolk, residents gather every May Day to ‘strongle the lumgits’ – that is, to terrify estate agents by putting them in a light trance, then claiming that nobody wants to buy Georgian farm labourers’ cottages because the roofs are too low.  Strummocking is a North East South West Gloucestershire term for having another drink when you know you shouldn’t and do...

It's been a while since I last posted. I am very sorry and have been spanked. In fact, that's probably why I haven't posted for a while. Haaaaaa! Thank you, Eric Pode of Croydon. Now, fear not bold fictioneers, ST15 is well under way and will be out by the end of May, if I'm lucky and spared and so forth. In the meantime, a fact. There's a new player in town, in the crazy world of quality publishing. Ex Occidente Press is based in bouncy baroque Budapest*, and full of Eastern promise. If the quality of the books matches the talents of some of the authors listed, I think we will all be spending our way out of this pesky recession. Oh yes. And now, back to the grindstone, Mr Croydon. *no, it's Bucharest, and I'm wrong again. But whichever it is the books look spiffing.

I'm about to remove the link to the British Fantasy Society, as they closed down their online store WITHOUT TELLING ME! I am peeved about this, and they have lost a member. Oh well, credit crunch and all that. It's a few quid saved.  So, basically, there are now two ways to order ST. You can send me a cheque drawn on a British bank, or you can send me that funny foreign money. I will look at setting up a PayPal account, but I am very, very wary of anything financial that occurs online. Frankly I think sending cash through the post is marginally safer than trusting total strangers with my bank account details. But let's see what happens. Update Friday 6th Mar: apparently the BFS has had major problems with its site and - incredibly - lost the email addresses of those using its store. Wow. They want me to continue using their store for my micro-business. Not sure I want to with that kind of track record. Any thoughts out there? Suggestions? Recession recipes?

This just in: 'Arguing that students should return to the fundamentals taught in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon in order to develop the skills they need to be driven to the very edge of sanity, Arkham school board member Charles West continued to advance his pro-madness agenda at the district's monthly meeting Tuesday.' The full story here .

While Poe wrote more artistically compelling stories - notably 'Usher' - one of my favourites is 'The Cask of Amontillado'. I read it as a wee lad, having been told about Poe by a pal. He was very taken with 'The Masque of the Red Death', but for me the (at the time) baffling antics of Montresor were fascinating. 

When I was spotty malodorous youth in the late Seventies I didn't like long-haired hippie music. Never trust a hippie, etc. I was into New Wave stuff, and doing ten minute guitar solos with your hippie back to the audience was A Bad Thing. Of course I was wrong to dismiss a whole sub-category of pop/rock in such a cavalier fashion. But if you can't be ignorant and prejudiced when you're young, when can you be?  Anyway, last night - as I lay in my bed, by the light of a single flickering candle - I listened to Alan Parsons' concept album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination . It's classy stuff, and in my limited experience of concept albums, it's one of the best. Interesting choice of material from Poe's collection, and Orson Welles guesting as quotemeister. It all stands up rather well, and bears comparison to Mr Wayne's War of the Worlds. Anyway, here's a good bit that someone has done a fine job of visually realising, or whatever it's called.

I often tell would-be contributors to ST that it’s quite definitely not a horror magazine. This is because would-be contributors often send me emails along these lines: 'Hi Dave! I’d like to know if you are interested in receiving submissions right now? My work has appeared in Nutjobs with Power Tools 1, 2, 3 , and 5 , along with Slashed , Poked , Crushed , Gorefest , Bloodspurt , Disembowelled Orphans , Put That Down, Myron, It’s Rusty! and other leading literary periodicals. My novella ‘Rabid Woodchucks in Chopperville’ was shortlisted for the Wouldn’t Be Allowed to Roam the Streets in a More Rationally Ordered Society Award for budding authors. I am currently working on a novel about aliens that suck people’s brains out through their eyeballs, as friends tell me children’s books are easy money. My hobbies include thinking wrong things about Girl Guides, eating cold pizza and wearing the same death metal tee-shirt for months on end. I hope to learn the banjo if I can win a schola...