Shirley Jackson Award winner!

Shirley Jackson Award winner!

Sooooo… aw jeez. I’ve been hiding out all day in a state of shock and bewilderment because The Attic Tragedy won a fricking Shirley Jackson Award!

I watched the ceremony with my youngest, who sat there with fingers crossed and insisted I do the same – though I told him I had no hope of winning. When the announcement came, I literally shrieked – and kept shrieking. (My eldest was on a school Zoom call in the other room. His teacher asked him politely to mute himself because of the “background noise.”)

Congrats to all the winners, with special nods to Kathe Koja (meerkat-shaped fist bump coming your way), Lee Murray and Gene Flynn (the fantastic flight of the Cranes continues!). And of course, epic, bottomless thank yous to Kaaron Warren and to the unstoppable Meerkat Press!

Five dark inspirations (Big Indie Books)

Five dark inspirations (Big Indie Books)

Ariadne, I Love You – Blog Tour

I was in a very particular headspace when I wrote Ariadne, I Love You. Keen to explore a very particular kind of supernatural occurrence: one that could be easily justified in rational terms, without being entirely explained away. At the same time, I was obsessed with the idea of inheritance, of the scars the past leaves on the present, and a particular kind of gothic sensibility that arises when a character worries over the same fixation for decades. While I wasn’t trying to emulate any particular story or author, these five books left marks that – in one form or another – somehow found their way onto the page. They are masterworks of glorious ambiguity, of weirdness, darkness and the unexplained. They embody a particular sensibility – at once bleak and wry – that is a comfort on a wintry grey afternoon. They console with tragedy and fear, chipping away at the foundations of what you took to be real. I hope they give you the joy they have given me…

 

Read the full article at Big Indie Books. Then go follow them on Twitter at @BigBooks.

Ambiguity is the essence of the supernatural (Vol.1 Brooklyn)

Ambiguity is the essence of the supernatural (Vol.1 Brooklyn)

Ariadne, I Love You – Blog Tour

Have you ever seen a ghost? Or heard one? Maybe not. But perhaps you’ve had some experience or other you couldn’t easily explain, some weird occurrence which you mull on even now. Did it happen the way you remember? Or did you imagine it? That ambiguity, unfocused and inconclusive, is the essence of what we think of as the supernatural.

Read the full article at Vol.1 Brooklyn.

Dark short stories cast a long shadow (T. Kent Writes)

Dark short stories cast a long shadow (T. Kent Writes)

The Attic Tragedy – Blog Tour

From the briefest burst of flash fiction to the stately novella, there is something about the short (and not so short) story that is perfectly suited to the dark and the weird. The best of them are incandescent, flaring brightly within our darkest spaces, burning shadows onto our vision that change how we see the world, see ourselves.

The list of my favourite short dark stories could have been much longer, but here I’ve chosen seven that made a deep and lasting impression on me. Stories that still burn brightly inside me, even years after I first read them…

Read the full article at T Kent’s blog. Then go follow her on Twitter at @TKentWrites.