More Grants Goodness

Yes, I'm quiet again. I'm struggling to decide whether or not to attempt a reasonably large project ... I think I've already decided that I will, but I've got to clear the decks for it first and my decks, they are cluttered.

Meantime, here's another review of Grants Pass, courtesy of Ann Wilkes at sfreader.com. It's another good one, too. Yay!

Encounter Group

School holidays are over, which means I'm back to busy, editing for the Second Storey collection and proofing for another upcoming anthology (not my project, just helping out ...).

Toughest gig of the week, however, was coming up with an Afterword and Biography for my story in Close Encounters of the Urban Kind. I've mentioned before my tendency to get horribly blocked with this kind of thing. I can understand why people like the Afterwords - they're like mini director's commentaries for each story - but I do struggle to find something interesting to say ... If I 'um' and 'ah' over the Biography, however, I could simply recycle it from an old book, so I've only myself to blame, right?

Meanwhile the full table of contents for the anthology is now up at Apex Books' website. I say "full", but there are still two winners to be selected for the book from the writers competition. I know someone who's entered, so fingers crossed for him ...

As it stands, the line-up is:

Alma Alexander - I Am Sorry for Talking So Rarely to Strangers
Erik Scott de Bie - Racing Lights
Richard Lee Byers - End of Life
Nate Crowder - Frames of Reference
Ivan Ewert - Waterheads
Robert Farnsworth - A Late Night Snack
Pete Kempshall - Dead Letter Drop
Carole Johnstone - The Invitation
Rosemary Jones - Two Out, Wendigo
Martin Livings - Lollo
Eric Lowther - It Came from the Backseat
Ramsey Lundock - Tea Cups & Saucers
Shannon Page - The Hippie Monster of Eel River
Joshua Palmatier - Mastihooba
Jennifer Pelland - Headlights
Rick Silva - Roadkill
Jeff Soesbe - Green Tears on Black Velvet
Eddy Webb - Gloomy Sunday

A few Grants Pass alumni on there you'll notice ... but judging solely from the information here, I really want to read Two Out, Wendigo. With a title like that, it's got to be worth a look.

The Secret's Out

All right, so I alluded to a nice piece of news in my last post, and I've now been given the all-clear to talk about it ... My short story Just Us (from the Morrigan Books collection Voices) has been selected for inclusion in Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror Volume Four! Hurrah!

ADFH is an annual compilation of the year's best creepy writing from Down Under, so it's obviously very flattering to be included amongst the authors. You can take a gander at some of the writers who made it into previous volumes at the Brimstone Press website.

My thanks then to Angela Challis for choosing the story - as soon as I hear about the full line-up and ordering details I'll post them here.

"A Gorgeous Collection"

Got a surprising but altogether tingly piece of news about something I've written today ... but since I don't think I'm allowed to actually say what it is yet, I'll distract you with something else.

Copies of Grants Pass should be available in the UK and Australia soon (I think - but don't forget you can always order one directly from here). The book's already freely available Stateside, however, so I assume the US is where this latest review of the book comes from.

It's a long and reasonably detailed analysis (although not so much as to be loaded with spoilers), the bottom line being that it gives the book a lovely big thumbs up. Better yet, it names my story as one of several stand-outs in a book that by all accounts appears to be packed with them.

Go see what the reviewer has to say, and then make the only sane decision you can ... buy a copy.

Here endeth the pimpage.

Drop's In

I've just had word back that Dead Letter Drop - one of the stories I was racing to finish a couple of months ago - has been accepted into Apex Publishing's upcoming anthology Close Encounters of the Urban Kind.

The book's due out in the first quarter of 2010, and features stories that fuse classic urban legends with tales of alien encouters. A full table of contents is still to come, but I'll be posting it and order details as soon as they're released.