Contract signed to illustrate graphic novel!

With just a week to go before my novella Torment is released yet more great news has come my way.

Yesterday (Feb 21) I signed a contract with McFarland Publishers in the US to illustrate a non-fiction graphic novel written by Horror genre powerhouses Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton!

The graphic novel, entitled Witches will explore the history, causes and effects of the persecution of witches through the centuries.

The 200 page graphic novel should be available in early 2012, so I’ll be spending most of this year at the drawing table!

This is an exciting venture and I am very honoured and privileged to be working with Rocky, Lisa and McFarland.

Here’s some information about the two authors:

Stoker nominee Rocky Wood is a horror author and President of the Horror Writers Association.

Rocky has been a dedicated Stephen King and horror reader since 1977; and has undertaken six dedicated research trips to Maine. A freelance writer for 30 years he began his career at university, writing a national newspaper column on UFO-related phenomena; and had articles published in the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and South Africa.

In the Stephen King and horror communities he is regarded as the leading expert on King’s work. He is the author of The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King (Kanrock Partners, 2003); Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished (Cemetery Dance, 2006); The Stephen King Collector’s Guide (Kanrock Partners, 2007); Stephen King: The Non-Fiction (Cemetery Dance, 2008); and many articles on King, including in such magazines as Cemetery Dance, Dark Discoveries and Lighthouse.

His previous graphic novel was Horrors! Great Tales of Fear and Their Creators (McFarland, 2010).

As a King and horror expert he was keynote speaker at the 2003 Stephen King Conference held in Estes Park, Colorado at the site of the hotel which features in The Shining; the 68th World Science Fiction Convention (2010), Continuum 3 (2005) & 4 (2006), all in Melbourne, Australia; Conflux in Canberra, Australia (2006); the Stephen King film festival held in King’s hometown of Bangor, Maine in October 2005; and World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City (2008).

He is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and was nominated for the HWA’s Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction for both Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished and Stephen King: The Non-Fiction. He is a member of the Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA).

Throughout his career he has made many media appearances on TV, radio and through the press; and spoken at conferences in the US, UK, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

As a freelance author Wood can make himself available for publicity as required. As a leading member of the Horror community he has direct links to promoting this book through those channels worldwide.

Lisa Morton is a rare Southern California native. Her career as a professional writer began in 1988 with the horror-fantasy feature film MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS (aka LIFE ON THE EDGE), on which she also served as Associate Producer. For the Disney Channel’s 1992 ADVENTURES IN DINOSAUR CITY, she served as screenwriter, Associate Producer, Songwriter, and Miniatures Coordinator. For stage she has written and co-produced the acclaimed horror one-acts Spirits of the Season, Sane Reaction and The Territorial Imperative, and has adapted and directed Philip K. Dick’s Radio Free Albemuth and Theodore Sturgeon’s The Graveyard Reader; her full-length science fiction comedy Trashers was an L.A. Weekly “Recommended” pick.

Her short fiction has appeared in the books Dark Voices 6: The Pan Book of Horror, The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein, The Mammoth Book of Dracula, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, Dark Terrors, After Shocks, White of the Moon, The Museum of Horrors, Dead But Dreaming, Shelf Life: An Anthology of Bookstore Stories, Dark Terrors 6, Dark Delicacies: Original Tales of Terror and the Macabre, Mondo Zombie, Dark Passions: Hot Blood XIII, and Midnight Premiere, and the magazine Cemetery Dance. Her chapbook The Free Way was published by Fool’s Press, and in early 2010 her first novel The Castle of Los Angeles was published to critical acclaim.

She has also written numerous episodes of the animated television series Sky Dancers, Dragon Flyz and Van-Pires. Her first book, The Cinema of Tsui Hark, about the legendary Hong Kong director/producer of such classics as PEKING OPERA BLUES and A CHINESE GHOST STORY, was published by McFarland, who also published The Halloween Encyclopedia in 2003 and A Hallowe’en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writings Over the Centuries in 2008. Her television movie TORNADO WARNING was chosen by the Pax cable station to launch their 2002 fall season, and 2005 saw the release of three horror films, the vampire thriller BLOOD ANGELS, the mutant shark story BLUE DEMON, and THE GLASS TRAP, about genetically altered fire ants.

Lisa was awarded the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction for her story “Tested” (which first appeared in Cemetery Dance magazine), and the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Nonfiction for A Hallowe’en Anthology. For the first anthology she edited, 2009’s Midnight Walk, Lisa received a Black Quill Award for Best Dark Genre Anthology, and she won the 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Long Fiction for her novella The Lucid Dreaming. She is also a two-time recipient of the President’s Richard Laymon Award, presented by the Horror Writers Association.

For more information on McFarland Publishers go to their website