What a week…

What I’ve discovered this week is that Facebook is just another corporation, that doesn’t know the meaning of the words common sense. What Rocky, Lisa and I went through (censorship at its nastiest) is going to leave a bad taste in our mouths for years to come.

Witch Hunts was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, but what it did show me was how influential people power (and specifically our friends in the horror community – you guys and gals rock!) can be. Thanks for going into bat for us!

Without you we probably wouldn’t have our page back. And while Facebook did ultimately do the right thing, they could have avoided all this by not doing the wrong thing in the first place!

But at least I am ending the month on a high note.

The digital version of the anthology A Killer Among Demons, published by Dark Prints Press is now available to buy with the paperback expected in 2-3 weeks and my favourite magazine – Midnight Echo released its 9th issue today!

The anthology contains my story “A Matter of Perception”, a sort of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit with a very thick coating of the fantastique. It’s touching and macabre all at once. I’m sharing book space with some amazingly talented authors, including William Meikle, Alan Baxter, Angela Slatter and
Stephen M. Irwin, just to name a few. I can’t wait to read it myself!

Midnight Echo Issue 9 is a real joy as I provided all the interior corner art, a full page piece for a rather well known author, the latest installment of my vampire comic with Mark Farrugia, Allure of the Ancients and a few other pieces of advertising that I created.

I’ve also been busy at the computer and created a book cover for a forthcoming e-book anthology from the Horror Writers Association. I believe it will be shown around at the upcoming World Horror Convention, so if you’re going, keep an eye out for it!

The other news is that Granite State College in new Hampshire USA, which has Witch Hunts as a textbook in its History 510 class recently sent me a copy of all the students’ essays on our book. I’ve been given permission by GSC to put all of the students’ comments together in a special publication. I’m about half-way through and I’ll provide a sneak peek of it soon.

Now that this mad week has gone, I’ll be counting down to June 15 for the Bram Stoker Awards in New Orleans to how Witch Hunts goes in the graphic novel category. Rocky and Lisa will be there, but sadly I’ll have to watch the webcast back here in Australia 😦

Good luck to all the finalists!

So unless Facebook tries to censor us again, you won’t hear from me until then!

As of this writing Facebook has (dare I say it) done a complete “about-face” and re-instated the official Witch Hunts page.

https://www.facebook.com/settings?ref=mb#!/pages/Witch-Hunts-A-Graphic-History-of-the-Burning-Times/142351579230386

We can only put this down to the support of our colleagues in the horror community who fought on our behalf to have this censorship lifted. We thank those who supported us. Power to the people!

This is indeed a win for common sense, but maybe Facebook should have put some of that into practice in the first place!

Although this is great news – for the record we still never received an explanation from Facebook or a clarification of what the “bullying” was in relation to.

Perhaps we need to set some rules for Facebook?

Facebook.

For almost 15 years I’ve been a professional writer, but not in a fictional capacity.

My writing background comes from being a newspaper journalist on three newspapers in Central Queensland. I was a reporter for about eight years and in that time I wrote countless news articles and news features; stories on fatal traffic accidents, murders, train derailments, you name it. I had to do death-knocks (where you go through a phone book or electoral roll to find the family members of a deceased person and as them how they feel about it). I had to invade people’s privacy and talk to them in their worst moments just to get a story and and earn a wage to feed my kids. I hated doing it, but it was my job.

There were good stories as well; stories about heroes saving people’s lives, people getting justice, couples still in love after 60 years, charities making a difference, war veterans being honoured. Each person I interviewed left a mark on me and I loved telling those “human interest” stories. Not to diminish that the bad stories didn’t need to be told too, but sometimes I wonder if the horrible things I witnessed as a journalist have fostered my passion for writing horror – at least on a subconscious level?

It was while I was working on one particular newspaper that two things occurred which influenced my decision to change my line of work. Apologies if this is all a bit too much, but I guess it might put things into perspective. The first story was about a man who died in a caravan fire. I was tasked with going out to the scene and covering the death for what would be the front page of the next day’s paper. What I saw at the scene was truly horrible, an image of a deceased person that will be forever ingrained on my memory. I won’t describe that image, but sometimes when I’m writing a story it’s the first images that easily comes to mind.

The other story concerned a two year old boy butchered by a relative who suffered from a mental illness. Given I had two of my own children at the time, doing this story had a profound effect on me, but what affected me the most was that the little boy’s family told me they forgave his killer – that it wasn’t his fault, he was simply sick.

Let me state here and now that I was never offered counselling, most journalists are never offered counselling.

Although I’m a horror writer and I write pretty grisly tales about death and damnation, nothing I write will ever compare to what I wrote about as a journalist.

It took me a few years to get out of journalism, and for the past four years I’ve worked as a media officer. All of the stories I write are positive and the job is the job. I still love writing fiction and sometimes I wish it was all I did, but at least it’s fiction and not reality. I don’t ever want to do that type of writing again.

For years I’ve illustrated in the traditional way: pen and ink on paper, paintbrushes etcetera. I was trained to use my hands when I create a piece of art. I’ve always had an aversion to using digital media to create art, because in a way, it felt like I was cheating myself. I saw digitally-produced art being published and it felt well, not fake, but not true. I’m not setting out to disparage digital artists. There are many stellar digital artists out there doing fantastic work.

Until recently I felt that using a computer program like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator would be to dishonour my own artistic style. Using a drawing tablet and wireless pen, seemed like sacrilege. Then I bought one. A small Wacom tablet. To be honest I was afraid to even contemplate using it, but like any artist, I wanted to challenge myself. To “have a go”, as we Aussies like to say. Now I have used Photoshop and programs like to enhance or colour my art, but drawing on a tablet, not at all.

Over the past few months I’ve been giving it a shot and it’s kind of like making a new friend or getting a new pet. You have to grow on each other. Just getting used to the wireless pen was a lesson in frustration, but I stuck with it. Below are some drawings I’ve done using the Wacom.

There is one thing I will say about drawing tablets. They sure allow you to work fast when you need to, but I’m not ready to give up the hands-on illustration just yet 🙂

Let me know what you think: