It’s been a week of diversity and creativity.

The Easter weekend, which was over far too quickly, gave me a bit of time to do a few extra-curricular activities in the area of design.

I put the call out to a few author friends to see if they needed any promotional poster artwork done and thankfully some work came my way. I did the posters for G.N. Braun, Jake Eliott and Travis Heermann at mate’s rates (free), but the posters did help me secure a paid gig for some cover artwork, which I’ll reveal in the near future. It was fun to get back on Photoshop and stretch the brain a bit. The posters I designed are below:

I also recently submitted two short stories to separate markets – Midnight Echo Magazine #8 and Dark Prints Press’ A Killer Among Demons anthology. Fingers crossed on those. Meanwhile I’m eagerly anticipating the publication of Midnight Echo #7, which will feature my comic art for Allure of the Ancients, written by Mark Farrugia. The issue is due on May 31.

Meanwhile things are progressing with Witch-Hunts with the publisher’s text edits being worked on at the moment. You can pre-order the graphic novel I illustrated for writers Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton HERE or HERE. It should go on sale in the next two months or so. Can’t wait for that.

I first became acquainted (via email) with Melbourne author Mark Farrugia in 2009 when he contacted me about  illustrating a comic about a vampire seeking a meal while scrounging around the muddy, war-torn fields of the Somme. Not much later that comic – Allure of the Ancients was published in Midnight Echo Magazine #5.

We eventually met face-to-face last June in Melbourne and there was plenty of talk between us about the next chapter of Allure and its vampire character Rahkh. Last month Mark and I put the finishing touches on Allure of the Ancients: The Key to His Kingdom, which will be published in Midnight Echo # 7 this May.

Mark took some time to speak to me about the origins of Allure and his forays into writing and editing and it’s fascinating to say the least. Scattered throughout is some of the art from our collaboration:

1. Tell us a bit about yourself; what do you do when you’re not writing?

2. Why speculative fiction?

3. Your favourite author/story?

4. Your very first published story – give us the details.

5. Your tales tend to be subversive, controversial, disturbing, but most of all memorable – obviously the memorable part is deliberate, but what about the rest? Do you always set out to push the envelope?

6. You’ve edited the Best of Horror #2 for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine in the past – any more editing jobs coming up for you?

A page from the original “Allure of the Ancients”, published in Midnight Echo #5

7. The Allure of the Ancients comic series first appeared in issue 5 of the Australian Horror Writer’s Association’s magazine Midnight Echo. It centred around a vampire named Rahkh trolling through the Western Front of World War I searching for prey when he finds a human soul just as lost as his. What inspired that story and why do it as a graphic story or comic?

8. Rahkh returns in Midnight Echo #7 with the first chapter of a new story, The Key to His Kingdom, where we get to see some of Rahkh’s past and his manipulation of mankind. There are a few taboos, which fit in with the issue’s theme, but what is your overall intent with the Allure and Rahkh series?

Page 1 of the next chapter, “Allure of the Ancients: The Key to His Kingdom”, which will appear in Midnight Echo #7, this May.

9. What’s next for you – any new stories on the horizon?

10. How do people find you on the web?

The speculative fiction writing industry is gearing up to recognise some of the best in the business, with numerous awards in various stages of competition.

The horror world’s most respected awards are undoubtedly the Bram Stoker Awards and there are several Australians who have been nominated including my co-collaborator on Witch-Hunts, Rocky Wood for his work Stephen King: A Literary Companion, which is up for a best non-fiction work award. Fellow Witch-Hunts scribe Lisa Morton is also up for an award for her collection Monsters of L.A.

Other Aussie contenders include Kaaron Warren (best short fiction) and Jack Dann (best anthology). For the full list of nominees go HERE. Winners will be announced at the Bram Stoker Awards gala dinner on March 31 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Meanwhile in Australia, the list of nominees for the Aurealis Awards have been announced and can be viewed HERE. The Awards will be presented at a ceremony in Sydney on May 12.

The 2012 Ditmar Awards, Australia’s most popular speculative fiction awards, are just entering the nomination process, with anyone “active” in the industry able to vote, regardless of what country they’re in.

Both my novella’s “Torment” and “The Noctuary” have made it on the eligibility list in the Best Novella or Novelette category. If you liked my novellas and feel they are deserving of an award, you can vote for them to win by filling out this form. Entries close on Friday April 13, 2012 or Thursday April 12, 2012 for those in Europe or the Americas.

If you do vote for my work then I say thank you.

Good luck to all those in the running in all of these competitions.

Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series are extremely popular, with the right blend of intrigue, wit and fully realised characters and the characters, rather than the story are what makes the book for me.
At first I was enthralled in the mystery of the case our heroes Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander become involved in. Larsson had me hook line and sinker with his detailed history of the mysterious Vanger family and missing family member Harriet. Larsson weaved a tight game of cat and mouse, handing out tidbits and red herrings here and there, but when it came to the denouement, I went away feeling a little disappointed. Of course the resolution made perfect sense, but I was really hoping for something a little more exciting to round things off.
In the end it was the girl Lisbeth Salander, with her gothic melancholy, street smarts, desire for revenge and secret past that kept me reading until the final page and I’m very glad to hear that there are still two more instalments to go.

It’s not that I don’t like drawing, it’s just a much more visceral way of creating than writing and is obviously more labour intensive. Writing, for me and I imagine many other writers, is an escape from the crap in life, a stress reliever. There’s nothing more liberating than getting lost in an invented world or rummaging around inside the heads of my characters. Reading the works of others is the same. I’ve been indulging in a few books, including an advanced reader copy of The Corpse-Rat King by Lee Battersby, The Broken Ones by Stephen M Irwin and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson, all very enjoyable (and distracting!) books.

I have already started the first draft of a short story that I plan to submit to Dark Prints Press’ A Killer Among Demons anthology and I’ve got the spark of an idea for a tale for Midnight Echo 8 – in other words plenty to sink my teeth into.

Then there’s the Halloween novella and the novel that I desperately need to get back to and complete this year, not to mention the edits on my forthcoming novella “Vaudeville”, which are only just around the corner, so yeah heaps of writing to do.

Still, I’d love to know how long my fellow writers out there have gone without writing. Was it writer’s block, not enough hours in the day, or just life being what it is and what did you do to get around it?

During a trip to Brisbane last weekend to take my two daughters down to visit their mother who has been on four weeks training for her job, I managed to meet with fellow author Stephen M. Irwin.

Irwin is the author of the fantastic horror thrillers The Dead Path and The Broken Ones (both from Hachette Australia) and having read and thoroughly enjoyed his books it was great to meet him face-to-face and talk shop.

During our chat, Steve I discovered we had a lot in common: we both have a media/public relations background; we’re both creative outside of our writing (illustration for me and film production for him), a mutual fear of spiders (which feature prominently in The Dead Path) and we also have young children.

Steve had some nice things to say about my latest novella The Noctuary and even asked if the demonic Muses that torment my poor writer Simon Ryan, were real.

Amongst other topics, we discussed “genre labelling”, literary agents and finding time to write between full time jobs and parental responsibilities. Steve also gave me an insight into the new novel he’s working on which will see the return of some of his characters from The Dead Path.

Although our chat was brief I went away feeling even more motivated than ever and somewhat glad to be able to talk about writing with someone who knows and loves the trade.

Once back home, I was happy to see the latest copy of Cemetery Dance Magazine – #65 had arrived in the mailbox.

Within its pages was an interview with one of my favourite horror authors Graham Masterton and he too revealed that he was once a journalist (what does this say about journalists though – is there a horror writer in every journalist, just waiting to escape?) I saw some pretty bad stuff in my eight years as a newspaper reporter, but I’m yet to harness any of it in my writing, still there’s no doubt that the people I interviewed during that time left their mark.

Another piece of wonderful news was to hear that my friends Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton, who I worked with on the graphic novel Witch-Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times, have been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in the categories of Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction and Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection respectively.

Rocky was nominated for his book Stephen King: A Literary Companion (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers) and Lisa was nominated for her amazing collection Monsters of L.A. (Bad Moon Books).

For the full list of nominees (and congratulations to them all!) visit www.horror.org/stokers.htm

For more about Stephen M. Irwin and his books, you can visit his site HERE 

Right now I’m not getting much writing done.

The last two weeks have been a bit of a challenge. My wife now has a job after eight years of being a stay-at-home mum, which is fantastic, but part of her employment involves a four week training stint 600km away in Brisbane (which she is still completing). Therefore, I’ve had to fly solo with looking after our two daughters. So, between taking them to school and dancing and my full-time job in public relations, there only seems to be time left for eating and sleeping and not much else.

There are a lot of other writers in a similar situation out there and I wonder how they manage to find time to be creative. Is it always at night – or do you manage to squeeze in some time during the day? Most days I head to the library for lunch and use the 45 mins to either write or draw. Do you all dream of the day when you could write full-time – spending those eight hours doing what you love?

A couple of times a year (probably more than that), I visit the thrift shops where I live; St Vincent de Paul, Lifeline, Salvos. Mostly people go in here to look for clothes, but I enter in search of books!
For an avid horror reader like me, living outside a major city, these places are veritable goldmines and often I’ve come away with a few gems.

Just this week I picked up four books for $6, namely The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, nominated for the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel (I’ve only ever seen the film and have been meaning to read the book); The Lord of the Flies by William Golding; Roofworld by Christopher Fowler and; Blue World by Robert R. McCammon (nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection in ’89).

The ironic thing is that the secondhand book store, which understandably has a lot of books, doesnt have much in the way of horror (but has a massive paranormal sparkly romance section!), which is disappointing, but thankfully the thrift shops always seem to deliver.

I’d love to know what gems you guys have found in a thrift shop or secondhand book shop. Do you go hunting for older novels like me, or do you prefer to buy new books online?