So my little haunted house novel, HOLLOW HOUSE has made the preliminary ballot of the Bram Stoker Awards®.

While this is just the first hurdle in a long and detailed process, it’s humbling to have my debut novel on this list amongst some of the best writers in the horror genre.

Each year, the Horror Writer’s Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards® for Superior Achievement, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror work, Dracula. The Bram Stoker Awards were instituted immediately after the organization’s incorporation in 1987.

The response to my novel has been very gratifying, with many reviewers and readers taking the time to share their thoughts about the book online, for which I am most grateful. HOLLOW HOUSE even made The Horror Fiction Review’s Top 10 Books of 2016!

Here are just some of the reviews HOLLOW HOUSE has received since it was released last July:

http://www.glamadelaide.com.au/main/book-review-hollow-house-by-greg-chapman/

http://www.tabula-rasa.info/AusHorror/HollowHouse.html

Greg Chapman ‘Hollow House’ Review

http://michaelrcollings.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/greg-chapman-hollow-house-read-book-but.html

http://andreya.booklikes.com/post/1445305/review-hollow-house-by-greg-chapman

http://frankmichaelserrington.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/hollow-house-by-greg-chapman-much-more.html

http://lindawatkins.biz/2016/09/

http://thehorrorfictionreview.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/reviews-for-week-of-december-5-2016.html

At the very least, having HOLLOW HOUSE on the preliminary ballot is a huge encouragement to keep writing. I don’t write full-time (yet), but this will certainly spur me on to keep striving for that goal. Even if I don’t make the final ballot, it’s a pretty big achievement for me, something that’s only just starting to sink in. I’d like to thank Omnium Gatherum publisher Kate Jonez and my editor Janet J Holden for helping me bring my horror novel to life. 🙂

For the full list of authors on the preliminary ballot follow this LINK. I’d like to congratulate everyone on the preliminary ballot and wish them the very best of luck (make sure you go out and buy a copy of their works!) The final ballot is expected to be announced in late February with the winners announced at StokerCon 2017 in April.

Here’s a video interview I did with my local newspaper about HOLLOW HOUSE

 

 

 

2016 has been pretty damn good writing-wise.

Since January, I’ve had my fifth novella and first novel published, two of my old novellas re-released, a short collection of Halloween stories published, and even a colouring book unleashed upon the unsuspecting public.

 

The reception to all these publications has been, on the whole, really great and I’m most thankful to those publishers, peer reviewers, booksellers and readers who took a chance on me.  The horror fiction game is a very challenging one, but it’s also turned out to be a very satisfying.

I think the top achievements this year were seeing my novel, Hollow House in print and securing re-publication of my 2013 novella, The Last Night of October, with Cemetery Dance. Hopefully it’s just the beginning.

The one aspect to my writing that I haven’t really excelled in this year was short stories. I’ve written very few and most of them, unfortunately, have been unsuccessful in securing publication. This is an area I know I need to work on, but for the foreseeable future novels will be my primary focus.

This year has also been great in respect to making new connections with the horror community. I’ve worked with a number of authors and publishers to create book covers and internal art and it’s been a whole lot of fun. Did I mention I’m available for hire? 🙂

Working with the Australian Horror Writers Association and the US Horror Writers Association on their various projects, including StokerCon, has also been fantastic.

2017 will see me hitting the keyboard and notebooks. I hope to finish my novel-length sequel to The Noctuary early in the year and begin a new series of novels, and maybe even engage in a collaboration.

It’s going to be a hard slog for this part-time writer, but it’s also going to be a blast. I hope you’ll continue to be along for the ride.

Until next year!

 

I love to watch, read, write and illustrate everything horror-related – so that must make me mentally disturbed right?

According to this ridiculous article yes, I must be.

Right now, my front yard is all decked out for Halloween. I live in Australia, probably the only country where Halloween isn’t widely celebrated (there is a revolution happening, however, people). When my family and I put out our display every year, I’m sure there are a few neighbours who wonder whether we’re all serial killers.

I love Halloween and horror the same way other people like to watch romance movies or sport. It’s my thing. I am a creative person, so Halloween and horror are my creative outlets. My wife and kids get involved too, but we don’t sit around while we’re doing it teaching them black magic, despite what you might think.

Also, I’ll be clear, I don’t let my kids watch horror movies. The creepiest movies they’ve seen are films like The Addams Family, or Beetlejuice and Gremlins. I’m not out to terrify them. My wife doesn’t read horror and I have friends who don’t read horror, but do I judge them? No.

So why does this person at Glamour Magazine feel the need to judge people who appreciate horror as an art form?

Why? Probably because they needed a clickbaity article that week.

Ironically, the article author’s response to horror films is exactly what we writers and film-makers strive for. So the best I can do to rebuff her claims is to sit back and laugh and point at her, because what I really enjoy the most about watching horror films is watching people who don’t like watching horror squirm in their seats.

Maybe I’ve limited myself to only writing horror?

But honestly, I’ll write whatever the hell I want.

My most recent novel Hollow House was a twist on the haunted house tale, but the story was also about how we are a society of apathy; how we really couldn’t care less about our neighbours.

The novel I’m writing now is a sequel to The Noctuary, but instead of just a continuation with more of the same monsters, the work is slowly turning into a much deeper mythology which goes right back to the beginnings of civilisation to find out where the darkness inside of all of us comes from.

When I go to any author events fledgling authors approach me and talk about how they want to write a sci-fi novel or a dark fantasy novel. It usually takes me a few prompts to get them to tell me what the story is about and why they want to write it.  That’s what writing is all about for me – the meaning of the story. I’ve written about this sort of thing before, but I don’t want to go over that again. What I want to talk about (in a very round-about way) is self-doubt.

I think self-doubt comes to writers because at the outset we feel we have to slot our stories into genres and sub-genres. First and foremost, the story should be the central focus and nothing else. Screw all that genre stuff, or premature editing. Just write the story that first comes into your head. Seek the meaning of the story within yourself and the rest will flow from there.

Years ago I contemplated writing crime, and I penned a few short stories in the crime/mystery genre, but my tales seemed way too dark and exploratory for it. I realised I was boxing myself into a “genre”. I shrugged off the labels and let my ideas and concepts lead me to what I wanted to write. I wanted to tell stories, and those stories just happened to be dark and neatly slotted into the “horror genre”.

I like to explore dark themes. The human race is inherently flawed and you only need to turn on the news on any given night of the week to see what we’re capable of. Not all of my stories have a happy ending or even a clear ending. You might not even find a hero within the pages of my books, nevertheless, they’re the stories I wanted to tell.

And if you’re reading this and doubting yourself, shrug it off and write whatever the hell YOU want to write.

Hot on the heels of the release of my first novella, Torment, I’m very excited to announce word that Cemetery Dance Publications in the US just re-released the digital edition of my Halloween themed novella, The Last Night of October.

This novella was first released in 2013 in e-book and paperback, and I’m glad to see it in the very capable hands of CD.

Lynne Hansen has provided killer new artwork for the cover and captured the feel of the read perfectly. I’m humbled to hear that this novella is on the yearly Halloween reading lists of several reviewers.

Whether you’ve read the story before or are looking for a creepy Halloween read, I hope you’ll give this new edition a whirl.

Thanks to Norman Prentiss and CD for bringing this tale back for Halloween.

(Incidentally if you want even more Halloween tales from me, you can pre-order this bad boy as well).

Australian Speculative Fiction is alive and well!

For the past couple of weeks, the Australian SpecFic Snapshot Project has been on a mission – to profile as many speculative fiction authors as they can and get them seen by readers across the world.

A small group of volunteers (including myself) have tracked down authors from all around the country to pick their brains on what it means to be a speculative fiction author, and of course, ask the important questions about their next spellbinding story. The project first appeared way back in 2005, and it’s great to see it still going.

I had the privilege of interviewing several authors – Matthew Tait, Daniel I. Russell, Aaron Sterns, Brett McBean, and Zena Shapter, and also provide a memorial post on Rocky Wood. I was also interviewed by Matthew Summers. But there are so many more incredible authors out there.

To read all the interviews (so far) head over to the website: www.austsfsnapshot.wordpress.com

Congrats to everyone who volunteered their time to make this all happen. We authors need all the support we can get!

Today, I’m speaking with fellow Omnium Gatherum scribe, Monique Snyman, from Pretoria, South Africa about her new novel, Muti Nation.

Muti Nation: What inspired this cool-sounding story?

I sometimes Skype with a friend in England who’s rather fond of unexplained phenomena, and somehow we got to talking about traditional beliefs. I told her about muti-murders and tokoloshes and sangomas, and I watched her jaw drop in response. These things that South Africans live with every day are unknown in the outside world. She was so enthralled by what I was telling her, she told me to write a book about it, and so I did. It took three years to write, because it hits a bit close to home in places, but I’m glad that I could tell the story.

Occult detective tales have been a staple of horror and speculative fiction for decades – what is it about yours that sets it apart from the rest?

Ooh, this is a good question! Well, firstly I think it’s because Muti Nation is quite unique for the genre. The book is set in predominantly Pretoria-West—my hometown—and none of the other authors I’ve read seems to set their books in that particular area. It’s always Johannesburg or Cape Town if they choose a South African setting.

Furthermore, Muti Nation’s plot is very real at times. Muti-murders happen frequently, we just don’t talk about it. Sometimes reports of tokoloshes make it to the newspapers or magazines, but it’s still not polite to speak about it. The reason for all of this is because the veil is much thinner here in Africa and people are scared. It should be noted we’re more afraid about what lies in the unknown than what other people will think of us.

Mostly, however, I think Muti Nation is different to other occult detective novels because my protagonist, Esmé Snyders, is not a paranormal investigator (even though I think she wouldn’t have minded chasing ghosts). She’s an academic who just happens to be interested in fringe sciences, who wants to explain the unexplainable.

Muti Nation sounds like a much different type of story to your previous novels. Was this novel easier, or harder to write?

Much harder. I’ve always loved horror as a genre, and I’ve dabbled in it with short stories, but I didn’t realise how difficult it would be to get a full novel written. That said, I think the most difficult part about switching genres was realising I had been fooling myself when I began writing for an audience who thought I was something I’m not. I’m not a googly eyed school girl who pines over a guy like some helpless maiden. I’ve never been like that. For some reason, though, that’s what I wrote in the past. In my defence, I was a nineteen year old idiot at the time and I knew nothing about the business. *laughs* Muti Nation on the other hand is completely me. I take the reader on a journey through my hometown where we meet some people I’ve met in real life. Even my writing sounds more like me in this book. So, yes, it was much harder, but by the end of it I was for more fulfilled as an author.

You’re also an editor for Crystal Lake Publishing. What’s harder – writing or editing?

In my opinion, writing. I started off as a reviewer, so I’m good with critiquing other people’s work and I’m quick to pick up mistakes as an editor, but being on the other side of the red pen is hell.

What does writing mean to you? What does the horror genre mean to you?

Writing is a coping mechanism. Sometimes something pops into my head and it just will not leave until I’ve explored the idea. Most of the ideas goes into the scrap bin, because they’re just plain horrid at the end of the day. As for the genre itself … Well, it’s a part of me. I watched my first horror flick—Child’s Play—when I was three (it wasn’t my mom’s fault, I snuck into the living room after bedtime while my older cousin and she was watching it), and I did it again with Nightmare on Elm Street, and then with Halloween, etc. The genre has always been fascinating, so it just became one of the building blocks that makes me Monique.

What’s next for you? What are you writing right now?

Right now I’m exploring a monstrous concept. Vague, I know, but it’s still in its preliminary stages. I’m also working on getting my thoughts together for the sequel to Muti Nation. The ideas are flowing, and the words are coming, I just need to put them down in the right order.

For more information on Monique and Muti Nation, visit her wesbite: http://charmingincantations.com/blog/