Authors Electric

  Writing about them, though?   Hauntings: Nine Haunting Stories   More than happy to write about spooks. I've always loved ghost stories.     Overheard in a Graveyard  "Who weeps on my grave, who keeps me from sleep? Is it you who unearths me to this cold rain, this dark, this wind and all its grief?"   Nightcomers     "I'll tell you a true story -- how my dad met the ghost dog..."   It is a true story .  One my dad often told me.     But 'Cold Silver', one of the other stories, is ghostlier . It's based on old folk-lore, as many of my stories are.       But never mind the quality, feel the width! I can do you book-length occult, ghosts and soul-sucking, as well as short stories...       The Bearwood Witch tells of Brummie witches consulting demons and generally getting up to no good...             While The Ghost Wife is set at the time of the industrial revo...

While I was starting to approach publishers with my early work, I worked in National Hunt racing yards with thoroughbred horses helping to prepare them for racing over fences such as the famous Grand National. Flat racing is also a common sight here in the UK, but racehorses are not always ridden. Harness racing, where the jockey rides in a light buggy or 'sulky' pulled by the horse, bears more resemblance to the chariot races of Ancient Rome which were, by all accounts, far more dangerous an activity than our current racing under rules! Deaths on the track of both the drivers and their horses were common, and you only have to think of movies like Ben Hur to imagine how brutally competitive these races could be. Although no horses died in the filming of the 1959 version starring Charlton Heston shown in this clip (where strict welfare standards were followed), it appears that over 100 horses were shot during the making of the original 1925 silent film, some of them unnecessaril...

Lear and daughters Choices narrow as I approach 90. I see across denial. I find that I must adjust, while struggling to preserve as much as possible of what I find most essential. I see why we ultra-oldsters disturb our juniors. It's not just individual disposition. We rattle their operative mythology. Yet I have no choice but to accept death's proximity -  no choice when I consider the alternative.  At the same time, I find that everyone needs some degree of denial. The feeling of immortality comes with consciousness.  As an outspoken critic of an 80-year-old President who mocks the aged and fakes youth, and for whom denial is a way of life, I don't like admitting to any degree of it.  But I try my best to admit my shortcomings. I'm not a felonious poser and sexual predator. I don't dye my hair, wear makeup and demand flattery from those around me. I continue to write, edit, and publish drafts of my latest novels, essays and short stories with more urgency, but pro...

 Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. I don’t celebrate Halloween (much preferring the following day, All Saints Day) but I do have a soft spot for a well told ghost story.  My favourite is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (with The Muppet Christmas Carol being my favourite adaptation). I like the redemption theme with this marvellous story and that ghosts are used to bring about a change of heart in Scrooge. Ghosts don’t always have to be scary (though there are dark moments in that book which The Muppets, to their credit, don’t shy away from). I like ghost stories which make me think. One of mine was where a character hadn’t realised they were a ghost, were wondering where their family was, and needed another ghost to show them the truth.  I like stories which encourage empathy for characters and see no reason why ghost stories can’t contribute but, as with any tale, the ghost has to be in the “cast” of characters ...

  My dad, Feliks Krzewinski, at work as a display artist in London in 1960 Most people seem to prefer to do this after those concerned have died. Not so easy if your mother lives to 104, like someone I know. However, if you had a good relationship it’s not such a problem – it’s the things you’d like to get off your chest that’s the issue. My parents were elderly, 42 and 49 when I was born, and I was an only child. They both died over 40 years ago. Having a clear-out, I recently discovered a note I wrote after my first trip to Poland to visit my father’s relatives on my own. My mother was English, and after my father died the Polish side cut off all contact. Unbeknownst to me my mother, on her one and only trip abroad, she told my father’s relatives I considered myself to be entirely English, and didn’t want anything whatsoever to do with my Polish heritage. Many years later, out of the blue, I had a call from my cousin who was in the UK for a visit. I cried my eyes out with relie...

  You and I have never met. But I know at least two things about you. 1)  At some point in your life you've been in sudden trouble. Medical, financial, career, relationship. So you understand the assignment: you've got to stay focused and faithful, organized and calm, while your world seems to be swirling about you. 2) Whether you work from your smart phone or handwritten notebooks and planners, somehow you must find your own eye of the storm. Your way to keep your (bleep) together when the turmoil threatens to addle your brain and you don't even know where your keys are. Where the devil is that all-important link to your GoFundMe account? Where's the ID you'll need? Have you gone shopping but left your debit card at home? Where did you put that all-important number you got during a call on a bus? And so on. Friends, I'm with you. As a non-techno soul, my solution is grounded in hard copy. But you can tailor it simply, I'm sure, to your smart phone you adore...