Authors Electric

The first thing I think about when packing for a holiday or trip is which books I will take with me. Lower down on my to do list, a curious bystander will find the usual items. Pants. Toothpaste. Jeans. Earrings. Couple of nice tops. But absolutely the most important thing has to be the reading material.   On the rare occasions I have to fly, there is one book which always comes with me as hand luggage and gets me through the terrifying moments as we taxi along the runway and shoot up into the air. At times like these, I pray for a speedy and painless death while furiously reading, “The Victorian House” by Judith Flanders, one of my very favourite authors. It never fails to soothe.   Which brings me neatly on to another favourite book, much of it set in Victorian times. I must have bought it ten or so years ago, attracted by the front cover. A young woman gazes into the camera, her high-necked brocade dress and hairdo proclaiming her to be from the nineteenth century. An end...

For a recent story acceptance I was asked to provide a short insight into the inspiration behind my fiction. And as always that question gave me pause for deep thought. Where do those ideas begin? Most of us will recall being given a word of phrase as inspiration to write a story for homework. It was good practice for spotting a headline or story in a newspaper, or maybe an incident at work or with friends, which sparked that train of thought. Writing fantasy and horror it is the folklore and local legends that have always been a passion that figure large in my back catalogue. I readily admit to plundering those sources, but the resources are vast and forgiving. That said, a seed of inspiration is needed to even begin to know where to start in such a sea of riches. Mermaid's Pool - between Leek and Buxton The market for this story had the wide open guideline of Folk Horror, which is a vast area that means different things to different people. Think Algernon Blackwood...

I don't think I've ever needed a break so desperately. Even at the last moment it seemed as if there were forces at work trying to stop me from escaping. I had just finished packing that morning when one of the kitchen lights suddenly began flickering on and off rather dramatically, even after I used the nearest switch to turn it off. Of course it could have been caused by an alien invasion, as in the scene from 'Close Encounters' where the little boy sees all his toys start to work on their own, but I suppose that was always an unlikely hypothesis. When I tried again with the other switch, at the far end of the kitchen, it gave me an electric shock. While still waiting for the taxi, I sent an online message to an electrician begging him to hurry round and do something about it, ran upstairs to tell the bed-ridden member of the family to drag himself downstairs and out the door if he smelt burning -- leaving the door open for the cat, naturally -- and a few moments l...

We recently spent 10 days on the west coast of Scotland; a week in Oban right by the harbour, and the rest of the time in Fort William so we could go on the steam train to Mallaig over the Glenfinnan viaduct. Here's an Oban sunset: From Oban we had a sea safari and saw a whale, rocked about in the Corryvechan for a while (nothing like as fright/sick inducing as I’d feared!). We also went island-hopping (Mull, Iona, Staffa), some of us on a RIB and the sensible (or feeble)people, of which I was one, on proper CalMac boats.  It was magical! I kept on thinking it ought to remind me of western Ireland, what with the sandy beaches, bays and islands off the coast – but it didn’t. It is as beautiful, but somehow seemed more grounded in the rocks. I don’t know what comparisons there are in terms of height, etc, between the hills of the Ring of Kerry and Glen Coe, but the atmosphere is completely different. Something about Glen Coe is dwarfing and chilling, even wit...

My Grandad was the kind of slow-moving, thoughtful countryman who never said three words when one would do. The family had been tenant farmers, but had, at some point, set themselves up as builders and plasterers. In the years leading up to WW2 there was no demand for house-building but there was for charcoal, so Grandad, his brother ‘Tub’ and son Pat took up charcoal making in the woods around Crowborough, high on the Sussex Weald.   Iron smelting using charcoal goes back beyond Roman times and you can still find traces of ancient bloomery furnaces here and there on the Weald.  Charcoal making is a long, slow process in the quiet of the woods; a lot of watching and waiting is involved and there’s not much need for talk. It must have suited Grandad. First, two roughly circular hearths had to be cleared of scrub, leaf-litter and small trees, and then levelled. The petts would be built on them. The siting was crucial. It helped if they were reasonably close to a sou...