“No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is… the nativity of our common Adam”. – Charles Lamb, New Year’s Eve

I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable Christmas and will have a happy New Year’s Eve tonight. I wanted to squeeze in one more post in 2024; not that my output on here has been plentiful – the opposite in fact. But I have been busy with writing projects, and I wanted to celebrate the year before it’s over, and give you, constant reader, an update and a taste of projects completed and in progress!

Belfast Augmented Reality Exhibition

In my last post I mentioned an exciting commission opportunity I was fortunate enough to receive; well, the opportunity bloomed (quickly, with a tight deadline!) into a beautiful flower, and I’m immensely proud to have worked on such a great project; my special thanks and shout out to Libby at Jam Creative Media! I’m working on what will be my first ever Vlog, of my visit to Belfast to see the exhibition; it’s taking some time to learn basic video editing, but I promise to upload it on my next post.

The project was to provide short writing scenes to feature in an augmented reality exhibition at the gorgeous and imposing Belfast City Hall (city of my mother’s birth and where I lived as a child). The exhibition showcases Belfast language, culture, and history in a fresh, interactive style. Visitors experience stories and narratives in 3D visual renderings via tablets, with accompanying voice actors.

I’m immensely proud to have contributed to two of the exhibits (in room 7 if you’re visiting!) one of which, “The Chip and the Poke” is a brief narrated story of a day in the city, compete with Belfast landmarks, weather, characters and language! Please do let me know if you visit!

Belfast City Hall Augmented Reality Experience

The Chip And The Poke

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Submissions and Interviews

I’ve been busy working on my backlog of short story ideas, and submitting a few – my short fiction seems to have settled into a niche I think of as modern classic folk horror, and I’m really enjoying where that takes me.
I recently submitted a tale to a prestigious Press for their Women of Horror anthology; I was shortlisted, but just missed out on a spot. I’m looking forward to reading the stories that did make the cut, as the premise – Pretend You Don’t See Her – offers all sorts of creepy, horrific possibilities!

The good news however is that the editors really enjoyed my tale, describing it as “riveting, and creepy”, and despite not making the cut, they’ve asked if I’d be interested in an interview for the Press blog. So watch out for an interview in the New Year!

It’s been a year of things in the works and unexpected opportunities, and I hope this carries through to 2025, with hopefully more publications, and of course, working on that final draft of And The Buntings Flew.

That’s my quick and dirty roundup for Autumn/Winter 2024 for me – I want to wish you all a year of happy reading, new author discovery, fruitful writing if that’s your thing, but most of all a year of health, happiness and new creative opportunities.

PS – re the quote at the top of this post – Charles Lamb epigraphs have featured in some of my favorite fiction, including To Kill a Mockingbird (“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once”) and The Dunwich Horror (“Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimeras—dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies—may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypes are in us, and eternal.”). I’ll have to find a really good quote from Lamb and hope for the same success!