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New Year

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and I wish you, dear constant reader, a very happy, prosperous and fulfilling 2026. Updating this blog has been on my to-do list throughout December, but Christmas and the press of my day job monopolised my attention and time. It’s been a quiet 2025 on this space in general, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing, working on writing, and even having some stories picked up and published!

While drafting this post, I had one of my favourite George Orwell essays in mind, one that’s always appropriate for the UK at this time of year. The weather in the UK is bitingly cold right now, the ground hard as iron with a deep, unyielding frost. In his essay Bad Climates are Best, Orwell wrote that “What the English climate needed was a minor operation, comparable to the removal of tonsils in a human being – just cut out January and February, and we should have nothing to complain about.” “There is a time, he wrote, “to sit in the garden in a deck chair, and there is a time to have chilblains and a dripping nose.” Well, it’s drippy nose time again!

Winter is a bit like writing, I further thought, fancifully; if only I could perform a minor operation, cut out the procrastinating, day job, and time-wasting, then we’d have a larger crop of posts. But the finished output might lack the depth and complexity that comes with the long wait for the right words, a bit like potatoes need winter frosts to break up the soil (as Orwell observes).

New Stories

So what have I been up to? I’ve had two short stories accepted for publication, and a third has been shortlisted. Two of the tales firmly belong to the horror genre, but the third, while unsettling and ambiguous, is more of a speculative study of our relationships and what we consider sacred. I’m excited that this story will feature in a literary magazine – this isn’t a new direction for my writing, but this is the first of my non-horror stories to be published. Look out for an announcement in Spring for more details and where to buy!

I’m also delighted to announce that my short story The Ferry, is appearing in HORRORific Tales Volume 4: Eldritch Terror, which was released just before Christmas. HORRORific Tales Productions is now four deep into a horror sub-genre-busting series, with Volumes 1-3 covering Hauntings, Cryptids and Serial Killers. But it was the submission call for Volume 4 which drew me, and I’m absolutely delighted to have a story featured in an anthology about all things eldritch!

Eldritch describes something strange, unnatural or even supernatural, inspiring fear, unease and a sense of the limited nature of our human comprehension. H.P. Lovecraft popularised (maybe even overused!) the term in his series of cosmic horror short stories and novellas. In a word (ok, two words), uncanny, unknowable. My love affair with horror literature started when I discovered HPL, via Stephen King, when I was around fourteen. For me, HP Lovecraft IS Eldritch, and I’ve written several homages and follow-ups to his universe, The Ferry being the latest.

The story follows Stevie Kane, a longstanding exile from his homeland, who takes a midnight ferry and a rainy bus ride to a place and time he would much rather leave in the past. There are elements of the uncanny, and yes, the eldritch, but the story also owes a nod to the dark homecoming horror of Shirley Jackson.

Volume 4 gathers stories steeped in cosmic dread, forgotten gods, and the terrible truths that lie just beyond the veil. These are tales for readers who love their horror strange, creeping, and full of the uncanny.

In this anthology, the veil really is thin, so thin, in fact, that what waits on the other side is already looking back.

You can buy a copy of HORRORific Tales Volume 4 (Eldritch Terror) on Amazon.

The Ferry is the second of my HPL-inspired stories to be published; the first, Shadows Under Leamouth, is a more direct homage, a modern-day sequel to, of course, The Shadow Over Innsmouth. You can read this and lots more fantastic horror yarns in Symphony of the Damned, Book 1 of 3 of a Horror Series from Savage Realms Press.

To whet your appetite, here’s the blurb for my story:
“A journalist’s interview for a human-interest story quickly evolves into a living, breathing nightmare”

Buy Symphony of the Damned on Amazon

While I wait for my next short story to be published (it’s called The Pontoon, watch this space), I’ve got four or five stories in various states of completion. I hope you’ll keep reading, and I would ask a favour; have you checked out my other anthology contributions? Have you recommended them, and have you reviewed them? If you have, or are even just thinking about it, thank you! I also thank the readers, editors, Belfast City Council, fellow writers and creative partners for all your help and support with my writing.

I’ll sign off by reminding us all to enjoy this necessary time of year, whatever season of life you happen to be in.

Sources

George Orwell, “Bad Climates Are Best”, Evening Standard, February 1946. 

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