Awards and Stories

I've well and truly sated my muse these past few weeks, inspired by some Great News, so the shifty sideshow freak shouldn't be complaining any. I've also been writing as if I'm holding a burning pen, reading old Weird Tales stories from the magazine's original run, and watching lots of cool flicks. Even my dreams have been truly bizarre.

But it's not enough for him; the more of a creative appetite I get, the more demanding he gets. It's as if I'm slipping more and more into his backstage world of shadows, where he can get a better grip on me and it's not so easy to ignore what he whispers.

But you know what? I'm loving it! I'm feeling inspired like I haven't for a long, long time. I guess Good News will do that for you.

What Good News? I hear you say...and what's with capitalizing the blasted words?

Well, let me tell you, seeing as how you asked...

Macabre has made the final ballot of the 2010 Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement in an anthology, which is bloody awesome!

But wait, there's more. Kirstyn McDermott's Macabre story 'Monsters Among Us' has also been nominated for a Stoker in the Long Fiction category. It keeps going, too: the anthology has been short listed for the 2010 Australian Shadows Award, with Andrew McKeirnan's story 'All the Clowns in Clowntown' likewise shortlisted in those awards for Best Short Fiction. And to top it off, Richard Harland's story from Macabre, 'The Fear', will be reprinted in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year 3!

Go Macabre!

And as for my own writing, check out HorrorWorld next month (April) as my story 'Behind the Midnight Blinds' will be featured there.

It's a story I'm pretty proud of, and one I wrote while living on Pitt Town Road. It's mostly based upon real events (apart from the supernatural events, that is). An old, empty house next door, ancient books stashed under the only piece of furniture left in the place, and a sensor light outside my bedroom that kept coming on in the middle of the night...

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Blade Red's awesome Dark Pages anthology, in which I have a story ('Clip Notes') was shortlisted for an Australian Shadows Award in the best edited collection category. How could I forget that?? Terrible, Marty.