The Spectral Book of Horror Stories Page 32

  She reached down to take away the mask, because what was a mask if not a face with no head? And she did so not only with dread but with incalculable longing. The two things fought in her violently in that moment as her fingertips touched plastic. And when she saw what was behind, something made of bone and fire closed around her heart, crushing it as if it were no more than a ball of paper.

  CONTRIBUTORS

  The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes RAMSEY CAMPBELL as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association and the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild. Among his novels are The Face That Must Die, Incarnate, Midnight Sun, The Count of Eleven, Silent Children, The Darkest Part of the Woods, The Overnight, Secret Story, The Grin of the Dark, Thieving Fear, Creatures of the Pool, The Seven Days of Cain, Ghosts Know and The Kind Folk. Forthcoming are Think Yourself Lucky and Thirteen Days at Sunset Beach, and he is working on a trilogy, The Three Births of Daoloth. Needing Ghosts, The Last Revelation of Gla’aki and The Pretence are novellas. His collections include Waking Nightmares, Alone with the Horrors, Ghosts and Grisly Things, Told by the Dead, Just Behind You and Holes for Faces, and his non-fiction is collected as Ramsey Campbell, Probably. His novels The Nameless and Pact of the Fathers have been filmed in Spain. His regular columns appear in Dead Reckonings and Video Watchdog. He is the President of the Society of Fantastic Films. Ramsey Campbell lives on Merseyside with his wife Jenny. His pleasures include classical music, good food and wine, and whatever’s in that pipe. His web site is at www.ramseycampbell.com

  ALISON LITTLEWOOD is the author of A Cold Season, published by Jo Fletcher Books, an imprint of Quercus. The novel was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, where it was described as “perfect reading for a dark winter’s night.” Her second novel, Path of Needles, is a dark blend of fairy tales and crime fiction, and her third, The Unquiet House, is a ghost story set in the Yorkshire countryside. Alison’s short stories have been picked for The Best Horror of the Year and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror anthologies, as well as The Best British Fantasy 2013 and The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10. Other publication credits include the anthologies Terror Tales of the Cotswolds, Where Are We Going? and Never Again. Alison lives in Yorkshire with her partner Fergus. Visit her at www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk

  HELEN MARSHALL is an award-winning Canadian author, editor, and doctor of medieval studies. Her debut collection of short stories, Hair Side, Flesh Side (ChiZine Publications 2012), was named one of the top ten books of 2012 by January Magazine. It won the 2013 British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer and was shortlisted for a 2013 Aurora Award by the Canadian Society of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her second collection, Gifts for the One Who Comes After, will be released in the autumn of 2014. She lives in Oxford, England where she spends most of her time staring at old books.

  TOM FLETCHER was born in 1984. He is the author of numerous short stories and three novels—The Leaping (Quercus 2010), The Thing on the Shore (Quercus 2011), and The Ravenglass Eye (Jo Fletcher Books 2012). His first fantasy novel, Gleam, will be published by Jo Fletcher Books in September 2014. The Times said of him: “Fletcher… convinces me that there may be some truth at last in those rumours about a renaissance in British supernatural fiction.” His website is www.endistic.wordpress.com, and he can be found on Twitter as @t_a_fletcher. He lives in Cumbria.

  STEVE RASNIC TEM’s latest novel Blood Kin (Solaris March 2014), alternating between the 1930s and the present day, is a Southern Gothic/ Horror blend of snake handling, ghosts, granny women, kudzu, and Melungeons. His previous novels are Deadfall Hotel (Solaris 2012), The Man On The Ceiling (Wizards of the Coast Discoveries 2008—written with Melanie Tem, an expansion of their novella), The Book of Days (Subterranean 2002), Daughters (Grand Central 2001—also written with Melanie Tem), and Excavation (Avon 1987). Steve has also published over 400 short stories. His latest collection is this year’s Here With The Shadows, a collection of traditionally inspired ghostly fiction from Ireland’s Swan River Press. Other recent collections include Ugly Behavior (New Pulp 2012-noir fiction), Onion Songs (Chomu 2013), Celestial Inventories (ChiZine 2013), and Twember (NewCon 2013-science fiction.) In 2015 PS Publishing will bring out his novella In the Lovecraft Museum. You can visit the Tem home on the web at www.m-s-tem.com

  GARY McMAHON is the acclaimed author of nine novels and several short story collections. His latest releases are a collection titled Where You Live and the novels Beyond Here Lies Nothing, The Bones Of You and The End. His short fiction has been reprinted in various Year’s Best volumes. Gary lives with his family in Yorkshire, where he trains in Shotokan karate and likes running in the rain. His website can be found at: www.garymcmahon.com

  REGGIE OLIVER has been a professional playwright, actor, and theatre director since 1975. Besides plays, his publications include the authorised biography of Stella Gibbons, Out of the Woodshed, published by Bloomsbury in 1998, and six collections of stories of supernatural terror, of which the fifth, Mrs Midnight (Tartarus 2011) won the Children of the Night Award for ‘Best Work of Supernatural Fiction in 2011’ and was nominated for two other awards. Tartarus has also reissued his first and second collections The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini and The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler in new editions with new illustrations by the author, as well as his latest collection Flowers of the Sea. A seventh collection Holidays From Hell is due out from Tartarus in 2015, as is a children’s book The Hauntings at Tankerton Park with his own illustrations. His novel The Dracula Papers I—The Scholar’s Tale (Chomu 2011) is the first of a projected four. Another novel Virtue in Danger was published in 2013 by Zagava Books. An omnibus edition of his stories entitled Dramas from the Depths is published by Centipede as part of its Masters of the Weird Tale series. His stories have appeared in over fifty anthologies.

  ALISON MOORE’s short fiction has been published in Best British Short Stories anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra. The title story of her debut collection, The Pre-War House and Other Stories, won a New Writer novella prize. Her first novel, The Lighthouse, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and the National Book Awards 2012 (New Writer of the Year), winning the McKitterick Prize 2013. Her second novel, He Wants, was published in August. Born in Manchester in 1971, she lives in a village on the Leicestershire-Nottinghamshire border. She is an honorary lecturer in the School of English at Nottingham University. www.alison-moore.com

  ROBERT SHEARMAN has written four short story collections (Tiny Deaths, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Everyone’s Just So So Special and Remember Why You Fear Me), which between them have won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Edge Hill Readers Prize and three British Fantasy Awards. His background is in the theatre—he was resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter and a regular writer for Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough—and his plays have won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award, the Sophie Winter Memorial Trust Award, the World Drama Trust Award, and the Guinness Award in association with the Royal National Theatre. He regularly writes plays and short stories for BBC Radio, and has won two Sony Awards for his interactive radio series The Chain Gang. However he is probably best known for reintroducing the Daleks to the BAFTA winning first season of the revived Doctor Who, in an episode that was a finalist for the Hugo Award. His forthcoming collection of stories, They Do The Same Things Different There, is to be released this summer.

  CONRAD WILLIAMS is the author of seven novels: Head Injuries, London Revenant, The Unblemished, One, Decay Inevitable, Loss of Separation and Blonde on a Stick. He has also written four novellas and over 100 short stories, some of which are collected in Use Once Then Destroy and Born With Teeth. He is currently working on a sequel to Blonde on a Stick. In addition to his International Horror Gu
ild Award for his novel The Unblemished, he is a triple recipient of the British Fantasy Award, including Best Novel for One. His debut anthology Gutshot was shortlisted at both the British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards. He has also been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award on three occasions. He lives in Manchester with his wife, three sons and a big Maine Coon.

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH is a novelist and screenwriter. Under this name he has published eighty short stories, and three novels—Only Forward, Spares and One of Us—winning the Philip K. Dick, International Horror Guild, and August Derleth awards, along with the Prix Bob Morane in France. He has also won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction four times, more than any other author. Writing as MICHAEL MARSHALL, he has published seven internationally-bestselling thrillers including The Straw Men, The Intruders—soon to be a miniseries with BBC America starring John Simm and Mira Sorvino— and Killer Move. His most recent novel is We Are Here. He lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his wife, son, and two cats. His website can be found at www.michaelmarshallsmith.com

  BRIAN HODGE is the award-winning author of eleven novels spanning horror, crime, and historical. He’s also written over 110 short stories, novelettes, and novellas, and five full-length collections. His first collection The Convulsion Factory was ranked by critic Stanley Wiater among the 113 best books of modern horror. Recent or forthcoming books include Whom the Gods Would Destroy and The Weight of the Dead, both standalone novellas; No Law Left Unbroken, a collection of crime fiction; an updated hardcover edition of Dark Advent, his early post-apocalyptic epic; Worlds of Hurt, an omnibus edition of the first four works of his Misbegotten mythos; and his latest novel, Leaves of Sherwood. Hodge lives in Colorado, where more of everything is in the works. He also dabbles in music, sound design, and photography; loves everything about organic gardening except the thieving squirrels; and trains in Krav Maga, grappling, and kickboxing, which are of no use at all against the squirrels. Connect with Brian through his web site at www.brianhodge.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/brianhodgewriter.

  Specialising in dark fantasy and horror, ANGELA SLATTER is the author of the Aurealis Award-winning The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, the World Fantasy Award finalist Sourdough and Other Stories, and the Aurealis finalist Midnight and Moonshine (with Lisa L. Hannett).

  Angela’s short stories have appeared in such writerly venues as The Mammoth Book of New Horror #22 and #25, Fantasy, Nightmare and Lightspeed Magazines, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Fearie Tales, A Book of Horrors, Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded, and Australian and US Best Of anthologies. In 2014 she will publish three new collections: Black-Winged Angels (Ticonderoga Publications), The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (Tartarus Press), and The Female Factory (with Lisa L. Hannett) (Twelfth Planet Press). She is the first Australian to win a British Fantasy Award (for “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter” in A Book of Horrors, Stephen Jones, ed.). In 2013 she was awarded one of the inaugural Queensland Writers Fellowships. She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, and is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006. She blogs at www.angelaslatter.com about shiny things that catch her eye.

  STEPHEN LAWS is an award winning British horror novelist whose work has been published all over the world. His novels include Ghost Train, Spectre, The Frighteners, Darkfall, Gideon, Macabre, Daemonic, Somewhere South of Midnight, Chasm and Ferocity. His short fiction has appeared in Year’s Best collections and The Century’s Best Horror Fiction and can be found in his collection The Midnight Man. One of those stories, The Secret, was adapted as a short horror movie (in which he appears) and won the New York Macabre Faire Film Festival Award and AOL’s Best Short Feature award.

  RIO YOUERS is the British Fantasy Award–nominated author of End Times and Old Man Scratch. His short fiction has been published by, among others, St. Martin’s Griffin, HarperCollins, and IDW Publishing. His latest novel Westlake Soul was recently nominated for Canada’s prestigious Sunburst Award, and has been optioned for film by Hollywood producer Stephen Susco. Rio lives in southwestern Ontario with his wife Emily and their children Lily and Charlie.

  JOHN LLEWELLYN PROBERT won the 2013 British Fantasy Award for his novella The Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine and 2014 will see the publication of its sequel The Hammer of Dr Valentine (both from Spectral Press). He is the author of over a hundred published short stories, six novellas and a novel, The House That Death Built (Atomic Fez). His first short story collection The Faculty of Terror won the 2006 Children of the Night award for best work of Gothic Fiction. His latest stories can be found in Best British Horror 2014 (Salt Publishing), Psycho Mania (Constable Robinson), La Femme (NewCon Press) and Terror Tales of Wales (Gray Friar). Endeavour Press has published Ward 19, Bloody Angels and The Pact—three crime books featuring his pathologist heroine Parva Corcoran. He is currently trying to review every cult movie in existence at his House of Mortal Cinema (www.johnlprobert.blogspot.co.uk) and everything he is up to writing-wise can be found at www.johnlprobert.com. Future projects include a new short story collection, a lot more non-fiction writing and a couple of novels. He never sleeps.

  LISA TUTTLE has been writing strange, weird stories nearly all her life, making her first professional sale in 1971. Stranger in the House, the first volume of her “Collected Short Supernatural Fiction” was published by Ash-Tree Press in 2010. She is a past winner of the John W. Campbell Award, the British Science Fiction Award, and the International Horror Guild Award. Her first novel, written in collaboration with George R.R. Martin, Windhaven, originally published in 1981, is still in print, and has been translated into many languages. Her other novels include Lost Futures, The Mysteries and, most recently, The Silver Bough (Jo Fletcher Books, 2013). A native of Texas, she has lived in the highlands of Scotland for more than twenty years.

  NICHOLAS ROYLE is the author of First Novel, as well as six earlier novels including Counterparts, The Director’s Cut and Antwerp, and a short story collection, Mortality. He has edited eighteen anthologies including Darklands and Darklands 2 as well as four volumes of The Best British Short Stories (2011—2014). A senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, he also runs Nightjar Press and works as an editor for Salt Publishing, where he has been responsible for Alison Moore’s Man Booker-shortlisted The Lighthouse, Alice Thompson’s Burnt Island and Stephen McGeagh’s Habit among other titles.

  STEPHEN VOLK is best known for inventing “Pipes” the poltergeist in the infamous BBC TV “Hallowe’en hoax” Ghostwatch, and as writer/creator of the award-winning paranormal ITV drama series Afterlife. Other screenplays include the recent big screen ghost story The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall and Dominic West, Ken Russell’s hallucinogenic biopic Gothic, predatory nanny flick The Guardian (co-written and directed by William (The Exorcist) Friedkin), and Octane starring Madeleine Stowe and Norman Reedus. He also won a BAFTA for The Deadness of Dad starring Rhys Ifans and his play The Chapel of Unrest was presented exclusively for one night only at London’s Bush Theatre starring Jim Broadbent and Reece Shearsmith. His short stories have earned selection in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Best British Mysteries, and Best British Horror 2014, and he has been a Bram Stoker, British Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Award finalist. 2013 saw the publication of his highly acclaimed novella Whitstable, featuring the horror star Peter Cushing (Spectral Press), and his new collection Monsters in the Heart (Gray Friar Press) which have both been nominated for British Fantasy Awards in 2014, for ‘Best Novella’ and ‘Best Collection’ respectively. www.stephenvolk.net

 

 

 
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