The Halifax Ghost Story Festival - 29th - 31st October 2010

We arrived back home earlier tonight after one of the best weekends we've spent away for ages. The Halifax Ghost Story Festival was a tremendous success and credit must be given to those who organised and took part in it. Tomorrow Lin and I will give a report on it. In the meantime, here are a few photos:

Mark Morris, Conrad Williams, Nicholas Royle and Stephen Volk

Reggie Oliver

Jeremy Dyson reading Robert Aickman's The Inner Room

Dean Clough, site of the festival. This used to be the world's largest carpet manufacturer.

The Ten-headed King from the Annapurna Indian Dance show, After Life

TV director, Lawrence Gordon Clark (right) being interviewed inbetween screening of three of his famous "Ghost Stories for Christmas" produced for the BBC in the 1970s - Lost Hearts, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas and A Warning to the Curious. 

Alice the Musical

Here is a link to ReAct Academy to see pictures of the rehearsals for Alice the Musical.

Quiet lately

I haven't entered many new subjects this week. That's because I've been busy with other things, notably my wife's annual tax return, a VAT return on the bookshop and creating props for my daughter, Cassandra's forthcoming production at the Oswaldtwistle Arts Centre of Alice the Musical. I have been making a ridiculously large tea pot and cups out of papiermache, which, as anyone who has ever done this before will know, is a long drawn out, slow process. Still a lot to do on it, including a final sanding, then painting.

Halifax Ghost Story Festival - Halloween

It's only a few day away before we're off to Halifax for a weekend of ghosts and ghouls at Dean Clough.

The Halifax Ghost Story Festival.

I'll be posting pictures and a write-up of the event as soon as we get back, and do a piece about it for the next issue of Prism.

Family Birthday Celebration for Alan and Mark

We had a great family meal at the Agra Indian Restaurant, Hapton, near Burnley last night to celebrate the birthdays of Cassie's husband, Alan, and Christy's best friend, Mark.

With Deepest Sympathy - Johnny Mains

Gun Money is a strange ghost story of Ireland's recent, very troubled past, the days of its Civil War and the assassination of Michael Collins. This and a modern scrounger who cheats his way through life - till he tries to cheat the dead, and finds they're not so easily cheated.

The mood swings completely with the next much shorter tale, Jesus Wept, an amusing piece of blasphemy which would ensure, if known, make Johnny's reception in religious quarters more than warm. Quite a grab bag of jokes too, mixed in with some quite horrific descriptions, clipped, colourful and always spot on. Hard core drugs and Christianity in the form of a junky Jesus Christ, who may or may not be real - at least to the narrator. With a comical punchline, which made me laugh at least.

The Bag Lady is a much more serious story, a true horror about a murderous old woman with a big red bag. Told from the perspective of an eleven-year-old boy, it's a dark, grisly tale of child murder and the supernatural.

With Deepest Sympathy - Johnny Mains

The title story, With Deepest Sympathy, has Mrs Primrose Hildebrand, who could have been the Miss Marple of her community, but instead turns her talents to poison pen letters, with dire consequences, in the amputatory department. You can see Johnny's love for the nastiest side of the Pan horrors here. And a wicked sense of humour.

The Spoon, on the other hand, is just a one page joke at the expense of Uri Geller - who, seemingly, was amused by it! 10 out of 10 for originality and chutzpah if nothing else.

Next up, the longer Gun Money, which sounds just up my street.

Prism - December Issue

I don't know what it is but since it was decided by the new BFS chairman, David Howe, that Dark Horizons/New Horizons and Prism would be put together in one publication, I have lost a lot of my former enthusiams for editing Prism. I think a lot of this is because now I won't be required to design the layout of Prism for the printer. All that will be done by someone else, possibly someone connected with PS Publishing, who seem to be taking over more and more of the production side of BFS publications under the new regime.

I must admit that designing the layout for Prism was always one of the aspects of editing it which I enjoyed the most and from which I gained most of my job satisfaction. To have all this handed over to some anonymous person who will decide all this above my head, leaves me completely underwhelmed.

I wonder if this is how the editors for Dark Horizons/New Horizons feel. Stephen Theaker, of course, who was editor for DH, has since stepped down and I have no idea who the new editor will be.

How well all this will work out I'm far from sure. The plan is, instead of having separate soft cover publications, to combine them all into one bumper hardback. To be honest, this all sounds very risky financially, and already there is talk of increasing the society's subs.

I'll give the new setup a try for the next few months, then consider my position. It will depend for a large part on how well it all works out - and just what the finished product looks like. Though there are other aspects too, which I don't want to go into yet.

Alice the Musical

There's been a slight adjustment to the poster:

With Deepest Symathy by Johnny Mains

Got my inscribed copy yesterday from Johnny - and what a nicely printed, attractive collection this is! A genuine bargain for £9.99.

Only read the first story so far, A Return to the Judge's House, but I must say I like Johnny's clean, straighforward, unpretentious style. A real change from some of the stuff I've been reading recently. Obverse have done an excellent job on this book, which looks deceptively slim but stands at over 180 pages.

Observe Books

With Deepest Sympathy - Johnny Mains

Just ordered a copy of Johnny's collection from Obverse Books. Only £9.99 plus postage and packing. Looking forward to reading this when it arrives.

Interesting news about Hammer Films and TV

The BBC have a report about plans for Hammer to embark again in producing a TV series, like The Hammer House of Horror and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense in the 1980s.

That's great news, after their first film venture in Let Me In and the DVD release of Beyond the Rave.

I must admit I have always been a keen fan of the Hammer films. I have virtually every single one of their horror, thriller and even crime films on DVD. It will be nice to add more new ones to my collection!

Once a Catholic

Last night Lin, our middle daughter, Christy, and I went to watch Once a Catholic at the Oswaldtwistle Civic Theatre, which is just across the road from where we live. It was put on by the Oswaldtwistle Players and, as usual for them, it was an outstanding production, even on its first night. A packed audience too, which was brilliant.

Malicious Deviance - Stories About Bad People

This is the proposed cover for the anthology Malicious Deviance, edited by Robert Essig for Library of the Living Dead. My story, They Pissed On My Sofa, will be included in it.