Hello, friends. It's been a month since my last email when I linked to every single This Is Horror Podcast conversation with Josh Malerman and spoke about my history and connection with Josh. You'd be forgiven for thinking this newsletter is a monthly newsletter. Truth be told, I always intended it to be a weekly but this year it hasn't quite worked out this way. This time around, though, I have one hell of a good reason for the delay on putting a newsletter out … See, just over three weeks...
28 days ago • 7 min read
Hello, friends. One of the most recent guests on This Is Horror Podcast was our dear friend and prolific writer, Josh Malerman. He recently released his first nonfiction book Watching Evil Dead which is part an account of a transformative night in his life, part a reflection on Evil Dead (but you don't need to have watched the movie to appreciate the book), and part as close to bottled inspiration as you're likely to find in a book form. There's writing and creative advice but this is less a...
2 months ago • 13 min read
Hello, friends. It’s been just under a month since we last spoke, and in that time, I have finished the first draft of my collaborative novel, tentatively titled Inemuri with John Crinan. Folks, this one is an absolute whopper, weighing in at over 167,000 words. Given my last two books were under 80,000 words and the two before that considerably less, this is new and uncharted territory for me. I spoke to Josh Malerman last week about his excellent creative nonfiction book, WATCHING EVIL...
3 months ago • 9 min read
Hello, friends. It’s been just over a month since I last sent a This Is Horror newsletter—the main reason being, I dedicated the month of August to finishing the first draft of my novel with John Crinan. Aside from recording podcasts and pre-arranged family commitments, I did very little other than write during August, and I do not regret it at all. Actually, it’s given me a real thirst to write and podcast full-time, something that if you’re a listener of the This Is Horror Podcast, you’ll...
4 months ago • 10 min read
Hello, friends. It has been a while since the last This Is Horror newsletter and there have been a number of podcasts, Patreon posts, and YouTube videos since then. Highlights include but are not limited to: Jon Bassoff Talking About The Memory Ward TIH 620: Jon Bassoff on The Memory Ward, The Drive-Thru Crematorium, and Becoming a Writer (Audio) Jon Bassoff on The Memory Ward and The Drive-Thru Crematorium (Video) Josh Curran Talking About Narrating Daddy's Boy TIH 621: Josh Curran on...
5 months ago • 8 min read
I often like to take stock of what I’m doing with my life and career to make sure I’m utilising my time effectively and achieving what I want with my life. As a number of you know, there are four big areas of focus right now: This Is Horror Podcast Writing Fiction Studying Japanese Teaching/My Day Job At different times in my life, different areas have taken centre stage. There’s a fire in me right now that desperately wants to take This Is Horror Podcast to the next level. The dream would be...
6 months ago • 5 min read
You can do anything you want but you can’t do everything you want. This was something I must have said almost every week, circa 2016–2020, when talking about writing and ensuring you’re prioritising your time effectively. It’s something I stand by to this day and it governs a lot of my decisions when it comes to writing and life in general. Each day we have a finite amount of time and must use it wisely. That’s why I also advocate deciding on the most important task for the day and doing it...
7 months ago • 5 min read
Hello, friends. I hope you are having a great day. Thank you to those of you who have bought, read, reviewed, rated, or engaged with my brand-new dark comedy, Daddy's Boy. If you have yet to do so and you have a Kindle Unlimted subscription, you can actually read Daddy's Boy for free as part of that subscription. Here are the links for Daddy's Boy below for your ease. Buy Daddy’s Boy on Amazon UK Buy Daddy’s Boy on Amazon US Buy Daddy’s Boy from This Is Horror Speaking of Daddy's Boy, I have...
7 months ago • 5 min read
The great Jack Ketchum spoke about ‘writing from the wound’. Something similar but distinct that may be helpful is ‘writing to heal the wound’. Writing as therapy and as catharsis. It’s something I certainly did with my last two books, House of Bad Memories and Daddy’s Boy, and it’s something I’ve done to some degree for a long time now, but only recently have I become aware of just how much I do it and of its potential benefits. There are various ways you can ‘write to heal the wound’ and I...
8 months ago • 10 min read