Leonid Andreyev – Selected Stories released

Excited at the release of a little project I’ve been putting together.

 

Leonid Andreyev – Selected Stories

 

A Russian titan, Leonid Andreyev stands as a colossus alongside the many giants of his country’s literary lineage. Selected for this collection are many of his finest short stories. A practitioner in the darkest recesses of the human heart and imagination, his tales delve the wretched depths of madness and horror. Dazzling in its psychological complexity, arresting in its sombre and audacious realism, Andreyev’s short fiction illuminates and shape-shifts as emphatically as it frightens and repels. From the encapsulation of the psyche of a nation to the solitary anxieties of the individual, Andreyev, with exemplary skill, reveals the unfathomable forces that guide the soul and move the blood. Included within are stories of transcendent terror, metaphysical in scope, some grounded in the brutal caress of nature’s cruelties, others pivoting on the arbitrariness of a potentially godless universe. Andreyev’s characters wrestle to equivalent degree with the external and internal. Employing searing intensity, they live, and inevitably pay the price for the impertinence of doing so. Whether melancholic or bitter, resigned, ignorant, insane, innocent, or guilty, those who populate Andreyev’s stories face fate’s capriciousness. In mesmerising fashion Andreyev visits the prison cell, the public execution, the diseased family home, and the nightmare of natural catastrophe. His version of the Biblical landscape is electrifyingly gothic. A writer of immense power, unflinching and unrelenting, Leonid Andreyev has left us the beneficiaries of his incendiary work. Some of which is included in this volume.

The stories are accompanied by a selection of abstract illustrations designed to compliment the evocative tone of the pieces.

Watch the trailer here or here

Get a copy here

 

 

L’Art pour l’Art – Librivox Recordings

I had the privilege recently of contributing a selection of readings to an album of recordings for the wonderful Librivox site. Titled L’Art pour l’Art the other pieces included are recorded by the incomparable Sean Kilpatrick

Listen at Librivox here and at Internet Archive here. Sean’s readings are also collected on his YouTube channel here.  Endless thanks to Sean.

 

Save Yourself

The annual Silent Motorist Media list of the Ten Weird Writers to Save Us All has been announced, and I’ve been included in the 2019 selection. Thank you to all who sent a vote my way or put in a good word for me. Find the list here. I’m in great company and strongly suggest investigating the other writers featured.

Sea of Glass Giveaways

Enter for a chance to win an ebook copy of my novella Sea of Glass.

If you are on LibraryThing enter here. Scroll down to find the listing. Ten copies available. Ends June 23rd 2019.

For those on BookLikes, enter here. Scroll down to find Sea of Glass listed. Ten copies to win. Ends June 26th 2019.

Sea of Glass

My new novella Sea of Glass is out!

Smoke fills the city air, choking the street, curling up and around the tower. Kattar Bassis hits the ground and crawls blindly through the chaos. A light shines out in the black, leading him to the entranceway of his building. So begins his ascent and search for the ever elusive EXIT.

Available on Amazon UK and US.  Also Lulu, Leanpub and various others

Thank you to monkeelino for assisting me with the cover.

The Boredom Drive on HorrorBabble

This week HorrorBabble is showcasing authors for its Author Spotlight. My tongue-in-cheek horror homage/deconstruction, The Boredom Drive, is today’s offering, read perfectly by the amazing Ian Gordon.

Animal Uprising!

My short story, Upsweep, is included in the new Nightmare Press anthology Animal Uprising!

“A lion, a hybrid, a bear – oh no! A goat, a gull, and a big black dog! Can’t forget the roaches, the deer flies, and the tarantula hawk, or the abominable insect that rises from the earth! We got creepy crawlers and killer critters for everyone. Oh, you want mythical creatures? How about a malevolent spirit posed as a fox, a rambunctious jackalope, or a herd of unicorn-gazelles on a distant planet? Let’s not forget the supernatural silver stag with the power to raise the dead. Oh, did I mention the giant mantis shrimp? Yeah – we got a giant mantis shrimp. Humankind really has their work cut out for them in this collection of terrifying tales of beastly butchery. Need to know more? Check out Animal Uprising! for all of the mayhem.”

Available on Amazon UK and US

My story features a mantis shrimp. Find out more about this creature here and here

The Anti-Austerity Anthology

THE ANTI-AUSTERITY ANTHOLOGY is out! Features writing by me, and a collective of writers I greatly admire. More importantly, proceeds from this book will go to food bank charities.

After many brutal years of austerity measures, this anthology serves as a reminder that this regime is continuing to claim the lives of the most vulnerable among us while creating untold hardship for millions more. We must keep making a noise about it any which way we can and try to mitigate the damage being caused to our communities – Rupert Dreyfus

The divide between the rich and the poor is widening all the time. The contributors of this book are standing up and making a noise about the draconian nature of modern austerity, so by buying a copy, telling your friends and spreading the word, you’ll be a part of The Anti-Austerity Collective yourselves. Never give up hope, y’all! – Harry Whitewolf

Available on Amazon UK in Paperback and Kindle

And here for the Amazon US Paperback and Kindle

THE ANTI-AUSTERITY COLLECTIVE are:

Rupert Dreyfus (Editor), Harry Whitewolf (Editor), Mike Robbins (Editor), M. J. Black, Guy Brewer, Andy Carrington, Ford Dagenham, Matthew Duggan, Rebecca Gransden, Jay Spencer Green, Chris Harrison, Ruth F. Hunt, Bradford Middleton, Mary Papastavrou, Riya Anne Polcastro, Leo X. Robertson, Connor Young

With Steve Topple (Foreword). Steve also gives an insightful account of what the collection is about in an article for The Canary, which can be found here.

Gas-works

Teenage poetry kept in a drawer. Titled Gas-works, via electronic typewriter.

Part of the Dead Liner Notes project.

Spag: the Anti-Narrative Worm

Spag was created by me at some point in my early teenage years. His mission was a heavy one. Nothing. He’s not exactly a worm, I’m not sure he’s anything. Just a spag. I could describe him as anti-narrative, anti-conflict, pro-monotony, pro-boredom, but these would imply active intent. This is Spag’s one and only adventure, as it said all he had to say.

Part of the Dead Liner Notes project addressing constructed memory among other things.