Twisted Tales at World Book Night

April 23rd is World Book Night and as part of Liverpool's celebrations there's a big event featuring all sorts of authors at Waterstones Liverpool One. We'll be there to close off the evening with some great Twisted Tales readings from Ramsey Campbell and Alison Littlewood.

The whole evening starts at 5pm, but the Twisted Tales segment will begin closer to 7pm.

Other events on the night include a quiz, a raffle with some great prizes (horror and otherwise), poetry readings, and a reading and Q+A with local favourite Maureen Lee.

The event is FREE to attend.

Part of the World Book Night celebration is the great book give-away, there are some great horror books in this year's list and we'll have some copies to give away on the night to the first few audience members to arrive.

 Facebook link for event.

Ramsey Campbell interviewed by David McWilliam

Ramsey with wife Jenny

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 and Ghosts Know. Forthcoming is The Kind Folk. His collections include Waking Nightmares, Alone with the Horrors, Ghosts and Grisly Things, Told by the Dead and Just Behind You, 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 Prism, All Hallows, Dead Reckonings and Video Watchdog. He is the President of the British Fantasy Society and 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. 

DM: With the re-release of your early Cthulhu Mythos collection The Inhabitant of the Lake & Other Unwelcome Tenants (2012) from PS Publishing, how has the influence of H. P. Lovecraft on your work evolved over the course of your career?
RC: It’s been subsumed, I think. The earliest tales in Inhabitant are very close imitations, but the trouble is that they introduce elements from the later codification of the mythos, exactly what I don’t think Lovecraft would have wanted – the mythos as he conceived it was intended as a riposte to what he saw as the excessive systematisation of the occult by the Victorians, a way of suggesting more than was shown. Then amateurs like me came along and filled in the gaps, rendering the whole thing far too explicit and robbing it of too much of its mystery. Once I realised this I made some attempts to compensate for my original errors. 'The Voice of the Beach' tries to create a sense of cosmic terror without any of the paraphernalia of the mythos. (Fritz Leiber did something similar in 'A Bit of the Dark World', I believe). 'Cold Print' and 'The Other Names' try to locate the Lovecraftian in modern urban society. I also annotated Cameron Nash’s letters to Lovecraft, of course. And there’s The Darkest Part of the Woods, but we’ll come to that. More generally, I think Lovecraft’s influence – his sense of structure, the gradual accumulation of detail to suggest terror – permeates much of my stuff.

DM: In The Darkest Part of the Woods (2002) you explore Lovecraftian occult magic in the context of deteriorating relationships in a dysfunctional family. What was the appeal of this juxtaposition of the intimate and the numinous to you as a writer?

RC: I think these elements reflect each other – at least, I hope they do. I’ve been working along these lines almost as soon as I abandoned the overtly Lovecraftian – for instance, with my first Liverpool tale ('The Cellars' from 1965), where the supernatural elements express the relationship. In The Darkest Part of the Woods the depth of the association between the family and their haunted environment only gradually revealed itself to me in the writing. That’s the kind of experience that makes writing (novels especially) worth all the doubts and hesitations for me. I would also say that I think Woods is my most nearly successful Lovecraftian piece, partly because I took The Case of Charles Dexter Ward as a model, a tale where the mythos is barely referred to but still looms over or under it. I finally appreciated how Lovecraftian elements are often best conveyed indirectly, as he often did himself. In my book, for instance, I like the lines from the masque (“Come man and maid, come dance and sing…”) which hint at something far darker than their bright lyrical surface. The whole book is an attempt to return to Lovecraft’s first principles, as The Blair Witch Project (consciously or otherwise) did.

DM: You have long fought against the censoring of horror and unsubstantiated claims from mainstream political and media figures as to the damaging effects on the individual psyche and society itself arising from the popularity of the genre. This is amusingly expressed in your article 'Turn Off' from the non-fiction collection Ramsey Campbell, Probably (2002), your account of a 'debate' at the Wirral Christian Centre featuring Mary Whitehouse in 1987. Your story 'Chucky Comes to Liverpool' (2010) in Haunted Legends (edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas), addresses the moral panic stirred up against the Child's Play films as the cause of the murder of Jamie Bulger. Looking back to that time, do you think that there is now a more accepting attitude to horror or does it still hold pariah status?

RC: I think the field constantly drifts in and out of favour. I often recall how it was when I originally encountered it in the 1950s. Just a couple of years after horror comics were banned in Britain, and only just before Hammer Films started getting pilloried in the press for being too graphic and sadistic, the august house of Faber & Faber brought out Best Horror Stories, edited by John Kier Cross and boasting a superbly lurid Felix Kelly cover. I suspect the book may have been an attempt to reclaim respectability for the field, though it contained some decidedly gruesome material ('Berenice', 'Raspberry Jam'). It’s surely significant that Hammer Films later received a Queen’s Award for Industry, while you can find in public libraries (Liverpool, for instance) deluxe bound volumes of the very comics that caused the ban in the first place. Right now horror seems to be on the tentatively ascendant, I think. Even the occasional source of controversy, most recently Human Centipede 2, doesn’t seem to be regarded as representative of the field. Still, I’m betting it may find itself scapegoated once again in the future – call me a pessimist if you like.

This is just a short extract from an ongoing interview, which will eventually appear on The Gothic Imagination.

Ghosts Know by Ramsey Campbell [Preview]

In the continued build up to our PS Publishing showcase event at the end of the month we are privileged to be able to bring you the first three chapters of the new book by none other than Ramsey Campbell. The book is called Ghosts Know and is published by PS, here's the synopsis:

SYNOPSIS:

Before I can retreat a youth runs up the steps behind me. I haven’t time to think—I feel as if my clenched fists are swinging me around to punch him in the face. His lips split and squash wetly against my fist, and his chin bruises a knuckle. I would hit him again, but he flounders down a couple of steps until Si thumps his shoulders with an arm to steady him. They’re blocking my retreat, and Si lifts his knife as if I’ve given him another reason to use it. Jay’s helper has run to prevent me from jumping down onto the towpath, even if I could without breaking a leg. My only chance is to take Jay on. As I start along the walkway he jerks up his knife . . .

How did I get here? I’m Graham Wilde, the presenter of Wilde Card on Waves Radio. A few weeks ago I interviewed a psychic who was helping the police search for a missing girl. He seemed to know more about me than he should, but I knew more about him than he expected, and perhaps that’s where all my troubles began. He kept after me, first of all on my show and then at a funeral, and he wasn’t the only one there who did. What else could I do except find out who was responsible for what people seemed to think I’d done? But I didn’t realise how much danger I was putting myself in until it was too late . . .

 -

ONE: ON THE AIR

“And another thing about all these immigrants,” Arthur from Stockport declares. “You won’t want anybody hearing about the factory that’s had to change its name.”

 “You’re here to enlighten us, Arthur.”

 “Don’t patronise me, Mr Wilde.”

 I’ve never had a caller make my name sound so much like an insult, though he’s had plenty of competition. Beyond the soundproof window of the studio Christine twirls one finger in the air. “You’ve got just a minute, Arthur,” I tell him. “We’re nearly at the news.”

 “You always put anyone who thinks like me on last, don’t you, Mr Wilde? Bob from Blackley, he’s another. You haven’t let us on for weeks and now I’ve not got time to say what I came on for.”

 “You’re using up your minute, Arthur.”

 “It was a muslin factory till the lot who took all the jobs said it sounded too much like Muslim. They didn’t fancy the idea you could make those in a factory, so they told the boss they’d get him done for being racist if he didn’t call it a fabric manufacturer.”

 “Where did you hear about that, Arthur?”

 “It’s well known, Mr Wilde. Just try talking to a few people that live in the real world. And before you ask, the factory’s somewhere in Lancashire. Pakishire, we’ll have to call it if they carry on like this.”

“You mustn’t use words like that on here, Arthur.”

“It’s all right to call us Brits, but they won’t let us call them – ”

“That’s all from Wilde Card for another lunchtime,” I say not quite fast enough to blot out his last word, and flick the switch to cut him off. “Here’s Sammy Baxter with the news at two o’clock.”

I take off my headphones as Christine switches the output to the news studio. I’m leaning back in the swivel chair to wriggle my shoulders and stretch when Rick Till blunders in, combing his unruly reddish hair at the same time as dragging his other arm free of his leather jacket. He’s always this harassed when he’s due on the air, even though he isn’t for five minutes. “All yours, Rick,” I say as he hangs the jacket on the back of my chair.

Samantha’s newscast meets me in the control room. “Kylie Goodchild’s mum made an emotional appeal…” The fifteen-year-old is still missing, but we don’t hear just her mother’s voice; it’s underlaid by the kind of tastefully mournful music that films use to demonstrate they’re serious. I’m so offended by the artificiality that I yank the outer door open and demand “Whose idea was that?”

Christine comes after me and lays a hand on my shoulder. “Graham…”

Some of the reporters and presenters in the large unpartitioned newsroom glance up from their desks, and Trevor Lofthouse lifts his head. He shakes it to flip back a lock of hair and adjusts his flimsy rectangular spectacles but doesn’t otherwise respond. “Do we really think we have to manipulate the listeners like that?” I’m determined to establish. “Do we think they won’t care otherwise?”

 “What are you saying is manipulation?” Lofthouse retorts.
“Calling it an emotional appeal. What other kind is she going to make? Who needs to be told?” As the news editor’s spectacles twitch with a frown I say “And calling her the girl’s mum. What’s wrong with mother? It’s supposed to be the news, not somebody gossiping over a fence.”

“You’re off the air now, Graham. No need to start more arguments today.” Before I can retort that I never manufacture them he says “Why are you so bothered?”

“Maybe I hate clichés.” I sense that Christine would like me to leave it at that, but I resent the question too much. “Can’t we even broadcast an appeal without some music under it? We mustn’t think too highly of our audience if we think they need to be told what to feel.”

“It’s from Kylie Goodchild’s favourite film.”

Lofthouse doesn’t tell me so, and Christine doesn’t either. Paula Harding has opened her door and is watching me across the length of the newsroom. Even though she needs heels to reach five feet, it’s disconcerting that I didn’t notice her until she spoke – I’ve no idea how much she overheard. “Which film?” I suppose I have to ask.

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” says Trevor. “Her class are studying the book at school and they were shown the film.”

I’d say it was an unusually worthy favourite for a girl of her age, but Paula calls “Can we talk in my office, Graham? I’ve just heard from one of your listeners.”

Christine gives my arm more of a squeeze than she ordinarily would at work, and I lay my hand over hers for a moment. As I head for Paula’s room everyone grows conspicuously busier at their desks. They’re embarrassed to watch me, but I suspect they’re also glad I’ve been singled out rather than them. Even Christine doesn’t know what I’m thinking, however. If Paula means to lecture me or worse, that may be all the excuse I need.

TWO: HOW TO EARN SWEETS

As I close the door of Paula’s office Rick Till speaks from the computer on her desk. “Here’s Rick Till Five on Waves in Manchester,” he says in a voice so suavely confident that I can hardly believe it belongs to the discomposed man who ousted me from the studio. He plays the station jingle – “We’re the station that makes waves” – before starting to chat like a cross between a comedian and a chum who’s dropped in. “It’s Friend A Faith Day, so cuddle a Christian or snuggle a Sikh or hug a Hindu, or you could embrace an Evangelical or squeeze a Shintoist or make your own arrangements…”

The name of the day is the reason I’ve had two hours of calls like Arthur’s and a few more moderate. Paula perches on the cushion that adds stature to the chair behind her desk and plants her stubby hands on either side of the screen. “Let me just give you Rick’s Trick for today,” Till is saying. “What was the name of the ship in the Anthony Hopkins film of Mutiny on the Bounty? That’s the Tony Hopkins one, not Charles Laughton or Marlon Brando.” He doesn’t simply say the names but adopts a version of the actor’s voice for each. “Yesterday’s winner was Annie from Salford, and the question was what were Fay Wray’s first words to King Kong…”

I hope Paula doesn’t expect me to learn from his example, and my gaze drifts to the window behind her desk. Beyond the double glazing the canal glitters with sunlit ripples as a barge slips into the shadow of a bridge. The vessel is losing a race with a train on the left side of the canal and an equally elevated tram on the other, a contest that would be silent except for Till. “Time to rock with Rick. Here’s the Gastric Band from Oldham with their new single, Eating Up the World…”

Paula turns him down at last. “Park your bum, Graham,” she urges.

The low flabby leather chair I sit in gives a nervous fart on my behalf. Paula leans forward, but her straight black hair has been so thoroughly sprayed it doesn’t stir. Chopped off straight at chin level, it lends her pale face the look of an Oriental mask. She’s resting a hand next to a glass bowl of sweets, and perhaps I’m meant to be aware that she hasn’t offered me one. “So what do you think to our Rick?” she says.

“I expect he’s what people want to hear after two hours of me.”

“We need to speak to all our audience.” Paula sucks at a bottle of Frugen (“the trigger of vigour”) and wipes the nipple before saying “Anyway, I heard from Arthur Mason.”

“I don’t think I know him.”

 “You were talking to him before you came out to complain about Mrs Goodchild.”

“I wouldn’t have said anything if I’d known it was her idea. You don’t need me to tell you I hope she finds her daughter. I expect the girl’s just gone off somewhere for reasons of her own. Girls that age often do, don’t they?” In case Paula thinks I’m avoiding the reason that she called me in I say “I didn’t know his name was Mason.”

“He says he has to ring up dozens of times to get on the air, and you always put him on at the end. That’ll be Christine’s decision as your producer, will it?”

I don’t want Christine to be blamed for any trouble I’ve stirred up. “Somebody has to be last. He had nearly five minutes.”

“He’s not the only one, he says. Does Bob from Blackley come to mind?”

“He used to be a regular, but we haven’t heard from him for a while as far as I know.”

“Mr Mason says that’s because of how you dealt with him last time. Do you think we should listen to you, Graham?”

I’ve time to wonder if she’s questioning my honesty before she takes hold of the computer mouse to bring up my voice from Learn Another Language Day, weeks ago. It sounds even more detached from me than it always does in my headphones. “And now here’s Bob from Blackley…”

“Get it right. There’s no Blake about it.”

“I believe it’s always been pronounced Blakely, Bob.”

“About time they called it black and have done with it. If that lot want us learning new words there’s one for them.”

“Which lot would that be, Bob?”

 “The lot that has the law on us if we say anything they don’t like, and it’s the tax we’ve paid that pays for them to do it. It’s getting so you won’t even be able to say you’re white.”

“Why on earth would anybody want to stop me? As it happens I am.”

“Half the time you don’t sound it. It’s the likes of you that want to stop us being proud of it. Where’s White Pride Day with all these other days?”

 “It might sound a bit like a kind of sliced bread, do you think?”

“More like you’re scared to say there ought to be one. They wouldn’t like it, the lot that’s driving us out of our own country.”
“Who’s being driven, Bob? Whites are the largest group where you live.” While speaking to him I’d found the statistics for Blackley online. “Less than four per cent black people, and – ”

“Never mind your figures. You want to come and walk along the street here. You’d love it. It’s full of the lot of them.”

“You still haven’t said which lot you mean.”

“The Sicks and the Shites and the rest of their sort. You can’t hardly move round here for refugees.”

“It’s Shiite, Bob, and how can you tell by looking? It’s a religion, not a race.”

“Don’t talk to me about religion. That’s their excuse for everything they get up to. I ought to tie a curtain round my head and then I could ride a bike without a helmet. Or I could say I’m an Islam or a Mohammed or whatever they like to be called and then I’d be able to tell the wife and the girl to hide their mugs and shut their gobs because Allah says so. Mind you, that’d be a blessing.”

“Haven’t you any faith of your own, Bob?”

“I’ve got plenty of that and it’s all in myself. And I’ll tell you what else I believe in, this life and that’s your lot. The life these Islams and the rest of them want to rob off us.” He’s interrupted by a screech that puts me in mind of a butcher’s circular blade. “I’m on the fucking radio,” he shouts. “Close that fucking door or I’ll fucking – ”

“I’m sorry, you can’t talk like that on the air. Gussy from Prestwich, you’re live on Wilde Card.”

“The things you have to deal with, I think it’s time they had Presenter Awareness Day.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about that.”

 “Sometimes what you think shows through, Graham,” Paula says as she stops the playback.

I have the disconcerting sense that my voice has returned to me. “I wouldn’t want to think I’m just controversy for hire.”

“What do you think the new bosses would say if they heard all that?”

If she’s decided I don’t fit in now that Waves has become part of the Frugo empire, I’m glad. I almost retort that I may have had a better offer, but instead I say “What do you?”

“That you could have been sharper with him. You let him get away with those comments about women. Your show isn’t called Gray Area any more. Remember your slogan.”

“It’s a phone-in, not a drone-in.” I’ve played it so often that it starts up like a recording in my head. It was among my more desperate attempts to impress her with a brainstorm, and I barely managed not to laugh when she said it was the one she liked. “You want me to go on the offensive,” I say but don’t necessarily hope.

“If you feel it say it, Graham. Don’t go too far but as far as you can. You know what Frugo tell everyone who works for them.”

“I don’t believe I’ve heard it,” I say without wanting to know.

“Everything you do and say at work should be an ad for where you’re working. Just do everything you can to make certain you’re one, Graham. They’ll be listening to our output before they come to visit. Let’s make sure they know we’re the ones making waves.”
She sits back to end the interview. As I stand up, drawing a sound that might be a sigh of relief or resignation from the chair, she says “It’s about time Bob was on your show again. Tell Christine to put him on next time he calls.” This halts me long enough for her to ask “Was there anything else?”

I won’t mention Hannah Leatherhead until we’ve had more of a word. I’m turning away when Paula says “Aren’t you having your sweet?”

I’m reminded of visiting the doctor’s as a child or of being rewarded with a sweet for some other unpleasant experience. Wrappings rustle as I rummage in the bowl and find a lemon drop. “Thanks,” I say, mostly for the sweet, and hear Paula’s keyboard start to clack as I reach the door.

Nobody in the newsroom seems to know whether they should look at me. I unwrap the sweet into my mouth and drop the cellophane in the bin beside my desk on the way to the control room. Christine spins around in her chair as I ease the door out of its rubbery frame. “Was it bad?” she murmurs.

She’s enough of a reason for me to keep working at Waves – the eternal valentine of her gently heart-shaped face framed by soft spikes of black hair that’s cropped to the nape of her long neck, her slim lithe body in a black polo-neck and matching jeans, her eyes alert for my answer, her pink lips parted in anticipation. “It isn’t going to change my life,” I say, which makes me aware that I’ve yet to mention Hannah Leatherhead.

 

THREE: STAGING THE ANCESTORS

It’s Walk To Work Day, but every workday is for me. As I step out of the apartment building, where the massive lintel over the tall thick door still sports the insignia of a Victorian broker, the gilded nameplate of Walter Belvedere’s literary agency glints above my handwritten cardboard tag. Perhaps he can place my novel if I ever finish it. A train swings onto the bridge over the street with a screech of wheels on the curve of the track, and I’m reminded of the noise that made Bob from Blackley lose control. Though the sun is nearly at its peak, the street is darkened by office blocks – you could imagine the shadows are their age made visible, more than a century of it. Sunlight meets me on Whitworth Street, where a man in shorts with a multitude of pockets is parading the biggest and certainly the bluest poodle I’ve ever seen. Along Princess Street girls are cycling in the first-floor window of Corporate Sana (“We mind if your body’s healthy,” says the slogan), but Christine isn’t in the gym; she’s producing the food and news show, Currant Affairs. As I pass her flat on Whitworth Street I glance up at the windows, but there’s no sign of an intruder.

Where Oxford Street turns into Oxford Road a Palace faces a Palace. The one that isn’t a hotel displays posters for an American psychic, Frank Jasper. Early lunchers are taking sandwiches or sushi down the steps to eat by the canal. They make me feel later than I am, and I hurry along the western stretch of Whitworth Street to Waves. The guard at his desk nods to me as the automatic doors let me in, and a lift takes me to the fourth floor, where Shilpa at Reception is on the phone, attempting to explain that there’s no prize for solving Rick’s Trick. My badge on its extending wire unlocks the door to the newsroom, where Trevor Lofthouse is playing back a television newscast on his computer. I’m making for my desk when I see the name Goodchild on the screen.

It’s a press conference with Kylie Goodchild’s parents and a teenager. At least it isn’t using any music. Mrs Goodchild is a redhead, rather too plump for the unbuttoned jacket of her grey suit. Her husband is even broader and a head taller, and resembles a pugilist despite his tie and dark suit, mostly because of his large flattened nose. To judge by the name tattooed on the teenager’s neck, he’s Kylie’s boyfriend. He’s warning anyone who may have abducted her, in language so ferocious it blots out his mouth – censorship does, at any rate. Mr Goodchild jerks a hand that isn’t quite a fist at him, and a journalist takes the chance to ask “Is it right you’re bringing in a psychic?”

As Goodchild gives a nod so fierce it looks defensive, his wife says “We’ll do anything we’ve got to that will bring our Kylie back.”

In the control room Christine meets me with a smile and a wave as if we didn’t part just a few hours ago. The news gives way to my signature tune, and a girl’s even brighter voice chirps my slogan as I don the headphones and read the screen. “First up is Margaret from Hyde,” I say. “You’re calling about Kylie Goodchild, Margaret.”

“I’m praying for her and her parents. I feel in my heart they’ll find her now Frank Jasper’s helping them.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s meant to be marvellous, isn’t he? One of my neighbours went to see him last night at the Palace and she said he was.”

“Did he tell her what she wanted to hear?”

“He most definitely did.” She’s either unaware of my irony or ignoring it. “He was in touch with her father.”

“I take it the gentleman’s no longer with us.”

“He died a couple of years ago. Mr Jasper knew that and he knew his name was John.”

“That’s unusual.”

“He told her a lot more than that.” By the sound of it Margaret has spotted my skepticism. “He knew she used to worry about her father but he says she needn’t any longer,” she insists. “And he knew her grandchild’s having some problems at school but they’ll be sorted out before long. And her father’s glad she’s been able to have some work done on her house and take a holiday she’s been wanting to take.”

I’ve found Jasper’s web site. Frank Jasper – Your Psychic Friend, the opening page calls him. He’s holding out his hands as though to bless his audience or to offer them an invisible gift, unless he’s inviting donations. His ingratiating chubby face is topped with a shock of hair so pale that it may have been bleached by the sun that bronzed his skin, or else all this is as artificial as his wide-eyed look. I think he’s trying to appear alert and welcoming and visionary too. His denim shirt is almost the same watery blue as his eyes, and its open collar displays a bright green pendant nestling among wiry golden curls on his chest. We’re told he has advised police on investigations in America and helped recover stolen goods. His customers are promised that he’ll tell them the name of their spirit guardian; supposedly we all have one of those. All this makes me angry, and so does Margaret’s account, though not with her. “Did she really need her father to tell her any of that?” I ask as gently as I can.

“That wasn’t all. He said her father was standing by her shoulder.”

“Don’t say he said her father was her spirit guardian.”

“That’s exactly what he did say. How did you know?”

“Maybe I’m as psychic as he is.”

One reason I’ve grown confrontational is that Paula has appeared in the doorway of her office. “Did he say what the lady’s father looked like?”

“Just like her favourite memory of him.”

I don’t want to risk destroying this, even if there’s no reason to assume Margaret’s neighbour is listening. “And he doesn’t only tell people what they want to hear,” Margaret says with some defiance. “He told one couple their son killed himself when they thought he died in an accident.”

Paula is advancing across the newsroom, but I don’t need her to tell me how to feel. “Well,” I say, “that must have done them some good. Cheered them up no end, I expect.”

“He has to tell the truth when he sees it, doesn’t he? He said their son had found peace.”

“I hope the parents have despite Mr Jasper.”

“Why do you say that? It was because of him. He said now their son is always with them.”

“He’s never turned into their spirit guardian.”

“Wouldn’t you want him to? Don’t you believe in anything?”
Paula has come into the control room to stand at Christine’s shoulder like a parody of the subject under discussion. “I believe Mr Jasper is a stage performer,” I inform anyone who wants to hear.

“If you think you’re as good as he is,” Margaret retorts, “why don’t you have him on your show and see who’s best?”

I’m close to declaring that I hope I’m better in several ways when Paula grabs Christine’s microphone. “That’s what you need, Graham. Let’s have him on.”

“Excuse me a moment, Margaret. I’ve got our manager in my ear.” I take myself off the air to ask “What are you saying I should do?”

“Bring him in and question him as hard as you like and let your callers talk to him.”

“Margaret, we’ll see if I can grant your wish. Keep listening and you may hear Mr Jasper.”

“I’ll tell my friends,” she says, not entirely like a promise.

Christine’s microphone is still open, and I’ve been hearing Paula say “See if you can book Graham to watch him on stage before he comes in.”

I play a trail for Rick Till Five so as to speak to Christine. “Don’t say who you’re booking for. Just reserve a seat as close to the stage as you can and I’ll pay cash.”

“All right, Mr Devious. You sound as if you’ve already made up your mind about him.”

“Haven’t you?”

“I’ll leave it till I’ve seen him.”
“Go ahead, book two seats. I expect Waves can stand the expense.” I should have asked if she wanted to come, not least in case she might notice details I overlook. “The more eyes the better,” I say and go back on the air.

PS Publishing Competition

In advance of the PS Publishing Showcases at the end of the month, Peter Crowther and his team have offered a veritable treasure trove of prizes for a competition (see below) and are willing to post to anywhere in the world. To enter, simply email your name and address to twistedtalesevents@gmail.com with the subject line PS COMPETITION by Monday 23rd January. Winners will be announced at the Twisted Tales blog on Wednesday 25th January and their names and addresses will be passed on to PS Publishing.

1st PRIZE: A RAMSEY CAMPBELL EXTRAVAGANZA

The Inhabitant of the Lake

Ghosts Know

Seven Days of Cain

Grin of the Dark

The Long Way

Holding the Light

Just Behind You

2nd PRIZE: THE PS ROADSHOW

Ghosts Know by Ramsey Campbell

The Inhabitant of the Lake by Ramsey Campbell

The Butterfly Man by Paul Kane

Darkness Falling by Peter Crowther

By Wizard Oak by Peter Crowther

3rd PRIZE: SIX PS NOVELLAS

The Prince of Nowhere by Parke Godwin

One For the Road by Stephen King

Blue Canoe by T. M. Wright

Cloud Permutations by Lavie Tidhar

Dead Earth by Mark Justice and David T. Wilbanks

Old Man Scratch by Rio Youers

PLUS, THREE RUNNER-UP PRIZES

Prize # 4 = Ghosts Know by Ramsey Campbell
Prize # 5 = Butterfly Man by Paul Kane
Prize # 6 = Darkness Falling by Peter Crowther

PS Publishing Showcases in Lancaster and Liverpool this January

January 2012 sees Twisted Tales branch out into Lancashire as we bring our PS Publishing Showcase to Lancaster on Saturday 28th January, the day after our Liverpool based event.

At the moment the only way to reserve a FREE ticket is to contact us at twistedtalesevents@gmail.com There's no commitment, we just need to know how many are turning up in advance so that we can make sure that there is sufficient seating.

NEW EVENT: PS Publishing Showcase

Here are the details on our next event(s). Poster and facebook page coming soon, but for now book it into your diaries:

Twisted Tales presents...
A PS Publishing Showcase

Featuring readings by:

Ramsey Campbell: 'Britain's most respected living horror writer' (Oxford Companion to English Literature), 'He must be given serious consideration as the greatest horror writer of our time, and perhaps of all time' (S. T. Joshi)

Pete Crowther: 'Reports of the demise of the darker genres abound, but vigorous, genuinely fearsome work such as Crowther's demonstrates that the genre is decidedly undead' (Publishers Weekly)

Paul Kane: Award-winning author of the bestselling Arrowhead trilogy and PS’s The Butterfly Man, co-editor of Hellbound Hearts and The Mammoth Book of Body Horror

Plus a panel discussion, Q&A and signing session
6-8pm Friday 27th January 2012 at Waterstone's Liverpool One, L1 3DL
and
6-8pm Saturday 28th January 2012 at Waterstone's King Street, Lancaster, LA1 1JN

To book your FREE tickets, please email PS Liverpool and/or PS Lancaster to:
twistedtalesevents@gmail.com

Happy Halloween: Event Round-Up

Happy Halloween fellow Twisted Tale-ers, and happy birthday to us!

This weekend marks the 1st birthday of Twisted Tales and we sealed the deal in fine fashion with a double bill of events. The first at Halton Lea Library in Runcorn, the second in our more regular location of Waterstone's Liverpool One. Both events were cursed by my failure to bring my camera which means we've begged and borrowed the photos you see below, other than that they went superbly. Thanks to everyone who came to the events, and to everyone who has come to all our other events over the last year - don't worry, there are plenty more to come...

An Evening of Occult Horror

Halton Lea Library, Runcorn.

Part of the library's 10th annual Paranormal Week. Originally the billing included John Reppion but he had to pull out at the last minute, Adam Nevill and Ramsey Campbell were more than capable of taking up the slack however and entertained the substantial Runcorn crowd to brilliant readings from The Ritual and The Grin of the Dark respectively. There was then time for a panel discussion between Adam and Ramsey about the nature of the occult and its role in fiction, before being thrown open to audience questions.

The staff at the library were great and set everything up perfectly (shout out to Janette and Mike) and the audience were superb.

(Photos from eximiusparanormal.wordpress.com )

Adam Nevill reading from his novel The Ritual.

Adam and Ramsey discuss the occult,
Twisted Tale-ers David McWilliam and Glyn Morgan in the middle.

House of Fear
Waterstone's Liverpool One, Liverpool

An event tied to the release of the new haunted house anthology House of Fear published by Solaris. A good sized crowd took their seats to hear readings from three authors who feature in the collection: Nicholas Royle, Lisa Tuttle and Adam Nevill. Once again there was time for a panel discussion and the three authors swapped their tales of hauntings (or lack of) and spoke about their inspiration and writing process, we then took a few questions from the audience before signing some books.

(As is probably evident these photos are from a camera phone and not of great quality, but thanks to Anna Garnett for providing them. Hopefully some others are on their way to us soon and they'll be added into the post once they've been received).

Twisted Tale-er Glyn Morgan introducing the night's proceedings.

Adam Nevill reading from Apartment 16.

 

David McWilliam leads the panel discussion on haunted houses with Nick, Lisa and Adam.

Once again, thanks to everyone who came out for their pre-Halloween scares. We announced our next event this weekend too - expect full details in a midweek post.

If you have any pictures from the events please let us know, we'd love to see them and feature some on our blog (fully credited of course).

Once again: happy Halloween, but remember - horror lives on all year round!

Ramsey Campbell interviewed by Adam Nevill

Ramsey Campbell with his wife Jenny,
photo by Kathleen Probert

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 and Ghosts Know. Forthcoming is The Kind Folk. His collections include Waking Nightmares, Alone with the Horrors, Ghosts and Grisly Things, Told by the Dead and Just Behind You, 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 Prism, All Hallows, Dead Reckonings and Video Watchdog. He is the President of the British Fantasy Society and 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. 

AN: For an author whose mastery of language I have long admired, I’m very keen to know something about your writing process. What is your approach to writing a first draft and your subsequent rewriting process? 

RC: I very rarely plot much in advance. Once I’ve begun to focus on developing an idea I gather any amount of material around it. This all goes in my notebook (one of them – I always have at least one for the imminent novel or the novel in progress, another for random ideas and also any short story I’m about to write). Many of the notes for a story often get abandoned as I form a clearer picture of it – of the characters and the situation, for instance. Sometimes a tale may move so far away from my early notes for it that I’ll use some of them elsewhere. For instance, the novel I was planning to write as The Black Pilgrimage has already travelled so far away from that notion that I’ve dropped that title and renamed it as The Kind Folk. 

I’m here at my desk every morning I’m at home (Christmas and my birthday too), usually in time to see the dawn. Certainly I’ll be working on the first draft of a tale about six in the morning, when I’m generally most creative. One thing I’ve learned in fifty years as a writer is always to compose the first sentences before I sit down to write. I generally work until late morning on a first draft, sometimes later. If we go away the tale in progress goes with me. 

I was also lucky to learn very early in my career – even before August Derleth sent me editorial advice – to enjoy rewriting. These days I do more of it than ever. Absolutely everything in a first draft has to justify itself to me to make the final version, which is pretty nearly always significantly shorter than the first one (anything up to twenty per cent shorter, I’d estimate). The first drafts of fiction are always longhand (with the solitary exception of “A Street Was Chosen”, written in the form of an experimental report, which I couldn’t write except on the computer) and the rewrites are at the keyboard. 

AN: Are you conscious of your ideas and themes for stories gradually filtering and distilling in your imagination, or do they come at you suddenly? 

RC: Sometimes suddenly, sometimes they lie forgotten or almost so in my notebooks for years. Not to boast, but I do find ideas are the easy part – it’s developing them that takes so much work. Anything at all can set me off initially – I still owe Sylvester Stallone a debt for the five or six lines of dialogue in Rocky II that instantly suggested to me the basis of my old novel Obsession (not my title, which was to be For the Rest of their Lives). Thieving Fear came out of the image of the trapdoor that proves not to be one – I liked that so much that I built a novel to house it – but it had been in my notebook for several years before I was apparently in the frame of mind to take it anywhere. I recall going back to it a number of times and not being able to work out what to do with it. There have been a number of cases where I’ve suddenly seen how to put two dormant ideas together and they immediately came alive in the form of a tale. 

Another thought – I was writing the afterword to a new edition of Dark Companions (imminent from Samhain in America) and did my best to turn up the notes on which the stories were originally based. I was amazed to find that “The Companion” was founded on a set of notes so different from the actual story that they’re still available to be written into a tale, and I’m planning to do that soon. Waste not, want not… 

One more observation: you may know this yourself, Adam – it’s all too easy to be distracted from the story in progress by the next idea, which seems so much more inspiring than the one you’re working on that the temptation is to follow the will-o’-the-wisp. I’ve only ever done so once, back in the days of The Inhabitant of the Lake. It worked then, but I’ll never risk it again. 

AN: I’ve never really considered the social class of writers in relation to modern horror fiction, but a notion struck me at WHC 2010 after attending a large number of panels: it seemed to me that the major British horror writers of the last forty years that I have heard speak in public and have read – yourself, Brian Lumley, Clive Barker, James Herbert, Graham Masterton – may have working class backgrounds or backgrounds from the lower middle class. As I look at the lesser in profile, who form part of what we can only hope is a new wave of British horror, like myself, David Moody, Gary McMahon etc, as well as most of the writers I have met who emerged between these points chronologically, a similar pattern seems to emerge. And yet, the late Victorian and Edwardian forebears of horror from James, the Bensons, Wakefield, Del La Mare, the other James and Wharton, seem to present an almost “Oxbridge” precursor set and the more traditional representation of classically educated British writers. My own experience in publishing is that it is a predominantly a middle to upper middle-class preserve. I have wondered if the critical dismissal of the post war horror field as pulp fiction might have something to do with it being perceived as low class and low brow. Do you think social class amongst British writers has any bearing firstly on who now writes horror with dedication (not as a dilettante), but also why they write it? And could horror writers be, in a curious way, angry young men? 

RC: And women, we hope! There’s certainly more willingness on the part of horror writers to engage with social conditions and issues of class than there used to be. Right now writers such as Joel Lane and Gary McMahon and Simon Bestwick – I could go on for pages – are very concerned with these themes. Jim Herbert was a pioneer in this regard, and I was having a go at themes of a similar kind early on (with “The Guy” in 1968, for instance). It isn’t only British – look at Steve King from the early short stories onwards, or the oppressive sense of class snobbery in Peter Straub’s Mystery. We’re often told that modern horror writers have taken the genre out of the Gothic castle and the country house into the everyday, as if authors such as Le Fanu and M. R. James weren’t already using mundane settings that would have been familiar to their readers. But I do think that some authorship has moved down a class – no equivalents for Lady Cynthia Asquith or Lord Halifax, not even many writers such as Robert Aickman, who was familiar enough with weekends at country mansions, I believe. It could be argued that horror really made this shift in the EC comics, which reflected in their physical gruesomeness the wartime experiences of some of the contributors. I think disreputability has always dogged the genre, though, and eventual (usually historical) respectability is also part of the recurrent cycle. 

AN: In my reading experience, there are few writers who have instilled a change in my perception, in the way I see the world, for some time after reading their work. Sometimes this is even twinned with an element of disorientation, as if from waking or from being transported by poetry. Alongside Robert Aickman, M John Harrison and Thomas Ligotti, I consider you to be one of the chief purveyors of what often feels to me like a surreal and strange force that underwrites your work. The first time I can remember experiencing this quality in weird tales came from stories like Lovecraft’s ‘The Colour out of Space’, Maupassant’s ‘Le Horla’, Machen’s ‘The White People’ and Wakefield’s ‘Immortal Bird’, which are stories not necessarily typical of the full body of these author’s respective works, but almost all of your novels and short stories that I have read, as with Harrison and Aickman, sustain this power. Could this be the distinction of a poet from a prose craftsman? Is there an innate imaginative power you are conscious of calling upon when you’re in the zone while writing? If so, do you ever try to fathom its source? 

RC: I never would, Adam. To the extent it works (and I’m happy that it does for you) I believe it’s instinctive. I recall Jack Sullivan once asking me if I’d considered therapy (not that I was being especially deranged at the time, but I think he’d just learned of my family background) and I was equally wary of that. I don’t need to know the sources of my writing – indeed, I’ve a feeling that being too aware of them might risk robbing them of energy. Often I realise much later what I was writing about - the father with the hidden face in “The Chimney”, for instance, or the mothers who turn monstrous in my novels of the early eighties, or the father who does so in Nazareth Hill, representing my own fears about how I might be capable of behaving. It may be interesting to note that some readers thought I was writing about drug experiences (in Demons by Daylight) years before I’d had any. I’m reminded that Arthur Machen caused himself to have a protracted mystical experience after having written about them in his fiction for years. Language and imagination may expand our minds more than we can predict, and perhaps they sometimes prefigure the possibilities or prepare the way – I’m happy to think so. 

To come back to the business of fathoming sources – I was sixteen when I first saw Last Year at Marienbad and became aware that an enigma can be more satisfying than any explanation. I think too much horror fiction explains more than it should, for my taste anyway. One more thought: the only contemporary filmmaker whose horror films genuinely affect me with dread – half a dozen of them, and to a level of intensity that’s only just bearable at times – is David Lynch, and I’m guessing his method is pretty intuitive. 

AN: Personal spiritual beliefs may be the least important thing about writing supernatural horror. Reading your collected non-fiction some time ago – Ramsey Campbell, Probably – I think I came away with the impression that, like Edith Wharton, you didn’t believe in ghosts, but were still frightened of them. Is this a fair impression, or entirely the wrong set of runes I am casting about with? As we’ll both be meddling with the supernatural at the Occult Horror event at Halton Library, I feel obliged to ask what your take on the possibility of the supernatural is? 

RC: Well, as I get older I get more agnostic. I grew up being terrified of M. R. James’s spectres without necessarily believing in an afterlife, particularly once I threw off the kind of Catholicism that being taught by Christian Brothers had imposed on my mind for a few years. But it’s too easy to use your childhood as an excuse for what you are, and I’ve had the odd experience that my rationalism doesn’t always quite contain. Has this affected my fiction? Maybe a few recent stories don’t hold the supernatural at such a metaphorical remove as most of mine do. I’m still mostly trying to convey the aesthetic experience of terror, however – it’s what brought me into the field in the first place. My ghosts and less nameable forces embody a sense of the uncanny – well, they try. 

AN: Horror is one of those genres that comes with a specific set of reader expectations (often marketed by publishers as a guarantee of terror that will make the reader leave the lights on) and if the work is not terrifying a writer has somehow failed. A tall, if not, unachievable order; so could this expectation, perhaps the USP of horror, actually be a hindrance? You once wrote in an editorial, that the goal of your own work was to be disturbing. I found that liberating. As your own work consistently explores paranoia and a kind of psychic distress in your use of the uncanny, do you think this a more relevant approach to affecting a reader with horror in the modern age? 

RC: I don’t think I’ve ever set out to scare the reader – certainly not for decades. It’s rather that I write what I write because that’s how it feels to me – that’s what engages my imagination and takes shape there. I’ve often been intrigued to find that material that didn’t strike me as especially unnerving when I wrote it proves to affect some readers more intensely – the scene in the derelict Preston theatre in The Grin of the Dark was one example. But disturbing the reader – yes, that’s a worthwhile aim, and doing so to myself too. Making us look afresh at things we’ve taken for granted – that’s unlikely ever to become unnecessary. If I had to offer a single phrase to describe much of my recent stuff I’d call it comedy of paranoia. 

AN: In terms of your writing, what’s next for Ramsey Campbell? 

RC: Much and then, I hope, still more. As I mentioned, The Kind Folk will be the next novel. I’ve another collection in view, Holes for Faces, and another one of non-fiction, Fresh From Frugo. As well as all those, PS will publish definitive editions of Demons by Daylight and of my later Lovecraftian tales. On top of all that Centipede Press will be publishing an enormous retrospective two-volume collection of my better tales, and the title came to me in a dream the other night – Fearful Implications. You heard it here first! 

Adam Nevill was born in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and grew up in England and New Zealand. He is the author of the supernatural horror novels Banquet for the Damned, Apartment 16 and The Ritual. He lives in London and can be contacted through www.adamlgnevill.com 

NEW EVENT: An Evening of Occult Horror at Halton Lea Library, Runcorn

We are very happy to be able to unveil the first of our planned events to celebrate this year's Halloween, and also our first anniversary of promoting the best of 21st century horror. 

This event has been organised with Halton Lea Library as part of their Paranormal Week and will feature three fantastic talents giving readings, discussing the occult in horror fiction, and answering your questions.

Twisted Tales are proud to be able to present to you:

Ramsey Campbell,

A stalwart of Twisted Tales events and one of the most qualified people in the world to talk about the occult in horror fiction. Ramsey has won numerous awards for his fiction, with his new novel Ghosts Know forthcoming from PS Publishing.

Adam Nevill,

Formerly the editor for the Virgin Horror line and now a bestselling author in his own right, with his third novel The Ritual released in 2011. We are very excited that Adam has agreed to travel so far to be with us and discuss the role of the occult in horror, which is prominent in his own fiction.

John Reppion,

Co-author (with Leah Moore) of graphic novels such as Raise the Dead and The Complete Dracula, John also wrote 800 Years of Haunted Liverpool and so is uniquely placed to compare the fictional use of the occult with reported spooks and scares from Merseyside. He also kindly designed our amazing event poster for us.

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The details in brief:
Thursday 27th October,

7-9.30pm,

Halton Lea Library, Runcorn,

FREE event -

reserve tickets by e-mailing

paranormalweek@gmail.com

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Hopefully see many of you there! (Official Facebook event here)