*Inarticulate Happiness*

It’s been quiet here for the last week or so – partly because I’ve been tensely following CCM Press’s triannual Mainline contest, which you may remember I entered back in October with Villain Miriam (which received an honourable mention). This time, I put forward Flesh of the Peach  and it has been chosen as one of three winners – meaning it’s going to be published in 2016!

 

Here’s the announcement, where you can read excerpt of the winning manuscripts.

 

If you’d like to read a little more, small excerpts from Flesh of the Peach were also published in Sundog Lit, Necessary Fiction and 3:AM Magazine.

 

I’m so incredibly grateful to the folk at CCM, who read all subs for an entire week. Congratulations to the winners and finalists, and I’m so glad I could be a part of this again with so many other hopefuls. As the press motto goes ‘We’re coping’.

 

Time to update my ‘about’ page, and try to wrap my head around all of this.

 

 

three views of an evening

 

sunset, woodlands road

 

 

 

the River Kelvin

 

 

 

Facing south on the bridge over the Kelvin

three views of a morning

Kelvingrove park, towards the spire of Glasgow University

 

 

City of Ghosts

 

 

 

Lowland fields from the Edinburgh bound train

tw:gore up on Litro

You can read another monstrous piece from On the Edges of Vision here:

 

The first arch leads into a second, then a third, vault-roofed, with small slit windows and those massive flagstone floors smoothed by centuries of shuffling boots.

Outside, palms of snowflakes are dissolving into the pond and feasting on the statuary. The boy himself walks smoothly down the corridor. He holds a mouthful of blood behind his teeth and white
lips.

READ MORE…

 

 

I hope to have more news shortly about the collection – I’ll keep you updated. Meanwhile, a reminder you can add it as ‘to-read’ on Goodreads if you like. If you use another social bookshelf programme, let me know if you can find it there.

A Piece on American Horror Story: Asylum up on The Female Gaze

A taster –

 

Before I started writing this essay, I asked myself what exactly it is I love about Asylum, the second season of AHS. The plot is like a bag of thorn cuttings; it just confounds me the more I dig through. There’s the mental institution, Briarcliff (hence the thorn metaphor). Here it is at the opening of the season as a ruin haunted by a murderous psychopath. Here it is in 1964, bustling with nuns and the sick, and, as is swiftly revealed, seamy with the twisted motivations of those who run it. I’m on board, I follow.

SPOILERS ABOUND.

 

Read More….

 

Go on, click  – it’s worth it for the gifs alone, marvellously chosen by The Female Gaze‘s editor extraordinaire Dawn West.

blue and gold the gloaming

 

 

working, reading, waiting for elements to come together, as patiently as possible – I have little news to share. So for now, just the rare snow here in the city of Glasgow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Small news

On the Edges of Vision now has  Goodreads page – so if you’d like to add it to your TBR pile you can!

There’s no cover as yet, and I’m still waiting for Goodreads to send confirmation that I’m the author of the collection, but all in due time. For now, this is excitement enough.

 

That’s me for now. Back to the hard but infinitely rewarding graft of editing.