A new collection by Gary McMahon, Tales of the Weak and The Wounded, will be available from Dark Regions Press in February.

“The sound of shuffling footsteps across the old cell floor…

A soft voice like a strange tune echoing along the empty corridors…

Dim lights in the windows of the abandoned asylum…

Discarded case files that flip open to reveal the dreams of broken minds…

Welcome to a place where the boundaries of fact and fiction meet.

Acclaimed author Gary McMahon raids the archives of a notorious derelict mental asylum called the Daleside Institute to bring you stories of madness, horror and emotional trauma. In locations as diverse as suburban Germany, the London Underground, an Italian seaside resort and the inhospitable polar icecap, you will meet damaged people with broken lives. Here are terrifying accounts of love, hate, death and madness…

These are the Tales of the Weak and the Wounded.”

With cover art by David Whitlam.

Full details HERE

Strange Chemistry – the YA imprint of award-winning independent genre fiction publisher Angry Robot – has announced its first two titles:  Shift by Kim Curran and Poltergeeks by Sean Cummings.  Details HERE

Strange Chemistry have also announced an Open Door period, where the usual submission guidelines are relaxed to allow authors who are unagented to send in a manuscript. Full details HERE

Angry Robot have also announced its second Open Door submissions window. For two weeks in April, they will be accepting un-agented manuscripts from epic fantasy writers.

More information can be found HERE

Torchwood actor John Barrowman and his sister, Carole E. Barrowman, have written their first YA novel. Hollow Earth will be published by Buster Books on 2 February 2012.

“Twins Matt and Emily Calder have imaginations so powerful that they can make art come to life. Their powers are sought by villains intent on accessing the terrors of Hollow Earth — a place where all the devils, demons and monsters ever imagined lie trapped for eternity. If Hollow Earth is breached, the world will be plunged into chaos. If Hollow Earth is breached . . .

… the twins are as good as dead.

Hollow Earth is a thrilling debut novel from the brother and sister team. The first in a compelling series, this page-turning fantasy for children echoes the likes of Christopher Paolini, Marcus Sedgwick and Rick Riordan.”

Full details HERE

The nominees have been announced for the 2011 BSFA Awards as follows:

Best Novel:
Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith (Newcon Press)
Embassytown by China Mieville (Macmillan)
The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)
By Light Alone by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
Osama by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

Best Short Fiction:
The Silver Wind by Nina Allan (Interzone 233, TTA Press)
The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s, July)
Afterbirth by Kameron Hurley (Kameron Hurley’s own website)
Covehithe by China Mieville (The Guardian)
Of Dawn by Al Robertson (Interzone 235, TTA Press)

Best Non-Fiction:
Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As We Know It by Mike Ashley (British Library)
The SF Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition ed. John Clute, Peter Nicholls and David Langford (website)
Review of Arslan by M J Engh, Abigail Nussbaum (Asking the Wrong Questions blog)
SF Mistressworks, ed. Ian Sales (website)
Pornokitsch, ed. Jared Shurin and Anne Perry (website)
The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who (Foundation Studies in Science Fiction), ed. Graham Sleight, Tony Keen and Simon Bradshaw (Science Fiction Foundation)

Best Art:
Cover of Ian Whates’s The Noise Revealed by Dominic Harman (Solaris)
Cover and illustrations of Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls by Jim Kay (Walker)
Cover of Lavie Tidhar’s Osama by Pedro Marques (PS Publishing)
Cover of Liz Williams’s A Glass of Shadow by Anne Sudworth (Newcon Press)

Full details HERE

The first BFS London Open Night for 2012 has been booked for 2 March 2012 at The Mug House – just under London Bridge, opposite the London Dungeon.

Doors officially open Friday night from 6pm onwards. Festivities planned so far include a book launch for author/editor Allen Ashley‘s new anthology Where Are We Going from Eibonvale Press. Also, Quercus Books will be hosting a charity auction – Nicola Budd, Editorial Assitant at Quercus Books, explains:

“As part of the BFS open night on 2nd March 2012, we will be hosting a silent auction to raise money for the charity Have A Heart, supporting children’s hospices in the UK.

The auction, in conjunction with Jo Fletcher Books, will include signed first editions from across the SF, Fantasy and Horror genres, as well as some signed original artworks.

All the money contributed will be going to help build a better future for children who are vulnerable, face adversity or live with a disability or illness, so prepare to dig deep! For more information on the charity go to www.heart.co.uk/have-a-heart/ “

Interzone Issue 238  is now available from TTA Press, containing new stories by Ray Cluley, Carole Johnstone, E.J. Swift and Tyler Keevil, along with its usual mix of news and reviews, and a poll where readers can vote for their favourite stories and artworks of 2011.

The magazine’s 2012 cover artist is Ben Baldwin who, in his guest editorial, explains that the images “will be focused around the imagery and symbolism of some of the Major Arcana of the tarot deck”. The first is The Moon.

Details HERE

A competiton has been set up to celebrate the launch of a new UK-based horror, gothic horror and dark poetry monthly magazine, The Poetry Box Horror & Dark Poetry ScrapBook, which will be edited, compiled and published by the founder of The Poetry Box Studio in Hampshire, L.K. Barley Robinson. The competition is The Poetry Box International Horror, Gothic-Horror & Dark Poetry Silver Trophy Cup Competition 2012. It represents a new competition in these unusual poetry genres and the winners and finalist entries, and a number of commended entries, will be published in the inaugural issue of The ScrapBook – Publication date: 1 April 2012.

The entries will be judged by the editor L.K. Barley Robinson who is an award-winning, much-published and radio-broadcast horror, gothic horror and dark poet and a former magazine columnist with The Observer series of newspapers. The first prize winner will receive The Poetry Box Horror & Dark Poetry Silver Trophy Cup and Award-Winning Certificate. The 2nd and 3rd placed finalists will receive Award-Winning Certificates and prize cheques of £25.00 each.  The 4th and 5th placed finalists will receive Award-Winning Certificates and prize cheques of £20.00 each, and highly commended entries will receive Highly Commended Certificates.

The deadline for poetry entries is 1 March 2012.  Length of poem: 60 lines maximum per poem.  Entry fee is £5.00 per poem, up to a maximum of 4 poems per entrant.  All entrants agree that their poems may be selected for inclusion in The Horror & Dark Poetry ScrapBook Magazine for up to one year after the competition deadline (1 March 2013).

The Poetry Box Studio is open to the public every Wednesday between 9.00am to 6.30pm with live poetry readings performed by a programme of visiting poets between 10.30am-11.15am in the garden of the Studio.  On display within The Poetry Box are poetry prints, poetry posters, new and secondhand poetry books and gothic horror and horror props, postcards and miscellanea.

Full details of the competition can be found HERE and information on the new magazine can be found HERE

Illustration: ‘The Death of Boadicea” (c) L.K. Barley Robinson

The Horror Writers Association has announced the longlisted works for its Preliminary Ballot for the 2011 Bram Stoker Award. Authors with longlisted work include Stephen King, Joe Hill, Reggie Oliver, Allyson Bird, Alan Moore, Peter Straub, Robert Shearman, Caitlin R. Kiernan, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Christopher Fowler, Kaaron Warren and Lisa Morton.

Following the Preliminary Ballot, a Final Ballot will be held to arrive at the nominees for the Award.

The full list of longlisted work is available HERE

Hammer Books have announced further publications for 2012. After initially publishing several novelisations of their classic films by authors such as Shaun Hutson, Peter Curtis, Francis Cottam and Guy Adams, they then obtained the rights to reprint three classic Graham Masterton novels.

They are now branching out further, with books including: Jeanette Winterson’s original novel based on the true story of the Pendle Witches trial of 1612 which will be published in February; a new novelisation of Hammer’s cult classic Vampire Circus by Mark Morris due in March; Tim Lebbon‘s new novel Coldbrook also due in March; and Helen Dunmore’s original ghost story The Greatcoat, about “the power of the past to imprint itself on the present, until the present is possessed by the past”, to be published in April. Further books will be announced soon.

Full details HERE

At the same time many of their films are set to be restored for release onto Blu-Ray. More than 30 films are involved, with several to include new or extended scenes that were cut from the original. One of these is Terence Fisher‘s Dracula, which will incorporate a recently-discovered extended death scene considered too gruesome for cinema release in 1958. Other titles involved include Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, The Mummy, and Frankenstein Created Woman.

See the full BBC story HERE

Mystery Writers of America has announced the nominees for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction and non-fiction. The winners will be announced at a gala banquet on 26 April 2012 in New York. The Awards carry Poe’s name as his work  spanned the boundaries of the horror/mystery genres.

Nominees include Neil Gaiman in the Best Short Story category, for his story The Case of Death and Honey in A Study in Sherlock (Random House Publishing Group – Bantam Books).

The full list of nominees can be found HERE