The latest This Is Horror event, on Saturday 22 September 2012, will celebrate the launch of their second chapbook in the Premium Chapbook Series – Thin Men with Yellow Faces by Gary McMahon and Simon Bestwick. The launch event – involving Ramsey Campbell, Gary McMahon, Simon Bestwick and Conrad Williams – takes place at MadLab in Manchester from 6:30pm and will run through to approximately 8:15pm. Award-winning author Jasper Bark will host the event.

Tickets are available for just £3. Copies of both the first chapbook, Joe & Me by David Moody, and Thin Men with Yellow Faces by McMahon and Bestwick, will be available for the special price of £4 in Manchester for one night only. More information on the This Is Horror website HERE

Stumar Press are offering the opportunity to win a free copy of the first two volumes in the Ten Terrors series. Ten Terrors is a series of horror anthologies starting with Volume 1 in Winter 2012. Each volume will contain ten short stories by established and emerging writers in the horror genre.

Ten Terrors Volume 1 will contain short stories by Graham Joyce and Mark Morris. The other eight authors in Volume 1 will be confirmed soon. Volume 2 (2013) will feature Tim Lebbon and nine other authors.

The competition to win both Volumes 1 and 2 is open to anyone who has purchased a copy of the Derby Scribes Anthology which features short stories from Simon Clark, Conrad Williams, Neal James, Richard Farren Barber, Stuart Hughes, Christopher Barker and other members of the Derby Scribes writing group. If you haven’t purchased the Derby Scribes Anthology yet you still have time to buy it, read it, and enter the competition. Visit the website HERE to purchase

To enter the competition, all you have to do is answer three simple questions (see the competition entry requirements HERE). The competition closes on 31 August 2012.

In other news, Stumar Press will be launching Soul Screams – a collection of thirteen horror stories by horror and crime novelist Sara Jayne Townsend – at the BFS London Open Day on Saturday 16 June 2012. Sara will be attending and signing copies on the day. More information about Soul Screams can be found HERE

This Is Horror has announced a new venture – the This Is Horror Premium Chapbook Series. These chapbooks will showcase stories from some of the very best names in genre today and will be released every quarter. The line-up for the first year is as follows:

David Moody, author of the best-selling Autumn and Hater series, is first up with Joe & Me. This is scheduled to be released at the start of June and will be followed by a very special launch event (details to follow).

Next is a collaboration between Gary McMahon, author of This Is Horror’s Novel of The Year – The Concrete Grove, and Simon Bestwick, author of The Faceless. Their story, Thin Men with Yellow Faces will be released in Autumn 2012.

The next chapbook will be The Fox by award-winning author, Conrad Williams. His accolades include the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2010, the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel 2007 and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella 2008. The Fox will be released in Winter 2012/13.

To round-off the year will be a title from Joseph D’Lacey, leader of the eco-horror revolution and British Fantasy Award winner for Best Newcomer 2009. His as yet untitled chapbook will be released in Spring 2013.

Pre-orders and prices for both David Moody’s Joe & Me and a yearly subscription to the This Is Horror Premium Chapbook Series will be announced shortly.

The first 200 yearly subscribers will be entered into a prize draw to win a free subscription to the This Is Horror Premium Chapbook Series the following year running from Summer 2013 – Spring 2014. Each premium chapbook will have a limited run of no more than 500 copies. See the This Is Horror website for more information.

“From horror masterminds Ramsey Campbell, Graham Masterton, Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Massie, Piers Anthony, Melanie Tem, Cheryl Kaye Tardif, Tim Jeffreys, Scott Nicholson, Conrad Williams, Simon Clark and a host of other respected authors, poets and artists comes What Fears Become, a terrifying collection of bone-chilling, nail-biting horror that is sure to keep you awake until all hours of the night.

This anthology brings together some of the best works from The Horror Zine, an online magazine dedicated to giving you chills and thrills. Edited by Jeani Rector, each story, poem and art work within showcases an international talent that will give you shivers.”

Available from Amazon in paperback in the US and as an e-book in the UK.

The Derby Scribes 2011 Anthology has been published as a print edition by Stumar Press. You can purchase the book HERE for £4.00 plus postage and packaging.

It contains eleven short stories from guest authors Simon Clark, Conrad Williams and Neal James, plus Derby Scribes members Stuart Hughes, Richard Farren Barber, Victoria Charvill, Christopher Barker, Alison J. Hill, David Ball, Jennifer Brown and Peter Borg.

What others say about it:

“The anthology is an exciting mixture of quality emerging writers as well as some great established names.” – Alex Davis, Alt.Fiction.

“The Derby Scribes 2011 anthology is an enjoyable tome of drama, whimsy and chills.” – Matthew Fryer, Welcome to the Hellforge.

“This anthology reminded me that even short fiction can pack a powerful punch.” – BJ, Dark Side of the Covers.

“On the whole this is a good collection that showcases some fine talent. Definitely worth your time and hard earned cash.” – Jim McLeod, Ginger Nuts of Horror.

An exciting mix of the fantastic, the wonderful, and the frightening by the talented members of the Derby Scribes writing group. Overall it’s a versatile and multi-faceted anthology, blending corners of reality with aspects of the fantastical in a refreshing way.

Also featuring an introduction by Alex Davis and art work by Samantha Enyon.

The short stories in this anthology include horror, supernatural, contemporary fantasy, science fiction and humour.

The Derby Scribes 2011 Anthology is also available in eBook formats HERE

PS Publishing reports that the special limited edition numbered/slipcased copies of Stephen King’s 11.22.63 are almost sold out. This special edition contains facsimile signature plus a DVD written, directed and narrated by King which won’t be made available anywhere else. Copies are expected early in November (the official publication date is 8 November 2011). Trade copies will also be available from Hodder & Stoughton.

Also selling well are the new PS titles launched at FantasyCon:

•     The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants by Ramsey Campbell
•     Ghosts Know by Ramsey Campbell
•     Gutshot edited by Conrad Williams
•     Rotten Row by Chaz Brenchley
•     Red Gloves by Christopher Fowler
•     Wake Up and Dream by Ian R. MacLeod
•     Long Shadows, Nightmare Light by Mark Morris
•     Dark Dreams, Pale Horses by Rio Youers
•     The Butterfly Man by Paul Kane
•     Osama by Lavie Tidhar

FantasyCon 2011 Guest of Honour has joined the virtual world. Peter Atkins now has a website — rather a blog. He’s already mentioned the delights of taking Conrad Williams to Musso & Frank’s Restaurant in Hollywood. (How the other half lives!) Visit Mr Atkins’ blog here.

I decided to read this novel cold, foregoing the publisher’s blurb on the back cover. The story follows two small groups of characters whose threads don’t merge until half of the book’s 400 pages have lapsed. Neither does the novel’s intent. Sure, there’s plenty of sound and fury, but that lack of knowing what any of it is all about gives the novel a very disjointed feel.

It’s visceral, make no mistake, and evokes vintage Clive Barker, but Williams lacks Barker’s lyricism, his ability to make his evocation of the dream world more potent than those scenes set in the real world. On the other hand, Williams is superb at conveying the here and now, the grit and grind of urban life. By comparison, his other world appears rendered in broad strokes. Good stuff – if it had been published in the early nineties, although even then it lacks the scope and ambition of The Secret of Anatomy (1994) by Mark Morris. Structure wise, it is too similar to Williams’s own The Unblemished (2006) whilst lacking that novel’s superior characterisation. And it’s not a patch on the tightly focused precision of Williams’s other novel from last year, One.

All in all, a cracking weekend read whose Barker-esque moments will spell readers over until Clive gets around to releasing The Scarlet Gospels and the third Abarat book.

Decay Inevitable, Conrad Williams, Solaris. 2009. £7.99 pb.