Hello world! It’s Leigh Blackmore and THE NEXT BIG THING

Leigh Blackmore (Wollongong Australia)

This is my new writing blog. I have a “>writer’s page over at Facebook: but for longer posts FB is rather ineffective, so I’m going to kick this blog off by writing about my next book as part of THE NEXT BIG THING.

THE NEXT BIG THING is a chain of book and author recommendations. One author tags five others, who then each tag five more, and so on. The idea is to spread the word — for ourselves and others — on all the quality new writing that’s just out or is coming soon, worldwide. There is a viral quality to the enterprise and hopefully it will allow readers to expand their reading horizons into projects that might otherwise have been lost in this world of continual internet noise. I was tagged by the giant-monster-obsessed and rather brainy horror and dark fantasy writer Rob Hood on November 21, and now it’s my turn.

1. What is the working title of your next book?

I want to call it NIGHTMARE LOGIC (a collection title I’ve had in reserve for quite a while) but we may decide on another title. I have a number of killer titles which may be more appropriate for the final collection but I don’t want to divulge them yet in case someone nicks them.

2. Where did the idea for the book come from?

I’ve been assembling a horror short fiction collection for some time, but since I’m not a prolific writer, the going is fairly slow. I was actually approached by a US publisher, whose CEO had read and enjoyed my story “Exalted Are the Forces of Darkness,” a tale written for the Sherlock Holmes horror/fantasy crossover anthology GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: NIGHTMARE TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:  http://www.amazon.com/Gaslight-Grotesque-Nightmare-Sherlock-Holmes/dp/1894063317 in which Sherlock Holmes matches wits with Edwardian occultist Aleister Crowley. As an admirer of this story, the publisher has asked me for a collection which focusses on both horror and occult tales (knowing these are my strengths), or stories which combine the two. He has also asked me to include poetry, knowing that I write weird verse as well as fiction. So the collection should include a number of previously published occult horror stories and weird poems, together with several new stories and poems that have not seen the light of day anywhere else.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

It’s firmly in the supernatural horror genre. Horror readers will certainly enjoy it. Those with a taste for metaphysical horror, in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti and so on will also find it enjoyable because I often use occult themes in my treatment of the supernatural.

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Well, I’d need a different cast for each story. Here’s my cast fantasy for one story: someone like Edward Norton would be great for the protagonist of my latest novella, “Crumbs from the Master’s Table.” Furlong has the acting talent but also the quality of naivety that I would like to see conveyed in a portrayal of my protagonist, Osvaldo Carotid. I’d love to see Romola Garai play Visandia, my heroine, in that story – she has the appropriate otherworldly beauty. Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellen or Michael Gambon to play the other major character, Quench, would be superb!

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A collection of dark tales and haunting verse which draw on the mysteries of cermonial magic, left-hand path sorcery, Lovecraftian horror and Qabalistic mystery, in which characters are confronted with their many shortcomings in a cosmos filled with the fantastical and inexplicable.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It will be professionally published, although I haven’t yet signed a contract. I hope to find an agent at a later date.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

There’s a short story which I hope the publisher agrees will be in the book, an homage to the satirical fables of Lord Dunsany, which I wrote in high school, aged around 15. (I’m now 53).  That will be the earliest piece in the volume. The other stories have been written mainly over a period of the last thirty years (as I said, I’m not prolific with fiction!) and published in various magazines and anthologies. However the novella mentioned above, together with a few new stories I’m working on now, should see the content of the book balance fairly evenly between older material and brand new tales.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I’d place it thematically and stylistically with collections by such authors as Michael Cisco, Tom Ligotti, Kaaron Waaren, M. John Harrison, Simon Strantzas, Joel Lane, Joe Pulver, Mark Samuels, Wilum Pugmire, Terry Dowling, perhaps Jeff Vandermeer. Ramsey Campbell and Fritz Leiber are major influences, as are such classic writers of the supernatural as Robert Aickman, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and so on, all of whom explored to a greater or lesser extent  (Campbell still does) the horrors arising from the uncertainties aroud humankind’s place in the cosmos. I like to think my writing is imbued with the flavours and themes of the best of the classic and modern supernaturalists, while somehow still bringing a unique voice and flavour to this genre. My practical experience as a ritual magician of over 25 years gives me certain insights into magic and the occult which come in very handy in writing fiction along these lines.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’ve always thought, since my earliest days as a scribbler (well, scrivener might be a more dignified word for it!) that I may one day master my craft to the extent that I could publish a collection of my own. Ramsey Campbell wrote to me in 1975, following the submission of an early tale which he rightly rejected: “I trust that I will see your name in print one day”; that always inspired me. One of the first stories in which I felt my own voice beginning to emerge was “The Hourglass,” which appeared in my 1993 anthology TERROR AUSTRALIS: THE BEST OF AUSTRALIAN HORROR. In stories I’ve published since then, I’ve been gradually integrating my concerns – the exploration of the Shadow side of human psychology, the desire to tell a gripping and haunting story, the continuation of the grand tradition of the weird tale – into my published fiction. So my whole journey has inspired me to put the book together. But of course, the immediate catalyst has been my publisher’s desire to issue a collection by me, with a specific thematic focus.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

I am organising my collection around a structure referring to the Qliphoth. The Qliphoth, as ritual magicians may know and others may not (even in ritual magick this is a little-explored area) refers to the Dark Side of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is an esoteric construct which basically explains creation and manifestation; it originates from the Jewish esoteric tradition of the Sepher Yezirah and the Bahir. The ‘light side’ of the ‘tree’ consist of ten conceptual spheres (known as  ‘Sephira’) which progressively emanate from the divine sphere of Kether to the earthly manifestation of Malkuth, and contain different qualities of human consciousness, and each of which

also corresponds to various things such as a particular planet of the classical astrological tradition.

The Qliphoth is in effect a ‘reverse’ tree which contains demonic beings – all the dark and shadowy parts of ourselves which are seen as having been ‘cast off’ (Qliphoth means ‘shells’ or husks’) but which must be reintegrated for complete psychological and spiritual integration. It’s rather similar to black portion of the Ying/Yang symbol, with which all Westerners are now familiar – the black and white mandala in which the white portion contains a spot of black and the black portion contains a spot of white, the idea being that within each polarity, the seed of its opposite is both contained and necessary.

Not all of the stories directly relate to the Qliphoth as such, but some do, and the tales will be arranged in  such a way that a Qliphothic demon will ‘rule’ each tale in the collection. Tales in the book include “Cemetery Rose”, a somewhat MR Jamesian story set in Sydney’s Rookwood Necropolis (previously only available as a podcast on The Writing Show on the web); “Dr Nadurnian’s Golem,” a modern take on the Golem genre; “Uncharted”, my Ditmar-nominated novella from 2003; “The Arcana of Death”, another tale of Sherlock Holmes whose plot hinges on the use Tarot cards in murders in Victorian London; and numerous others. The weird verse in the collection includes some poems from my 2008 poetry collection SPORES FROM SHARNOTH AND OTHER MADNESSES (P’rea Press http://www.preapress.com/), and some new poems, a couple written in collaboration with other poets (Fred Phillips and Richard L. Tierney).

You can keep track of developments in my writing by going to the Facebook page link at the top of this post. I hope that my horror fiction collection will appear mid-next year in the USA.

Bio
Leigh Blackmore (BCA Writing, Hons) was second President of the Australian Horror Writers Association (2010-2011), and edited issue 5 of their magazine Midnight Echo. He runs his own editorial business, Proof Perfect and is the editor of the SSWFT Amateur Press Association (Sword and Sorcery/Weird Fiction Terminus APA). A widely-published critic, editor, poet and story writer, Leigh has twice been nominated for the Ditmar award (once for fiction and once for criticism). Recent critical essays appear in Lovecraft Annual and Science Fiction, recent poetry in Weird Fiction Annual No 1, and he regularly reviews horror books for US journal Dead Reckonings. His verse collection Spores from Sharnoth & Other Madnesses (P’rea Press, 2008, 2010 www.preapress.com; revised/retitled ed Rainfall Books (Rainfall Chapbook 091), 2010 ) has garnered extensive acclaim. New stories are forthcoming in various anthologies including Urban Cthulhu II. Leigh is also a dedicated ritual magician, and plays bass in the band The Third Road. For more info see: http://www.australianhorror.com/member_pages.php?page=86

Now to name names. I have tagged the following wonderful writers to tell all about their own NEXT BIG THING  on Wednesday 13th December: Margi Curtis, Laura Goodin, Kyla Ward, B. Michael Radburn, Charles Lovecraft . Most of the writers have asked me to host their posts here on my blog, thus Baz Radburn’s, Kyla Ward’s, Margi Curtis’ and Charles Lovecraft’s answers will be found in separate posts here. Click on Laura Goodin’s link above to find her post.