Here we are at the beginning of 2026, well over three years since my last post. So why haven’t I posted, even though I’ve had more than a few things to talk about? Stories published in 2024, a second cat called Oscar – with Ari below in their South London Feline Gothic pose. And it also feels like it’s an entirely different and more dangerous world since 6 June 2022, the date of my last post.

In terms of bloggage, WordPress seems a bit stale. On the other hand, I’ve also enjoyed rereading some of my old entries, especially ones that involve music along with writing news and views.

Should I change the format or move to a new platform? Over the past couple of years I’ve been doing most of my political posting – plus cat videos and occasional literary content – on Twitter (I will never call it X). Of course, since the takeover of the Twit by a certain South African fascist I’ve tried to find alternatives. I’ve started Blue Sky and Instagram accounts but they haven’t caught my imagination or taken off yet. Substack has some appeal – but also some problems.

If I decide to move on from WordPress, I decided that I really should wind this blog up properly. I also want to keep it online just because it’s a part of my history and it’s still fun to revisit and read. Others might enjoy it too.

At the end of 2024 I started a round-up post about stories published that year. Pressures of deadlines/life/etc got in the way. But I might as well complete it now. The anthologies they’re in are still available and they’re good ones too so – why not? It’s a place to begin.

So let’s cue up the Twilight Zone music and pop off to the end of 2024 and back again… So I bring you my publications of 2024!

Violet in Supernatural Tales 56 edited by David Longhorn

This story came out in in September 2024. It started with a prompt to write a story on the theme of ‘dusk’ – which we can also call ‘twilight’ to go with the theme music above. And the first lines to Hole’s song ‘Violet’ popped into my mind: ‘And the sky was made of amethyst/and all the stars were just like little fish’ – which I first misheard as ‘little fists’.

It was also inspired by a memory from lockdown. I was walking home from a socially distanced chat with friends in Vauxhall, taking the back streets of Kennington. I heard what sounded like a large gathering of people, the kind you might get on a summer Sunday. But this was at a time when such things were banned.

Yet I turned the corner and found myself watching people spread out a long a square, the one with a small pub in one corner. It was all socially distanced and legal, with the pub selling take-out pints from a window. But in the golden hour light and stillness of a lockdown afternoon, there seemed something miraculous and numinous about it, as if I’d stumbled on a scene from an Arthur Machen story set in the obscure streets of another part of (North) London.

The Sky Pool in Great British Horror 9: Something Peculiar
Edited by Steven J Shaw

Another tale that made its appearance in September 2024. ‘Something peculiar’ made me think of something subtle and psychogeographical. When I looked through my notes I found photos I took of the Sky Pool in Nine Elms when it first opened in 2021. It has rapidly turned into a symbol of inequality and the farce of luxury ‘regeneration’.

I’ve been wanting to write a story about that pool. Haunting by a water sprite, perhaps? Then I remembered a previous story ‘The Pleasure Garden’, which takes place in the same area. It was first published in the Joel Lane tribute anthology Something Remains and reprinted in my collection Resonance & Revolt. ‘Pleasure Garden’ protagonist Daniel meets the genius locii of Vauxhall, who aims to sabotage the concreting of the area with massive parties and ahem… corrosive sex.

It was only later when I remembered that I’d also written a near-future SF story (‘Living in the Vertical World’) set in a squatted tower block in Nine Elms; inspired by the real-life Tour David in Venezuela.

Have I committed trilogy?

In any case, join me for some peculiar cocktails at the Sky Pool!

Damaged But Adorable in Shadowplays
Edited by Peter Coleborne and Mike Chinn

Like many others I’ve experienced a grim enchantment by the hybrid creatures found in a well-known discount store – plasticated grotesques that make me think of Bosch’s creations. And I had also been enthralled by the TK Maxx Gallery of Horrors, a Facebook group dedicated to the shop’s products, including the wondrous crab bell. In fact, I checked to see if their page still there, since it hasn’t appeared in my news feed for a long time. I found it and it still made me laugh!

My story ‘Damaged but Adorable’ is a tale of loneliness, crab bells and commodity fetishism. Editors Peter Coleborn and Mike Chinn write: “These nineteen tales of skewed everyday existence, divorced from the outwardly mundane world, demonstrate that all is not quite how it at first appears. These small, uneasy dramas play out in the shadows, in the twilight, hiding from the rational world.” 

And while the overhead lights tend to be very bright, the Maxx is full of shadows and there many lurk to pursue dreams, desires and unexpected transformations.

Methane in Swan Song: the Final Anthology
Edited by Trevor Denyer

Published in the final Midnight Street anthology (as editor Trevor Denyer moves onto new things). This is a short one about gaslighting and excruciating work meetings. It was also described by a member of my writers’ group as an ‘elaborate fart joke’. You’ve been warned.  

Onward to 2025 and 2026!

Over 2025 I’ve mainly been working on longer projects – but I have completed a piece about Rosa Luxemburg, her cat Mimi and Mimi’s portrayal in historiography. This will be published in a collection of essays The Crazy Cat Lady and the Gothic, hopefully in 2026.

I have several irons in the fire but I’ll leave details about those to future communications. I’ll be back… in some form and some place if not here. In the meantime, here’s an image of Rosa and Mimi from Margarethe von Trotta’s film Rosa Luxemburg.