Close to Midnight and a Best Of Pick

Two lovely bits of writing news!

My story ‘In the Wabe’ has been selected for the upcoming Flame Tree Press anthology Close to Midnight, edited by Mark Morris. There’s a terrific line-up, so it’s lovely to be involved! It’s a tale inspired by the Alice statue in Central Park, which I visited a scary ten years ago. It’s not quite that long since I wrote another Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland inspired story, for the Wonderland anthology edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, but somehow this idea kept nagging at me and prompting at me to revisit – once you fall down the rabbit hole, there’s no escape! Anyway, this has a very different feel and is set in modern-day New York, where odd events take place around the statue and begin to spiral . . .

Here’s the full Close to Midnight line-up:

Wolves – Rio Youers

Best Safe Life for You – Muriel Gray

Souvenirs – Sharon Gosling

The Operated – Ramsey Campbell

In the Wabe – Alison Littlewood

I Promise – Conrad Williams

Flat 19 – Jenn Ashworth

The Forbidden Sandwich – Carl Tait

Autumn Sugar – Philip Fracassi

Collagen – Seanan McGuire

Remains – Charlie Hughes

The Floor is Lava – Brian Keene

The True Colour of Blood – Stephen Laws

The Nine of Diamonds – Carole Johnstone

Room for the Night – Jonathan Janz

Welcome to the Lodge – Alison Moore

Going Home – Evelyn Teng

The Spaceman’s Memory Box – Laura Mauro

Bags – Steve Rasnic Tem

Rise Up Together – Adam L.G. Nevill

Next up – my story ‘Jenny Greenteeth’, first published in Stephen Jones’s The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror, has been selected by Paula Guran for the Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 3. It’s an honour to be picked – again, here’s the full line-up!

G. V. Anderson, “Shuck” (Deadlands #2)
Seán Padraic Birnie, “Hand-Me -Down” (I Would Haunt You If I Could)
J. S. Breukelaar, “Where We Will Go On Together” (The Dark #70)
Rebecca Campbell, “The Bletted Woman” (F&SF 3-4/21)
Tananarive Due, “The Wishing Pool” (Uncanny #41)
Brian Evenson, “The Sequence” (Conjunctions 77)
Christopher Golden, “The God Bag” (Beyond the Veil, ed. Morris)
Elizabeth Hand, “For Sale By Owner” (When Things Get Dark, ed. Datlow)
Alix E. Harrow, “Mr. Death (Apex #121)
Maria Dahvana Headley, “Wolfsbane” (Nightmare #100)
Glen Hirshberg, “Jetty Sara” (December Tales, ed. Horn)
Stephen Graham Jones. “Refinery Road” (When Things Get Dark, ed. Datlow)
Richard Kadrey, “Across the Dark Water” (Tor.com)
Alison Littlewood, “Jenny Greenteeth” (Mammoth Book of Folk Horror, ed. Jones)
Chimedum Ohaegbu, “And for My Next Trick, I Have Disappeared” (F&SF 7-8/21)
Suzan Palumbo, “Laughter Among the Trees” (The Dark #69)
Sarah Pinsker, “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” (Uncanny #39)
David J. Schow, “Caving” (Weird Doom, ed Scoleri)
Molly Tanzer, “In the Garden of Ibn-Ghazi” (F&SF 3-4/21)
Sheree Renee Thomas, “Barefoot and Midnight” (Apex #122)
Steve Toase, “Beneath the Forest’s Wilting Leaves” (To Drown in Dark Water)
Jade Wilburn, “Blood Ties”(Fiyah #18)
A.C. Wise, “The Nag Bride” (The Ghost Sequences)

The anthology will be published in October 2022 by Pyr Books.