Happy Anniversary Cursed Horror Stars

The blog starts with my visit to the Castle Keep for a special screening of Benjamin Christensen’s Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922). Like the previous silent films, Haxan benefited from a live soundtrack that made it a unique experience.

The end of November 2016 marks the anniversary of the publication of Cursed Horrors Stars. Is it a year already? So for this blog I will recap – to the best of my memory – how it all happened.

It was September 2014. A friend had given me email address for Telos Publishing, and I sent them a general email about my book.

Checking my emails the following night I saw a reply from Steve Walker saying Telos are interested and if I wanted to take it further, he would email me a contract.

This was without doubt an extraordinary opportunity that was too good to miss. I said yes straight away, and couldn’t get a wink of sleep that night due to all the excitement.

The following night I contacted my friend and neighbour Carolyn to see if she was free to go through the contract with me, which we did while drinking rather a lot of red wine!

So with the contract duly signed, I went through the manuscript and submitted it to Telos the following month. Although not a superstitious person by nature, I didn’t tell anyone bar a few chosen friends. Now it was a waiting game.

And the wait was worth it. Steve sent me recommended amendments which I was happy with, and as 2015 progressed, he emailed me a couple of awesome book cover designs. That was enough to tell me it was ready for publication. I made an announcement at the Swanwick Writers Retreat, and the publication date of 30th December 2015 was set.

Time to tell the Facebook world.

The day I got my complimentary copies of the book was a moment I will always savour. I took an important crossroads in my life that changed everything for the better.

Thank you Telos.