Saturday 14 May 2016

Punch and Judy at the animal shelter.

Well the sound of creaking wood and squeaking wasn't anything supernatural. No opening of coffins or hordes of bats... No, it was me undusting my puppet theatre for a show at the Olsztyn Animal Shelter open day (07/05/2016)




People came to see the animals, hopefully adopt some, to walk the dogs in the surrounding forest and, at least a few, watched my Punch show. All in all, not a bad day.










I hope I get some more gigs before the creaking sound is my arms and back!

Thursday 12 May 2016

Vampires in Sanitarium.

Happy to announce my vampire story, "A Final Supper" has been accepted by Sanitarium Magazine.

I don't know the publishing date yet but watch this space.


Letters from the Front

This a WW1 based story which I wrote for Shadows at the Door.

I spent a lot of time researching different aspects of the local landscape's history and culture.


In the early months of WW1 the Russians swept across East Prussia and were almost as quickly replused.


The cemeteries and memorials still remain in many places.



Sunday 8 May 2016

The Old Girls go public!

Those wonderful people at Deadman's Tome have published my ghost story, "The Old Girls".
Please check it out and leave a "like" and comment. Of course, also check out some of the other writers.

 https://deadmanstome.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/the-old-girls-by-trev-hill/

Tuesday 3 May 2016

Deadman's Tome! More stories published!

It seems to have been my lucky month for publishing.

As well as my story "Lost Kittens at the Window" getting published, I've had another couple accepted by Deadman's Tome, a site for horror writers.

The first story is one I wrote based on a play I devised for a young theatre group a few years ago. The group consisted of Polish students who were studying Japanese and English. Myself and my friend, Yoichi Iida, decided to do an evening of ghost stories called "Kaidankai".

 

 http://www.olsztyn24.com/news/14373-w-spichlerzu-straszylo.html

As you'll probably guess, most of the stories were Japanese (and one M.R. James story to keep the English hand in) and one, "The tale of Aka Manto" dealt with urban myths of bathroom haunting ghosts! In particular, Aka Manto, who offers his victims a red or a blue scarf (and the death scene shows which you chose) and that charming little cherub of the girls' toilets, Hanako San

 http://www.therobotsvoice.com/2012/04/6_types_of_japanese_ghosts_that_hang_out_in_toilet.php

http://anitasnotebook.com/2014/10/legend-of-hanako-san-spooky-japanese-ghost-of-the-school-bathroom.html

http://www.cracked.com/funny-7186-8-scary-japanese-urban-legends/

Anyway... during my story writing phase, I adapted the play script into a short story which has since been published by the jolly chaps at Deadman's Tome.

Please check it out and the other authors, leave a like and a comment (we get paid for those ;-) )

https://deadmanstome.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/when-the-last-candle-dies-by-trev-hill/

But maybe go to the toilet... FIRST.




Deadman's Tome have also agreed to publish something which was my first short ghost story and later became a ghostly play in a performance called "Tales of Terror".

http://www.olsztyn24.com/news/24230-loggerheads--theatre--group--wprowadza--w--halloweenowy-nastroj.html

Watch this space...



T:-)

My Lost Kittens get published

Up till December 2015, I had a phase of writing ghost/horror stories. I even got a few of them published online. One of them is somewhere below (The Belted Man).

After a couple of not very happy incidents, which I won't go into here, I stopped writing and decided to put the few I'd done online. Strangely, this wasn't as easy as I'd thought. One particular site took over 3 months and no reply before I withdrew my submissions. In another case the admin of the site was ill and was unable to read my work. However, when she eventually did she told me that while she liked it, it wasn't suitable for her site and suggested another.

The site she suggested was Drunk Monkeys, who very kindly agreed to publish my short story "Lost Kittens at the Window".

"Kittens" deals with loss and redemption, I suppose and was inspired by some old stories I'd read about infanticide in rural Prussia (makes good bedtime reading). Anyway, here's a link to Drunk Monkeys, if you'd like to check it out... and, of course, the other works included by other authors.

http://www.drunkmonkeys.us/fiction/2016/4/11/short-story-lost-kittens-at-the-window-trev-hill

As for those kind people who suggested the Drunk Monkeys team, their site, which I'd recommend you check out, is Slink Chunk Press: https://slinkchunkpress.com/

Happy Reading.