Month: May 2011

Here’s what they said in the world famous Mystery Scene:

 

At the weekend we had the Pipe Bands festival in Dunbar.

Apart from trying hard to keep my children from the expensive rides and from eating too much cake from the soon to be launched Community Bakery, I had a few nice encounters.

The first was with a lovely artist who’s done some brilliant paintings of the area.  Now I think about it, she was pretty as a picture herself.  Anyway, I bought a handful of prints in the hope that it will ease my family Christmas present shop when December comes.

I was also really taken by a jewellery stall selling the wares of Lilac Millie.  As it turns out, Lilac Millie is a friend of mine who’s been hiding her light under a bushel.

What I particularly like about what she does is the use of the local environment, collecting worn bits of glass (we call them precious stones in our house) and pebbles from our beautiful beaches and creates something entirely new from them.

And I think we have things in common, my jeweller friend and I.  Both of us are on the lookout for interesting things around and about.  Both use raw materials that many might think are utterly useless (in my case ideas, stories, faces, you name it) and both create something new, individual and utterly splendid (at least she does) in our re-shaping.

And apart from that, I’d love to write a story about someone called Lilac Millie.  I’d say she’s either a gangster’s mol or a street girl from Paris.  We’ll see if the idea develops from there – like I say, I’m a collector of random articles.

Should you find yourself in need of a gift, you could do a lot worse that supporting an entirely local enterprise.  As you can see, the products and the prices are very appealing.

Till soon.

Not so long ago, I posted an interview with Pablo D’Stair at Sea Minor.

In what ways he stood out, I’m not going to try to explain (you can find that out for yourself), but I’ll point out one.  He was the first, and is still the only, person who sees e-books as an opportunity for those publishing paper books.  That’s right.  Now I happen to agree with his take, that the publishers who thrive against their e-competitors are going to have to do something special.  And Pablo will.

He’s soon to release a series of his novels as well as Dirty Old Town through his KUBOA.

Anyway, he’s also making a name for himself (and it’s some name, isn’t it?) with a novella he’s putting out chapter by chapter across a series of blogs. 

It’s titled This Letter To Norman Court and it is quite outstanding.  Check out his style and you’ll see what I mean.  It’s stripped and yet rich – not a common alchemy.

Best thing to do is to go over to This Letter To Norman Court’s page and he’ll explain better than I can the concept he’s running with.

You can read it for free and, if you do, I know you’ll be glad you made the effort.

You’ll be calling him Pablo D’Star before you know it.

http://tinyurl.com/6fna4zq

 

what more can i say?

If you need another slice of Dunbar Noir to fill you up, all you need to do is pop up to the pages and select Story Of The Month.

This one’s set in the world of gymnastics and was inspired by thoughts of next years Olympic Games.

Let me know what you think.

Hi all.

Daniel B O’Shea is doing a great thing over at http://danielboshea.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/the-tornado-relief-flash-fiction-challenge-touches-down/

He’s donating $125 to the Red Cross Tornado Relief Fund in the States because he offered $5 for every piece of Flash Fiction that was sent to him by today.

Slow on the uptake, I only found out too late. He offered to give another $5 if I could get a piece of Flash (including some rain) to him last night. Sadly my mind’s mince.

To ease my conscience, I donated the money instead. I’ve also offered to send all my profits for the sales of Dirty Old Town (And Other Stories) for the month of May to the Red Cross too.  You can imagine that at 69p per sale, that’s not a huge amount, but I guess looking after the pennies…

It seems a distant charity for me to support, but my brother and his family have settled in South Carolina, so it’s actually not far from my heart at all.

So if you’ve bought already in May, thanks for the support and you know where my slice of your money has gone.

Well done Mr O’Shea.

When I set up this site, I was doing so in the expectation that I’d be putting out one of the finest short story anthologies of the year, Pulp Tones.

Unfortunately for us, when we announce the project, a man over at Twitter called Pulptone wasn’t happy.

That was OK.  We’re lovers not fighters, and backed down (don’t get any ideas, now).  Our new name is going to be Pulp Ink following a poll of interested folk.

This week I’ve read some amazing pieces for the anthology.  It’s going to be awesome (to use a word I try to avoid using – here it’s in context).  Stories from Naomi Johnson, Eric Beetner, Chris Holm, Kate Horsley, Gary Phillips and Jodi MacArthur sent in work to add to the amazing pieces already there.  They’ll knock you down, pick you up and knock you down again.

Tremendous.

Because of the name change, I’m changing here as well.  Dunbar noir puts me in my locality and my genre, right where I want to be.

Sales of Dirty Old Town now stand at 350 (yippee).

I signed a contract with Untreed Reads for an anthology they’re putting together.

A piece of mine was accepted by Flashquake which is pleasing.

Another has made it in to a very strong publication which is yet to be announced – it will be one of the events of the noir fiction calendar, no doubt.

Sad news for me that I didnt’ win Spinetingler’s Best Story Online award.  That honour went to the excellent and lovely Matt Funk.  I’m holding on to the fact that I did make the nominations to keep some sunny side up.  Thanks to anyone out there who voted for me.

So, Goodlbye Pulp Tones, welcome Dunbar Noir.