Happy 66th birthday to @RealCliveBarker My personal Top 10 of his novels at Into the Gyre
A Clive Barker Top 10
Tag: horror
New fields, old land
I tweeted a month or so back that I'd shoved all other writing projects aside (and that has included this blog, dear reader) because I'd started work on a Folk Horror story. This new work is now at around 9,000 words* and going well. I feel a twinge of guilt at abandoning (for now) the … Continue reading New fields, old land
1990: summer of cinema
This piece was an unsuccessful competition entry. The brief was "memories of cinema-going". Not for us the spurious joys of cider by the fountain, or Tennent’s behind the hut in the top park. The summer my friends and I turned sixteen we marked this coming-of-age by getting into the cinema to watch 18-rated films. With … Continue reading 1990: summer of cinema
In praise of brevity: Clive Barker’s “Cabal” and the anti-epic
Clive Barker’s 1988 novel Cabal is short: at 253 pages, padded out by chapter breaks and illustrations, it’s practically a novella. After the effort of writing the 700-odd pages of Weaveworld, this was a refreshing length for the author: "One of the interesting things about going to Cabal after [Weaveworld] was that I found a … Continue reading In praise of brevity: Clive Barker’s “Cabal” and the anti-epic
Relocated in translation: “HEX” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Moving the action of a European or Asian film to America when Hollywood remakes it is not unusual. Moving the location of a European novel to America when translated into English, however, is. Published in English in 2016, HEX is the story of the small New England town (where have we heard this before?) of … Continue reading Relocated in translation: “HEX” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Killing the parents: Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser”
"There are no new tales, only new ways to tell." Clive Barker, in introducing Christopher Marlowe's renaissance drama Doctor Faustus, acknowledges that the challenge for the modern writer lies in the "shaping of a fresh and original interpretation of a story cast and re-cast several hundred times." The artist must drive "his imagination to new … Continue reading Killing the parents: Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser”
“There’s been a breakdown at the BBC”: the rural horror of Daphne du Maurier’s ‘The Birds’
It’s my birthday today. I’ve always liked that I share it with two favourite writers: poet and nature writer Kathleen Jamie (born 1962), and the master of mid-20th century English gothic, Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989). I’m going to take a brief look at du Maurier’s short story The Birds, which can be read as an … Continue reading “There’s been a breakdown at the BBC”: the rural horror of Daphne du Maurier’s ‘The Birds’
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