Author Archives: Marty Young

A Return to Wolf Creek

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Is this Australia’s most iconic horror villain?

MickYes, without a doubt.

And while we wait for Wolf Creek 2 to be released in February to give us even more reasons to be terrified of the Australian outback, we can load up on all things Mick through the commercial release of two prequel novels that are now available from Penguin or at any good bookstores (paperback and digital formats). How good is this for Australian horror? Damn good!

The first is Origin: Wolf Creek Book 1 by Greg McLean and Aaron Sterns.

WolfCreekNature vs nurture turns out to be a bloodbath

The wide open outback offers plenty of space for someone to hide. Or to hide a body.

When wiry youngster Mick Taylor starts as a jackaroo at a remote Western Australian sheep station, he tries to keep his head down among the rough company of the farmhands. But he can’t keep the devils inside him hidden for long.

It turns out he’s not the only one with the killer impulse – and the other psychopaths don’t appreciate competition. Is Cutter, the station’s surly shooter, on to him? And what are the cops really up to as they follow the trail of the dead?

In the first of a blood-soaked series of Wolf Creek prequel novels, the cult film’s writer/director Greg McLean and horror writer Aaron Sterns take us back to the beginning, when Mick was a scrawny boy, the only witness to the grisly death of his little sister. Origin provides an unforgettably bloody answer to the question of nature vs nurture. What made Mick Taylor Australian horror’s most terrifying psycho killer?

“One of the great horror film heavies of the last 25 years” – Quentin Tarantino

“One of the best serial killer novels out there . . . destined to be considered a classic in future years” – ScaryMinds.com

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The second Wolf Creek prequel novel is Desolation Game: Wolf Creek Book 2 by Greg McLean and Brett McBean.

WolfCreek2Mick’s learning, and his schoolroom is a war.

When sharpshooter and killer Mick Taylor searches for a place to keep a low profile, he finds somewhere where his peculiar talents are appreciated: a war. And in Vietnam, an out-of-control sergeant takes the amateur murderer and turns him into a pro.

Back home, Mick makes use of the sick lessons the army taught him, when hapless tour operators bring a Kombi-load of sightseers out his way into the Western Australian desert. Two suspicious flat tyres deliver an engaged Japanese couple, a father and son, a US army vet and his girlfriend, and a couple of cute girls to Mick’s lair. Middle of nowhere, population one. The group finds themselves in hell, as Mick makes sure their once-in-a-lifetime tour stays that way. And though one of the drivers escapes and goes for help, Mick sees no reason to stop the killing spree.

In the second Wolf Creek prequel novel, the cult film’s writer/director Greg McLean and horror writer Brett McBean get to the heart of Australian horror’s most terrifying psycho killer. Is Mick Taylor possessed by some dark power in the landscape itself? Something ancient? Does the Red Centre demand blood?

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And if that’s not enough to terrify you, you can read what Director Greg McLean has to say about it all here.

Head on a stick, anyone?

The AHWA Short Story and Flash Fiction Competition 2014

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[From Martin Livings]
Yes, it’s, it’s come around again, the AHWA Short Story and Flash Fiction Competition is now open for 2014. Our judges are lined up and eager, so go ahead, do your worst!

(and by worst, of course, I mean best…)

What We’re After: Horror stories, tales that frighten, yarns that unsettle us in our comfortable homes. All themes in this genre will be accepted, from the well-used (zombies, vampires, ghosts etc) to the highly original, so long as the story is professional and well written. No previously published entries will be accepted – all tales must be an original work by the author. Stories can be as violent or as bloody as the storyline dictates, but those containing gratuitous sex or violence will not be considered.

There are two categories for submission:

FLASH FICTION
Stories up to 1000 words in length. The winning author will receive paid publication in Midnight Echo; The Magazine of the AHWA and an engraved plaque.

SHORT STORY
Stories with 1001 to 8000 words. The winning author will receive paid publication in Midnight Echo; The Magazine of the AHWA and an engraved plaque.

ENTRY DETAILS

  • Entries Open: January 7th 2014
  • Entries Close: May 31st 2014

Writers may submit to one or both categories, but entry is limited to 1 story per author per category. No simultaneous submissions.

Any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Prizes: the authors of the winning Flash Fiction and Short Story entries will each receive paid publication in Midnight Echo; The Magazine of the AHWA and an engraved plaque. Plus the adulation of millions.

(Legal note: your value of “millions” may vary. And “adulation”.)

Entry Fee:

  • AHWA Members have free entry.
  • Non-AHWA Members: $5 for flash fiction, $10 for short story entries.

Secure payments can be made via PayPal using our PayPal ID (please note, this is different to the competitions email address!):

ahwa@australianhorror.com

Alternative payment options are available; please contact us at ahwacomps@australianhorror.com and we will provide appropriate details.

All entries should be submitted via the web form here:

http://ahwacomps.martinlivings.com/

Mail submissions will ONLY be accepted as a last resort (we would prefer electronic submissions to save the trees); please contact us before sending anything through.

Please edit your manuscripts carefully before sending them through to us; it’s amazing how much careless typos or grammatical errors can put a reader off, so don’t go shooting yourself in the foot, let the story come through unhindered!

Also, please ensure your manuscript is formatted in standard manuscript format. The best thing to do is use the RTF template provided here:

http://ahwacomps.martinlivings.com/AWHAtemplate.rtf

Stories not using this format may be discarded without being considered, so please do use this template. You’ll make our lives easier, and increase your own chances of being judged fairly.

Contact ahwacomps@australianhorror.com if you have any further questions.

2014 Judges

PAUL MANNERING is an award winning author based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has published dozens of short stories, and edited two themed anthologies. His Tankbread trilogy is published by Permuted Press and he has two more novels scheduled for publication in 2014. http://permutedpress.com/authors/paul-mannering

TALIE HELENE is a writer and musician, from Melbourne, Australia. She has published fiction, poetry, and an extensive folio of music journalism. She is perhaps best well known as horror editor of The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror series (Ticonderoga Publications). You can learn more about Talie’s interdisciplinary adventures at http://www.taliehelene.com

ZENA SHAPTER is a British-Australian author who’s won seven national fiction writing competitions (including this one!). She’s also represented by literary agent Alex Adsett, leads the widely attended Northern Beaches Writers’ Group (whose collaborative writing has also won awards) and gives regular talks/tutorials on creative writing and social media (because, after all, she is part-cyber!).  http://www.zenashapter.com

McDermott’s Caution: Contains Small Parts now available

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Twelfth Planet Press has just released the ebook version of Caution: Contains Small Parts, an intimate, unsettling collection from award-winning author Kirstyn McDermott.

A creepy wooden dog that refuses to play dead.
A gifted crisis counsellor and the mysterious, melancholy girl she cannot seem to reach.
A once-successful fantasy author whose life has become a horror story – now with added unicorns.
An isolated woman whose obsession with sex dolls takes a harrowing, unexpected turn.

Four stories that will haunt you long after their final pages are turned.

Available now from Twelfth Planet Press for $5.95. Print copies can be purchased here.

‘Kirstyn McDermott’s prose is darkly magical, insidious and insistent. Once her words get under your skin, they are there to stay.’ – Angela Slatter, British Fantasy Award-winning author of Sourdough and Other Stories

‘The supernatural lurks in the shadows of Kirstyn McDermott’s first collection, an ambiguous or mundane presence that keeps these four quasi-horror stories feeling palpably real … McDermott’s poignant stories defy genre labelling, being primarily about damaged people seeking solace, escape, or meaning. The otherworldly merely gives them a chance to find it, and makes these unflinching but touching stories even more evocative and irresistible.’ – Aurealis, Issue 64

HWA Roundtable 14 – Audiobooks

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The HWA’s 14th Horror Roundtable is coming up later this week over on the HWA website, and it will focus on Audiobooks. Here are the details.

When: 18 December, 2013
Time: 9pm EST (use the Time Zone Converter to find your local time: for those on Sydney time, this is 19 Dec at 1pm)
Special Guests: David Niall Wilson, Jeffrey Kafer, Scott Jacobi, and Kevin Pierce

Audiobooks: The digital age has seen the popularity of audiobooks skyrocket; it is now a billion dollar industry, with a >30% growth rate in past few years and no signs of slowing. In a busy world, audiobooks are providing a way for us to get in our reading time even when we can’t sit down with an actual book; now we can ‘read’ while driving to work, working out at the gym, cooking dinner, or even doing the housework. And cooler still, you can synch from your ebook to the audio-version seamlessly. But how do authors and publishers get quality audiobooks made? What’s involved? And what are some of the pitfalls to look out for? Our guests for this roundtable have been involved in all aspects of audiobook creation, from narration, production studio engineering, to publishing, so come along and find out what they have to say.

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Here’s how the HWA’s Horror Roundtable works:

1. The Horror Roundtable will run every month on the HWA blog. You do not need to register to follow the discussion, or to post comments/questions.

2. For each Roundtable, a group of special guests will be invited to participate in a discussion on a selected topic. The guests’ profiles will be posted on the website prior to each Roundtable, along with the topic of discussion.

3. The Horror Roundtable will begin with our guests discussing the topic.

4. After the first half hour, the Roundtable will be opened for the general public to comment/ask questions, while our guests continue their discussion.

5. After one hour, our Guests will leave, unless there are lots of comments and questions from the audience, in which case they will remain for a further half hour. After that, our Guests will check back in from time to time during the week to provide further comments on anything posted in that time.

6. At the end of the week, the Roundtable will be closed, but it will remain online so people can go back and read it at their own leisure. No further comments will be allowed.

7. An announcement about the next Horror Roundtable, including the next set of guest profiles, will be posted towards the end of each month.

The HWA Horror Roundtable was the brainchild of Weston Ochse and is managed by Marty Young. If you would like to take part or have a topic that would make for an interesting discussion, please contact Marty at martyyoung2002@yahoo.com.

Past Roundtables can be viewed here.

ill at ease 2 now available

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Following on from the critical success of “ill at ease” comes volume 2, featuring seven original horror short stories, all of them guaranteed to give you the chills. The anthology is published by PenMan Press and available from  Amazon in both print and digital editions.

Joining the original trio of Stephen Bacon, Mark West and Neil Williams this time are Shaun Hamilton, Robert Mammone, Val Walmsley and Sheri White.

You will descend into an underground train station to uncover a dreadful secret and watch in horror as a paradise holiday turns sour. You will see a bullied boy who’s helped by local history and share the anguish of a father, losing his child in a shopping centre. You will take a trip with a cancer sufferer and share the pain of a couple, desperate for a child. You will discover that history needs to be kept somewhere.

Seven stories, seven writers and you.

Prepare to feel “ill at ease” all over again.

The New Look Carnies

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The new cover for the re-release of Carnies, by Martin Livings, has just been revealed, and it looks fantastic. Coming in 2014 from Cohesion Press.

half 2013_11_25_bright_2

The small town of Tillbrook has a secret. One that has been kept for over a hundred years.

Journalist David Hampden needs a good story to resurrect his flagging career. His damaged brother, Paul, just needs to find some meaning for his life.When David is alerted to a century-old carnival, the idea of a feature story is too good to pass up, so he drags Paul along to Tillbrook to act as his photographer. What they find is darker than they could ever imagine.Paul becomes part of the exotic world of the Dervish Carnival, est. 1899, and David must risk everything to save his brother. Even though Paul might not want to be saved.

Come on in, and enjoy the show. No photos allowed.

More details soon…

Warren wins 2013 ACT Writers’ and Publishers’ Fiction Award

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Through Splintered Walls, the short story collection by Bram Stoker Award nominated author Kaaron Warren, has won the 2013 ACT Writers’ and Publishers’ Fiction Award.

The 2013 ACT Writers Centre Award winners were announced at the end-of-year Christmas celebrations, held on 12 December at the Bogong Theatre in Gorman House Arts Centre, Braddon.

About Through Splintered Walls (Twelfth Planet Press, 2012):

Country road, city street, mountain, creek.

These are stories inspired by the beauty, the danger, the cruelty, emptiness, loneliness and perfection of the Australian landscape.

Paperback: $18.00 + postage
Ebook: $5.95

‘Every Warren story is a trip with no map.’ – Gemma Files

‘Her fiction shifts across genres smoothly and intelligently, never settling for the easy path… she doesn’t flinch.’ – Andrew Hook

‘As with most of the best horror writing … the power of Warren’s strongest stories comes from the mirror they hold up to our everyday practices and prejudices.’ – Ian McHugh

Shirley Jackson Award winning author Kaaron Warren has lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Fiji, She’s sold many short stories, three novels (the multi-award-winning Slights, Walking the Tree and Mistification) and four short story collections. Two of her collections have won the ACT Publishers’ and Writers’ Award for fiction, and her most recent collection, Through Splintered Walls, won a Canberra Critic’s Circle Award for Fiction, two Ditmar Awards, two Australian Shadows Awards, an Aurealis Award and a Shirley Jackson Award. Her stories have appeared in Australia, the US, the UK and elsewhere in Europe, and have been selected for both Ellen Datlow’s and Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Anthologies.

She was shortlisted for a Bram Stoker Award for “All You Can Do is Breathe”, and was Special Guest at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention in Canberra 2013. Kaaron will teach a workshop at next year’s Aradale Creative Writing Retreat in February. You can find her at http://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/ and she Tweets @KaaronWarren

About the Awards:

The ACT Writers’ and Publishers’ Awards are an Australian literary award presented by the ACT Writers Centre for the best books in the categories of non-fiction, fiction, poetry and children’s literature written in the Canberra region.

The full list of winners and highly commended for 2013 can be found here.