30/09 Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence is launched at Fantasycon
09/09 Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence is now available on Amazon UK and Amazon US, ahead of the launch at Fantasycon later in the month. 05/09 Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence is reviewed on Dark Musings.
01/09 Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence is reviewed on Horror Novels Review and given 5/5.
August 2017
25/08 Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence is reviewed on The British Fantasy Society website which says "is this possibly one of the most powerful pieces of post-apocalyptic fiction in recent years?"
June 2017
18/06 new novella finished
May 2017
31/05 It's alive! i can now reveal that my next novella will be titled "Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence" and will be launched at Fantasycon 2017 in September.
And the cover looks like this:
13/05 novel submitted to agents
March 2017
22/03 new novella submitted to publisher
06/03 "A Framework" published in "Respectable Horror"
November 2016
17/12 "Pump One" published in "Crossroads in the Dark - Volume 2"
November 2016
Still a few days left...
October 2016
29/10 "Government Work" published in "Spectral Book of Horror Stories - Volume 3"
21/10 "Coming Home" published in "Morpheus Tales - Volume 29"
17/10 "BFF" published in "Morpheus Tales - The Best Weird Fiction Volume 6"
September 2016
10/09 "No Heroes" - novel, first draft finished
August 2016
20/08 "Locusts in the Snow" published in "Snowpocalypse"
13/08 "Little Brother" published in "Shadows in Salem"
July 2016
16/07 "Pump One" accepted for publication 16/07 "Odette" published in Darker Battlefields 08/07 "Howard" published in Morpheus Tales - Taboo special edition 04/07 "Government Work" accepted for publication
June 2016
I never liked June anyway!
May 2016
18/05 "Howard" (With Stuart Hughes) accepted for publication
16/05 "Little Brother" accepted for publication
April
Erm, the less said about April the better
March 2016
07/03 "A Framework" accepted for publication
02/03 "Coming Home" accepted for publication
February 2016
29/02 "Bempton" published in "Not Your Average Monster" 29/02 "Lost and Found" published in "What Haunts the Heart"
22/02 New Blog Post: Origin Myths 1: Bempton
January 2016
26/01 "Locusts in the Snow" accepted for publication
November 2015
29/11 "Reaching Out" accepted for publication
23/11 "SkyDogs" published in "Out of Phase."
16/11 New Blog Post: When to give up
14/11 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "Devil Chimney" (I know, it's awful... It's going to have to change) 12/11 "The Midnight Scare" published in "Play things and Past Times."
11/11 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "War Effort"
07/11 "The Sleeping Dead" hits #5 in the UK horror chart and #7 in the US 06/11 "The Sleeping Dead" is currently on offer at Amazon. It's free!
October 2015
30/10 "Soul Proprietor" published in Crossroads in the Dark
23/10 "Lost and Found" accepted for publication.
September 2015
07/09 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "Jimmy's Game"
02/09 New Blog Post: Skribante en alia Lingvo
01/09 "Strange Presents" published in Sanitarium Magazine
August 2015
31/08 "Strange Presents" published in "Sanitarium Magazine - Volume 36"
01/08 "Bempton" accepted for publication.
July 2015
26/07 "The Midnight Scare" accepted for publication.
25/07 "Strange Presents" accepted for publication.
22/07 Invitation to submit to an anthology received
June 2015
22/06 New blog post: Are you still writing?
05/06 "After Life" published in "Morpheus Tales" #26
05/06 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "Locusts in the Snow"
May 2015
06/05 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "Cleaner"
April 2015
12/04 "After Life" accepted for publication.
02/04 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "The Midnight Scare"
March 2015
30/03 "Soul Proprietor" accepted for publication.
25/03 New novella finished. Tentatively titled "Odette"
February 2015
24/02 "The Feast of the Dead" accepted for publication.
January 2015
14/01 New blog post: Why I write
12/01 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "Final Orders"
07/01 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "The Feast of the Dead"
December 2014
03/12 New Short story finished. Tentatively titled "Lost and Found"
Ouch, even by my standards three updates in a twelve month period is poor. So what's happened since July? Well, the Sleeping Dead was launched in September and sales so far have exceeded my expectations. So if you bought a copy - thank you! If you didn't.... there's still time. The links are shown above.
I finished the third novella and all three have had at least one edit. I've also finished a co-written novella/novel (it comes in around 60k so we don't know what to call it!) One of my novellas needed a major re-write and I started that but it's still in creative limbo at the moment. The third novella "Closer Still" is almost in a state where I can submit it to publishers and once that's been sent off I have a few short stories I've been asked to write for anthologies and then I'm going to look at finishing the edits on one of the novellas and a novel. Should keep me out of trouble for a while!
To keep you entertained I've also updated the publications page with stories that have been published or accepted for publication.
July 2014
It looks like another long gap since I last posted here. In my defence that's mostly because I post to the blog - although even that's not too frequent. So a few months on and what's happening? Well there has been a flurry of short story sales and publications (Check out the publications page for full details). I have almost finished editing one of the two 2014 novellas and I'm just about 4,000 short of finishing the first draft of a third novella. The Sleeping Dead is published next month and has got some great reviews already. To support the novella I've recently done an interview on the "Stoyteller's podcast." I've also changed jobs, which is probably off topic but does affect my writing.
April 2014
Don't mention the gap since January, okay? I think if we keep it between you and me no one else will notice. I can't help but look at the last entry and wonder what the hell I was thinking of. A novella a month for three months and then edit a novel in month four? Well it's not really going to be a surprise to say that it didn't go like that. But perhaps the mitigating circumstances will explain. I did write a novella in January (and the start of February...) and then a second novella in February (and the start of March) but that second novella kept on going. When I finished it the word length was close to 50,000 - almost double what I'd planned. Now it's going to need a lot of editing, but I think once they're polished up they'll be good.
For now I've left the idea of writing a third (or fourth) novella until later in the year. I'm currently writing a batch of short stories (more on that on my blog post on the right) and then on to editing my novel and one of the novellas.
I've had a few short stories published, so just to make sure I've got them all: The God Panel has been published in the journal of the British Fantasy Society. Bus Routes of the Sticks has just come out in a Morpheus Tales special, The Horror Fields. And The Commission is due to be published in Fever Dreams issue 4 in the next few days. I've had a number of acceptances and a couple of requests to submit stories to publications, and all of these are listed (where I can...) on the publications page.
January 2014
Okay, so here's the plan for 2014: Write a novella in January. Write a novella in February. Write a novella in March. Edit a novel in April and a novella in May. Stop, Review progress. Breathe. Plough on!
I may come back to this in a couple of months and laugh my socks off at the idea that I was ever going to achieve that punishing schedule, but if you don't try then you never know! So January is novella month and, if I get a chance, I'll post updates on the blog as I go.
December 2013
Well, after a slow couple of months on the publishing front December has gon emad. I do like Christmas horror/ghost stories so a while ago I wrote a few of them, and that work seems to have com ehow to roost with a flurry of Christmas-themed stories coming out this month. There is .... and there is even a showing which isn't horror related: "Visiting Hours" is published in the Australian Horrow Writers' Association magazine Midnight Echo. But to cap it lal off my short story "Last Christmas" won first prize in the Horror Novels Review anthology "When Red Snow melts" where it was published alongside Joe Lansdale and garnered the great response from the editor, Matt Molgaard: "...[It} reached inside of my core and tugged at my inner fibers. I won't lie to you for a second, the story brought a tear to my eye."
November 2013
Recent events include reading from "The Power of Nothing" at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton. I've had a short story published in Trembles and a few more due out over the next few weeks. i can also confirm that my second novella, "The Sleeping Dead" will be published in August 2014 by DarkFuse. I have also finished the first draft of my new novel "Fodder" as well as a couple of short stories. I'm now looking at editing "The Lost" and starting on a new novella which has absolutely no title at the moment!
The first review of "The Power of Nothing" has come out. Over at Hellforge they said: "His attention to detail is brilliant, as are his turns of phrase, but there’s never any intrusion to the experience". They also said: "Richard Farren Barber pulls off that difficult feat of a conclusion that inspires wry reflection and also throws light – or is that darkness – back across the story as a whole."
15 September 2013 - The Power of Nothing ebook is now available to buy!
Contact me at richard_barber (at) lineone (dot) net for details about UK delivery of the print version.
September 2013 (ii)
The new launch date for "The Power of Nothing" is Sunday 15 September and you can join in an online launch and webchat at 7.00pm (BST) over at Damnation Books. On the day "The Power of Nothing" will be available as an ebook on a variable price. The first person to buy it after it's launched will get it for 25cents, the next for 50cents, then 75 etc... and it will go up until it reaches the set price of $4. Which means the earlier you get the better the bargain! The print copy will be available later and if you're in the UK contact me as I'll be arranging to ship some over to save on postage costs.
See you on Sunday!
September 2013
Nearly there!
Well, "The Power of Nothing" was supposed to be published on 1st September but it's been delayed slightly so will be out later in the month. You can follow the progress on the blog!
The novel, tentatively titled "Fodder" is nearly finished... about another 10,000 words to go so I don't think it would be a rash prediction to say it will be done before the end of September, even taking into account promotional duties for "The Power of Nothing".
In addition, my story "Where the Stones Lie" was reviewed in Black Static as "...one of the highlights of the collection... the characters are beautifully drawn and the pull of the sinister is powerfully portrayed." (You can read more on the reviews page)
August 2013
I've made it!!! No, really! I have arrived. I am...
Well, let's track back a little. maybe "made it" is slightly over-egging the pudding, but three of my short stories have been given "honourable mentions" in Ellen Datlow's" best horror of 2012 list. You can read a bit more about this on the blog but for the here an dnow let's just say that it has truly made my day/week/month. (maybe year is going a bit far... it's still only August)
So for the record, I received honourable mentions for:
Skin Deep - first published in Siblings by Hersham Horror (and you may remember that also found a place in the HWA recommended reading list for 2012)
Bridge People - first published in the British Fantasy Society's journal
Where the Stones Lie - first published in Spectral Press's "13 ghosts of Christmas"
July 2013
I've been quiet.... because I haven't been quiet! So lots of news over the last couple of months. Work on the novel is going okay (after a bad patch...) and it should be finished in the next couple of weeks. I've been approached by a publisher to submit a collection of stories for them to consider, so that took up a couple of weeks as I need a selection of published and unpublished stores. Then there has been a few recent acceptances for short stories that will be coming up over the next few months. And last (but not least) I've been editing and proofing my novella "The Power of Nothing" which will be published on 1st September by Damnation Books.
June 2013
Not too much to report at the moment. This month has mostly about adding words to the novel. Lots of words! As it stands I'm around 65,000 words into what will be a 95,000 story.
Latest news for May! My short story "NSFW" has been published by Horror D' oeuvres. In other news, I am mostly getting my head down and working on my latest novel. Which, to be fair, is exactly what I said I would be doing in that post back in April.
April 2013 (Later!)
So, the big news item for today is that my novella "The Power of Nothing" has been accepted by a publisher and will be coming out later this year. This will be the first book I've had published (as opposed to having a story in an anthology) and I am delighted. I've written a bit more about it over on the blog and I'll be keeping everyone updated with progression as we get closer to publication date in September. But for now, imagine the happy dance gone mad and a big "The Joker" grin plastered across my face, and you won't even be close.
April 2013
At the moment I'm gearing up to start a new novel. As to what the novel will be about.. well that is in itself a story (and one I'll cover in a few future blog posts). Suffice to say that it isn't a straight-forward decision and may require the use of a Magic 8 Ball in the making. To work through this I've been clearing the decks with my two novellas "The Power of Nothing" and "The Weight of Water". The first is now ready to go out to publishers whilst the second needs a few changes to a particularly tricky scene before it's ready to go anywhere.
March 2013
You can read more about this on the blog, but for the last two months I've been editing my novel "The Lost". It is just the first edit so there's a long way to go, and it's been a particularly bloody affair with the word count falling from 115,000 to a shade over 90,000 - thanks in part to a decision to remove a whole sub-plot and what was originally the main protagonist. I think the novel is much stronger as a result and I managed to avoid my usual flaw of line-editing the whole work and then removing huge swathes of edited text. I'll be putting it away shortly to lay fallow for a while before I pick it up later in the year.
January/February 2013
Okay, I'll confess - it looks like the beginning of the year got away from me and I looked up and I was well into 2013. I'm not a big one for New Year resolutions, but I do have a plan in mind, and after last year when I had a great result with short stories, but didn't write a novel, my ambition this year is to turn that around and edit the last novel I wrote (The Lost) as well as writing a new novel. That will be no smal feat so I'll have to try and stay focussed, and I'm mindful that the number of short story credits might fall as a result when compared to last year.
November 2012
To much fanfare I was delighted to learn that my short story "Where the Stones Lie" has been picked up by Spectral Press for their Christmas Ghost story anthology "The 13 ghosts of Christmas". I'm particularly pleased about this one as Spectral make truly beautiful books. It's due out shortly and the latest I heard the edition was likely to be sold out.
In other news.... well, read my blog posting for Writing East Midlands! to learn more about the fact that my short story "Skin Deep" published in September has been picked for,.,,well, it's hard to explain but read the blog post and then see why my name appears on a list alongside Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell. Gary McMahon, Alison Littlewood and Stephen Bacon.
Talking about Writing East Midlands, they've been running a competeition for short stories over the last year, and I've been fortunate to have two of my short stories selected and published on their website and also in the Lincolnshire Echo. They've drawn up a short list for the winner and one of my stories: "The Watching Post" has been selected as a contender (as Marlon Brando might have said!).
I've had a few more short stories published and accepted: my short story "Bridge People" was included in the latest British Fantasy Society journal (sorry, you can only get it by being a member of the BFS) and my short story "Guesswork" was published in a charity anthology "Zombies for a cure", which is produced to support cancer research (so go and buy it!)
September 2012 (later...)
"The Tower" has now been published in Trembles, and "The One Good Reason" was published in the Lincolnshire Echo on 6 September, but if you missed that you can read it online at the Writing East Midlands website.
September 2012
"Legacy" has now been published in "Ripped Genes" the Morpheus Tales biopunk Special, and "Skin Deep" is now published in Siblings. (But keep that one to yourself as it isn't supposed to be launched until Fantasycon.)
August 2012
August has mostly been taken up with finishing my second novella. The initial title is "The Weight of Water" but it's anyone's guess whether it will still go by that name when I've finished. September is shaping up to be an interesting month with four short stories due to be published. namely: Legacy in Morpheus Tales' Biopunk Special, "The One Good Reason" in the Writing East Midlands/Lincolnshire Echo short story competition, "Skin Deep" in Hersham Horror's Siblings collection, and "The Bridge People" in the British Fantasy Society's journal. I'll also be attending Fantasycon at the end of September where I'll be at the launch of Siblings and also doing a reading.
July 2012
It's a good job I don't get paid to update this website or I'd probably have to sack myself. I seem to start off each entry by apologising for leaving it so long since the last item.
Not that I haven't been busy! I've just updated my publications page with stories that have been accepted or published this year. In other news, I've finished the novella I was writing in February (and April and a little bit of May) which is tentatively titles "The Follower" and I'm halfway through the next novella (tentative title "Down to the River").
If you follow the blog I write for Writing East Midlands (or just wander over to the right of your screen...) you'll have seen that by June I'd written more short stories this year than any year in the last decade. See, I told you I was doing something! That will probably slow down in the second half of the year as I plan to do one more novella (and a few short stories, of course...) and focus on submitting Bloodie Bones to publishers and agents as well as editing the novellas and my last novel The Lost.
So what are you waiting for? Click onto the publications page to see what you've missed over last couple of months and I hope to see you back here soon.
April 2012
Sorry, I appear to have skipped a month!
And what a busy few weeks it has been. in March/August I have had short stories accepted by The Horror Zine ("Poohlberg Station"), Ten Terrors ("Nether Goole"), Trembles ("The Tower"), Dark Rivers Press ("The Heart Stone") and Terror Scribes ("Angel Tracks") as well as having my short story "Gone Fishing" broadcast on Radio Erewash.
In addition, the Terror Scribes anthology, which is a truly beautiful book, was published at the beginning of April and so is available for you to buy.
In other news, the novella that I described below as "my main aim for February" has become my main aim for April as well - after a slow start it's now coming together and the first draft should be finished by the end of the month.
February 2012
2012 has started well with two short stories published. "Connection" was published in Night Terrors II by Blood Bound Books and "The Watching Post" was selected by Writing East Midlands/The Lincolnshire Echo as one of their prize winning short stories and has been published in the Lincolnshire Echo (week commencing 26 February) and has also been published on the Writing East Midlands website.
In other news, I've spent most of January editing short stories and writing a few new works, in particular an 8,500 word ghost story. My main aim for February is to focus on a novella...
One piece of bad news is that The Darkleian Times, who had accepted my short story "Scratching" just before Christmas, has since closed. If you look down to my first December 2010 entry you'll see I was musing on the fact that this was the first time I was going to appear in a first issue, which may well have been the cause of The Darkleian's demise (Sorry!)
More December 2011
If you're on the maling list you've now got the "three month catch up" (Sorry, must do better in future!). Well since that went out I've got a couple more pieces of news. My short story "Ask Not" has now been published in issue 4 of Trembles Magazine (Available as a print magazine or an ebook) and today (Wednesday 21) I finished the first draft of "The Lost" which comes in just shy of 117,000 words. (all good!) I'm expecting two more short stories to hit paper before the end of the year so keep your eyes open for more news as it happens.
December 2011 Sorry! If you're on the mailing list and wondering why I've been quiet it's not because I haven't been doing anything. I've had another short syory accepted for publication: "Scratching" will appear in volume 1 of The the first edition of "The Darkleian Times". It occured to me that I've been accepted for the last edition of a magazine (and hopefully the fact that it was the last edition wasn't because of my contribution) and I've had a few acceptances for magazines that folded before my story was aired, but I think this is the first time I've been in the first edition of a publication.
I'm also expecting, (fingers crossed) to be able to announce that I've finished the first draft of the novel I've been working on "The Lost" before Christmas (It's currently c105,000 words and I think it will come in somewhere around 115,000)
November 2011 (Later...) My short story "Inside/Out" is published in issue 16 of Midnight Street.
November 2011 I've had another short story accepted. "Sacrifice" will now be published in a future edition of Estromicon. I've also been advised that TLC now have a third agent interested in reading "Bloodie Bones". And I'm now 63,000 words into "The Lost" - on target to finish it just before Christmas. October 2011 (Later...)
I've added another page to the site as I'm starting to garner a few reviews through anthologies my stories have appeared in. At the same time I've been interviewed so it made sense to add that also.
Writing wise... I've now finished Bloodie Bones and sent it off to TLC who are looking to take it to agents on my behalf. At the same time I've now resurrected "The Lost" from where it was lying whilst I put the finishing touches to BB. At present "The Lost" is roughly half-complete (c45,000 words) so my aim is to finish the first draft by the end of 2011. After that...well wait to see what you've got in store!
October 2011
I'm finally starting to get the site looking the way it should! But website issues apart, the last month has been an interesting time. I have had 3 short stories accepted for publication, I've been invited to submit to an anthology, I attended my first book launch (for Alt Dead, which carried my story "Talk Show"), I read at FantasyCon ("Last Respects" from the Derby Scribes anthology, "Talk Show" from Alt-Dead, and the opening chapter of "Bloodie Bones"), and - take a deep breath - I finished the edits on Bloodie Bones so that as of today (Thursday 20) it has been sent out in search of agents.
Instead of resting on my laurels I'm currently finishing off editing a couple of short stories, submitting a few more, and I'll be picking up "The Lost" to continue writing that before the month is out.
September 2011
Apologies. The new website was short lived. As soon as I started to receieve any traffic on it the web host said that I had violated all sorts of terms and conditions with my 6 pages of html and promptly cut it off (unless I paid to be a premium member) ho-hum! So here we are with a quick version put up whilst I sort out the formatting issues.
September 2011
A new website! It's here at last. I've been most remiss at posting updates here and in part that's because I've been constantly thinking "I'll just get the new website up and running and then..." and therefore managing to achieve nothing. So here it is. There are still a few tweaks needed (notably to backfill all the blog entries when I was writing for WEM) but I'm just going to put it up now or it will never happen.
