Simon Clark's Blog

Hello! I’ve been writing novels and short stories for decades now, and it came as much a surprise to me as anyone else when I was asked to edit my first anthology.

So, I donned my editor’s cap, and as the anthology is a book of Sherlock Holmes stories that should be a deerstalker, and produced a book that I’m enormously proud of.

The Mammoth Book of Sherlock Holmes Abroad contains fifteen new stories that follow the great detective overseas as he investigates some of the most...

When I was a young boy my father pointed at the river near where our family lived and said, ‘Look, Simon, that’s where the Vikings landed their invasion fleet.’

As I grew up in the North of England, a place conquered and settled by Viking warriors over a thousand years ago, I began to appreciate that those invaders from Denmark, Norway and Sweden had never really left.

Viking blood still flows in many an English person’s veins. One visible clue is a hereditary condition...

Hello! I’m delighted to welcome you to my new-look website!

Now, let me take you back to the dawn of the internet age…

I’m driving toward the beautiful hills of Derbyshire and listening to REM’s Automatic For The People. The year’s 1997 and I’m going to visit Chris Reed (of BBR fame). He’s promised to introduce me to a new invention called a ‘website’. I’m agog. I’ve never seen a website before. Come to that, I still didn’t...

I’ve been time travelling… At least that’s what it felt like. I’ve been re-reading stories that I wrote over twenty years ago. This was before my daughter, Helen, was born – she’s an adult now.

Those stories, which made me feel as if I was eerily gliding back through time, are from Blood and Grit, my first book. Its publisher back in 1990 was Chris Reed, the same brilliant Chris Reed that created my website, which has had the honour of being archived by the...

The British Fantasy Society held its awards ceremony in a sun-drenched Brighton a few days ago.

I’m delighted to tell you that my novella Humpty’s Bones won the award for best novella. This story of amateur archeology and monstrous immortality was published by the excellent Telos and boasts a fabulous cover by Vincent Chong.

I’m also pleased to add that both Telos and Vincent Chong won awards at the same event. Most deservedly, too.

Due to engineering works on the railway lin...

Those nice people at ITV’s Countrywise recently interviewed me in the ancient seaport of Whitby on England’s East Coast. I’m talking about Whitby being such a mysterious and inspirational location. Arthur Machen described the place as ‘a town of a magic dream.’

I’m also talking about vampires, of course. Especially Whitby Vampyrrhic, which is now available as an e-book. Countrywise airs on ITV at 8pm, 14th June.

Recently, BBC’s Juliette Foster intervie...

I don’t often get the chance to share my thoughts about writing or give new authors what I hope will be useful and valuable tips for writing success; however, I’m taking part in the SPRING WRITING WEEKEND, and I’m delighted to be giving a workshop on creating fictional characters. I firmly believe that if a reader is interested in a character in a story or novel that’s one of the major keys to successful writing. Here are the details that have been provided for me by t...

I’ve held back on the news about the paperback release of Whitby Vampyrrhic, due to the time it takes for the books to reach the four corners of the globe. Come to think of it, there’s probably a batch of books on a boat chugging through the South China Seas even as I’m writing this.

However! The paperback of Whitby Vampyrrhic is out now from Severn House.

The Vampyrrhic series takes place in and around the real-life harbour town of Whitby on the English coast. A place rightl...

It’s that time again. Halloween season. The ghosts are out, the phantoms moan, and what’s making the floorboards creak upstairs…

A long time has passed since my last mailer, but that’s mainly due to writing a whole new batch of short stories and novellas, as well as my regular cycle of novels. You might have already spotted some of these in volumes like Hellbound Hearts and Dark Delicasies 3. And there are more lurking in the wings ;—)

So, what’s coming up?...

This time there are some unusual extra items to report, come to that they are probably unique.

First off: Severn House has just released the paperback of Lucifer’s Ark. This is a hard-hitting horror-thriller about psychopaths being secretly shipped to an overseas jail. The book was inspired by my conversations with real-life mass-murderers in maximum security jails.

Secondly: Leisure have reprinted a number of paperbacks that haven’t been available for a while. These are my first n...