CONE ZERO: BRITISH FANTASY SOCIETY AWARDS

I'm somewhat amazed and excited to discover that my story "Cone Zero" has been longlisted in the Best Short-Fiction category in the British Fantasy Society 2009 awards. There's 32 other nominees and I don't have a cat's chance of winning, but - Jesus! - it's pretty thrilling to find yrself on a list with Stephen King, Storm Constantine, Paul Kane, etc.

I'm also super-thrilled for editor Des Lewis as the Cone Zero antho is also up for a Best Anthology award and quite rightly too.

If you're wondering what all the fuss is about then you should snag yourself a copy immediately! - Des still has a few copies left for sale and it is a damn good read.

Since the authors' names have now been de-nemonised, I'm allowed to say that mine is the one on page 33.

I completely failed to make the submissions deadline this week for Des' new Cerne Zoo antho - as my story "Cerne Zoo" had hit 7000+ words with still no end in sight, but it's a strong piece, I think, so I'm going to finish it off in Slow Time. The name of the story will still stand; despite the fact that I wasn't able to submit it in time it was still inspired by Des' wonderfully narrowband guidelines...this will prob. make it very difficult for me to sell elsewhere as no one will want to snag a story that is effectively an annex to someone else's antho - still, I'm a stubborn bastard like that lol and if/when it ever does appear it will accordingly be dedicated to Des Lewis and John Sladek.