Hellebore: The Old Ways Issue

The Old Ways Issue celebrates landscapes, the way we navigate them, and the stories we tell about them. Pilgrimages and rituals of crossings, tales of malevolent lights luring travellers off the path, patterns in the landscape, invisible lines of force, the mystery of megaliths. In these pages we explore the sea, the marshland, rivers and fields, stone circles, the moors, and the enigma of outer space to unearth the stories that fascinate us and to acknowledge how they’ve shaped us.

HELLEBORE is a collection of writings and essays devoted to folk horror and the themes that inspire it: folklore, myth, history, archaeology, psychogeography, and the occult. 

Featuring words by Katy Soar and Niall Finneran, Kenneth Brophy, Francis Young, Verity Holloway, Madeleine Potter, Icy Sedgwick, and Darren Pih. Artwork by Clare Marie Bailey and Nathaniel Hébert.

Edited by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo.

Introducing Gore

Happy news! Gore, a short graphic novel written by me and beautifully illustrated by Ivo de Jager is being published by Black Panel Press in July 2023.

“Victorian orphan Beryl Gore adores the guts-and-glory productions of the Palace Theatre where she lives and works. Preoccupied with dreams of pirates and revenge, she barely notices the squalor around her. As Beryl grows up, trying to persuade vainglorious manager Mister Perry to read the plays she pens by candlelight, she realises the theatre is falling apart around them. To save the Palace, Perry must take a chance on Beryl. But as Beryl discovers, scoundrels aren’t confined to the stage.”

The Others of Edenwell

I’m thrilled to announce that my folk horror novel, The Others of Edenwell, will be published by Titan on the 4th of July 2023.

I can’t wait to take you back to 1917 and introduce you to Freddie, Eustace, and Drummerboy.

A dark spirit haunts an isolated Norfolk retreat in this unsettling and sinister historical horror set in the early 1900s, perfect for readers of Michelle Paver, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Andrew Michael Hurley.

Norfolk, 1917. Unable to join the army due to a heart condition, Freddie lives and works with his father in the grounds of the Edenwell Hydropathic, a wellness retreat in the Norfolk broads. Preferring the company of birds – who talk to him as one of their own – over the eccentric characters who live in the spa, bathing in its healing waters, Freddie overhears their premonitions of murder.

Eustace Moncrieff is a troublemaker, desperate to go to war and leave behind his wealthy family. Shipped to Edenwell by his mother to keep him safe from the horrors of the trenches, he strikes up a friendship with Freddie at the behest of Doctor Chalice, the American owner of the Hydropathic.

As the two friends grow closer and grapple with their demons, they discover a body, and something terrifying stalking the woods. The dark halls of the spa are breached, haunted by the woodland beast, and the boys soon realise that they may be the only things standing between this monster and the whole of Edenwell.

Happy news all round

Thanks to all your kind pledges, CloisterFox Zine is fully funded. What’s more, Indiegogo has made the campaign In Demand, which means that even though it’s officially ended, you can still pledge. So if you’re only just hearing about the zine and want to grab an enamel pin or pre-order a copy, it’s not too late!

We’re looking at April 2022 for publishing issue one. Stay informed by following CloisterFox on Twitter or backing the Indiegogo.

In other news, my story The Forlorn Hope has been longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association’s 2021 awards. I’m thrilled that it’s struck a chord with people. The anthology it appears in – Out Of The Darkness – is still raising funds for Together For Mental Wellbeing and is well worth a punt.