Letter from Limbo
Greetings from Betwixt-and-Between this year we've been half in Ireland and half in England and not quite sure where we'll be off to next. We're already planning to spend much more time in the United States in 2004 - in Massachusetts, New York and California. So you can expect some witch stories, and some Manitou stories, and some lazing-around-on-the-beach stories.
This year has seen the publication by Pocket Star of A Terrible Beauty, my Irish novel, as well as the US paperback edition of The Doorkeepers by Leisure Books, and the UK omnibus edition of The Hymn and Night Plague from Time/Warner.
My young fantasy The Hidden World was published by Severn House in the UK and the US, as was Genius, a hardback version of Kingdom of the Blind which I originally published under the name of Alan Blackwood.
Incidental publications have included Sepsis, a chapbook from Cemetery Dance in the US, and Visions of Hell, a comic-book version of 15 of my short stories from Poland. I also have some poems appearing in The Devil's Wine , an anthology by Tom Piccirilli, but I haven't seen any sign of that yet!
Forthcoming titles for 2004 include Unspeakable from Pocket Star, Up All Night (a sex-instruction book) from Signet and The Devil in Gray from Leisure. There have been some tectonic changes in horror over the past year or so, and there is no doubt that readers are eagerly looking for more fantasy and less realism probably a side-effect of terrorism and high taxes and worldwide disillusionment in just about everything. Any story which takes you out of yourself into a land of dreams and possibilities seems to have done very well.
Talking of dreams, the summer in England was glorious and we took the opportunity to visit some of the countryside that we have missed over the past four years in Ireland, especially the South Downs and the seaside.
The first trip we have planned for next year is the Brussels Book Fair in February where I will be attempting to join in a French discussion about horror and fantasy which will be worth the entrance fee alone. Eat your heart out, Clouseau!
In the pipeline is a new Manitou novel, a new Night Warriors epic, and a Wendigo special. Only this is the Wendigo as you have never known it before
There will also be some other surprises which I will tell you about as soon as I think of them.
I want to thank all of the literate, intelligent, humorous and kind people who regularly visit my message-board and visitors' book. Over the past years you have created an extraordinary community of warm-hearted people from all over the world, whose shared interest is not so much in horror but in communicating your thoughts and your achievements (and your disappointments) so that we can all be reassured that we are not alone.
Graham Masterton
December, 2003
Earlier letters:
Letters from Ireland, January 2002
Letters from Ireland, July 2000
Letters from Ireland, February 2000
AGENT: My agent is Wiescka Masterton Literary Agency, tel 00 44 (0)1737 359838; fax 00 44 (0) 1737 361293; email manitouman1@yahoo.com
Fan mail to Graham Masterton: manitouman1@yahoo.com
