Welcome - at last - to my first personal website ... created not by my own efforts, but by the determination, professionalism, and sheer bloody-mindedness of Matt Williams and many others too numerous and too stubborn to mention.
I intended to go online early last year, but as usual I was inundated with new projects. I had to finish my new Rook novel, Snowman. This time, Jim Rook, the scruffy but charismatic college teacher with a class of slow-lane students, has to face up to a freezing menace from beyond the Arctic Circle.
A new student arrives from Alaska, but even he doesn't know that his father promised his soul to a mysterious stranger when he was dying of frostbite in a blizzard. The college swimming-pool freezes over, trapping students beneath the ice ... and one student makes the mistake of gripping a frozen metal handrail, with horrifying results.
This story was suggested to me by early accounts of Captain Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1912, and by stories recounted to me by Paul Sieveking of The Fortean Times about Polar explorers who have sworn that they were accompanied on their journeys by an extra man. Sometimes this supplementary fellow-explorer became so real that they would divide a share of rations for him, and call him by name.
The Jim Rook books were originally meant for young adults, but they were published in France as adult books and they have gathered a huge following. I am negotiating with a prominent US TV company to have the series developed for television, and as soon as I have some news I will let you know!
After Snowman I immediately wrote The Doorkeepers a new full-length supernatutal thriller, in which an American veterinarian comes to London to solve the mystery of his sister's murder ... only to find that London isn't everything it seems to be. If you enjoy alternative realities (as I do) you'll really have a good time with this story. The Doorkeepers will be published as a special trade edition in France sometime in 2000. I don't yet have a date for UK/US publication but in the US in particular they have a backlog of my books. Leisure Books will be publishing a US edition of The House That Jack Built in July, and Tor have acquired The Chosen Child (both of which were originally published by Heinemann/Mandarin.)
This month I completed a new sex "how-to" book for Dutton Signet, and I have been making contributions to the US Woman's Own on the subject of keeping your marriage together. Which is something I have to be an expert at, since it was an enormous upheaval for my wife Wiescka and I to move from Epsom, Surrey during the summer of 1999 and come to live here in Cork.
We have a fine Victorian mansion overlooking the River Lee and at night, when I'm writing, I can see the ships and tugs coming slowly up and down. But Ireland is more foreign to an English-bred person than you'd think. Cork has quite a Continental look (more like Denmark than England, with its brightly-coloured houses) and the accent can be very difficult for outsiders. My favourite phrase is "Nothing strange?" which people ask you when they want to know your latest news. Good question to a writer of horror stories and supernatural thrillers.
But the atmosphere is calm here, and life is slow, and it has given me plenty of opportunity to think of new projects and develop new ideas. I am currently finishing a new submission for Steve Jones' latest Dark Terrors and after that it's back to Bonnie Winter, a thriller about a Los Angeles woman who clears up murder scenes for a living. I have another major supernatural story on the stocks for later in the year, but I daren't tell you the title yet because it's a complete giveaway!
I have been doing a lot of work in France and Belgium where they love horror and fantasy and make you feel like a real author! Marc Bailly of Naturellement has helped to create a Masterton Prize for the most cutting-edge of horror/fantasy writers and I will be presenting the first award in May at the fantasy festival in Givers, near Lyon, in France.
On the motion picture front, Italian director Mariano Baino is a long way into a development of Ritual (aka Feast), my novel of gourmet cannibals. Screenwriter Jamie Dawson has re-acquired an option on Night Warriors, the first of my horror-fantasy trilogy from the mid-1980s. Lifetime Productions are still developing For the Love of Anna (a treatment of my short story Changeling). And there has been some serious interest in Prey.
This year is already beginning to mark a new beginning for me, and for horror and supernatural stories in general. What particularly pleases me is that, for the first time, I am able to share what I am writing with everybody who enjoys reading it.
I am very much looking forward to the continuous updating and development of this site, and you're welcome back at any time. I hope you'll find that there's always something new and hair-raising.
Graham Masterton
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
