S.J.Budd

Mary Williams was Cornwall's leading ghost writer who wrote 17 volumes of superb ghost stories which are mostly set in Cornwall. She remains as mysterious as her stories. There is very little information about her despite her incredibly sucessful writing career which also includes novels such as the Dark God. It is such a shame that she is not more well known.What is clear is that writing was her passion in life, she passed away at the grand age of 97  in 2000 and was apparently working on a new collection of ghostly tales. Her tales are dark yet cheery and full of charm. This collection, They Walk at Twilight was first published in 1977. It's deeply atmospheric with dark undertones reminscent of a Daphne Du Maurier novel. Mary Williams is a master with invoking dark and foreboding atmosphere in which anything seems possible. Most of her tales are set in Cornwall where she draws upon it's ancient mysteries and celtic magic for crafting her wonderful evocative stories.

I'm having a problem with the writing of a new novel and I'm not sure if it's serious. Some  of my chapters are really short and some are really long.When I say short, some are just a few pages, a thousand words, whilst the longer ones are endless pages with thousands upon thousands of words within them. It's early days yet but I find it really annoying that they're not all the same length.I feel like they should all be the same uniform length.  Does anyone else have this problem? So that I reach the required word count of 80-000 which turns my manuscript from a flimsy novella to a weighty novel. I've divided the above number by the number of chapters my novel will have to get an ideal of the ideal chapter length. I get really stressed out if a chapter does not reach this length as it's the bare minimum needed to qualify it as a novel. Which gets me thinking. Do  chapters need to be the same length in a book? Is it ok to have some really short ch

The Siren's Call is a free monthly ezine published by Siren's Call Publications. It is  available from their website - www.sirenscallpublications.com. This  latest issue is themed with the theme of Lost Souls. The wonderful short stories inside deal with the eternal questions of, what happens when we die? Where do we go? Is there life after death? There's some really great and imiginative tales from up and coming authors as well as those more firmly established. This issue features short stories from best selling authors such as Joshua Skye as well as fresh new talent on the rise. This issue also features an indepth interview with him as well as the prologue for Cradle his new fiction. This issue also features some great dark poetry from DJ Tyrer and Shawn D.Standfast as well as some dark micro fiction from Julianne Snow and Nina D'Arcangela. Made In by MontiLee Stormer Rena is stuck in a stop too tantalising to leave. Like a mag pie she is drawn to all t

Inner Sins is a free webzine of all things dark and features many great dark tales from new writers and those more established on the  writing scene. I was lucky enough to be published in Issue 21  with my story Madam Spizak's Home for Little Boys and Girls which you can read for free here You can read Inner Sins # Issue 22 here Issue 22 is packed with great stories by  Jim Musgrave, Alexsander Cosic and Katie Palmer-Stevens. Plus great dark poetry from Milenko Zupanovic, Michael Lee Johnson and D.B.Heath. Issue 22 also features part 10 of the Black Desert Sagas, you can read each installment here The Sunset Unlimited by Jim Musgrave Bill has a life long love for trains and is devasted with the ending of the Sunset Limited a train that has travelled across America for thirty years. Along with his darling wife Arlene they take a trip on the  last ever Sunset Limited  voyage to discuss their future together. They long for a child of their own and will do anything to