We’re in the pub and there’s a middle-aged couple sitting in the corner, not talking, just sipping their drinks and reading their books, and this is what we’re aspiring to now.

The Lonely Crowd will feature a new short story by a different author each month throughout the remainder of 2025. For June, we are delighted to publish a new work by Aideen Henry. thelonelycrowd.org/2025/06/13/s...

Nicholas Royle’s stories are “immaculately sinister”, according to the TLS. In these stories he writes about doppelgängers, ghosts, dummies, disconnected body parts, impaired vision, the dead and the prospect of death, not without a macabre sense of humour. swanriverpress.ie/srp-title/th...

Tickets are now on sale for this fantastic book festival in the Lake District (links in comments). I’ll be on a couple of panels, doing a reading and signing, but most excitingly, I get to interview my top-favourite (living) author, Andrew Michael Hurley! 🖤

New story just dropped 👇

Guess which child just landed in America

At Heathrow and I just went into the unisex toilet as Cillian Murphy came out and I think that means we’re married now, right?

Oh, this is going to be SOOOO good 👇

Just don't let them see your Dead Ink tattoo! In all seriousness though, we helped facilitate this and are super happy for Lucie. Night Babies is incredible and you are all going to love it.

With apologies for dropping a massive photo of my face on your timelines, I have news! My new novel, Night Babies will be out with John Murray in spring next year (although there will always be a place in my horrid black heart for @deadinkbooks.bsky.social 🖤) www.thebookseller.com/rights/lucie...

New short story just dropped in one of my favourite literary journals, The Lonely Crowd 💙

I’m thrilled to be a part of this magnificent line-up for new horror festival, Horror in the Howgills. Check out the link below for more info…

I am Master of Ceremonies at a new horror fest, HORROR IN THE HOGWILLS at Sedbergh, England's Booktown at Midsummer! Featuring Andrew Michael Hurley, Lucie McKnight Hardy, Priya SHarma, Robin Ince and many more! Tickets available from 8th February. www.trybooking.com/uk/events/la...

What a generous and considerate review this is from @davemusson.bsky.social - thank you so much, I'm delighted that people are still enjoying this horrible little monster of mine.

It’s happening.

Really tempted to do a deep annotated version of A MAN AT WAR. Be good to have two versions of it out there, one for the nerds who want to know *everything* and those who just want to read a rather good work of fiction. Anyhoo, it's my best work of fiction and you can order it from the link below.

I like this idea, and recommend this dark but delicious book.

Scary stuff coming your way...

Those who read our books, in particular our hardbacks, will know that we like to hide different artwork underneath the jacket on the boards. I was just having a look at some photos showing both jacket and board art. I'll post a few in the thread below. CURFEW by Lucy M. Boston (2011)

Just caught sight of myself in the mirror: long skirt, boots, jumper, three cardigans, two scarves, fingerless gloves. Total Victorian bag lady chic.

It’s so cold, there’s a queue for a turn on the radiator

I’d booked myself onto an untutored writing retreat at the wonderful Moniack Mhor in the Highlands for mid-January, but am now unable to attend. If anyone’s interested in taking my place, you can book online at the link in the comments below. All their other retreats are fully booked until May!

Event curator WLTM writers, folklorists, academics with a professional interest in THE UNCANNY for potential virtual event appearance on 18 January. Would esp. love to hear from someone with a psychiatry background who could speak to the neurological aspects of the uncanny. Suggestions, please!

Naming no names, but here’s a gentle reminder - to *anyone who might need it* - of the official, legally enforced size limits for the eight standard literary formats

Kids, please don’t do this, when you know the Kindle version is only £3.99. It demeans you.

Hay-on-Wye Castle staff, Christmas 1915. I like the various expressions, demeanours, and facial hair, but what I love most is the woman in the window, top left, defiantly gazing down on those posing below. I wonder who she was, and whether she planned for future generations to imagine her as a ghost

We asked @robertedgar.bsky.social for his recommendations to get us in that hauntological mood. As expected, he had a few, including @lmcknighthardy.bsky.social's Water Shall Refuse Them. This novel takes the prof right back to the summers of the 1970s: "a feeling of nausea and nostalgia". 🧵⬇️

Stunning book delivery from @galleybeggars.bsky.social Three ghost stories - Dickens, Gaskell and Spark - each in their own dinky volume, with matching bookmarks - and just look at those cute French flaps! Thanks so much for these

I'm running a GIVEAWAY for a massive bundle of all four books that I've had published this year (pictured below). Happy to sign them too. To be in the draw to WIN, just subscribe to my newsletter before December 6th. Link below. eepurl.com/imYxTo

Post a non-religious photo you think of as holy

Found an inclusion in a second-hand cookery book today which, on first glance, appears to be a recipe for some bizarre grapefruit curry, but on closer inspection seems to show a family sitting down to feast on an entire snake AND the only adult has trotters for feet (cc @nicholasroyle.bsky.social)

Happily, I’ve found another podcast to plug the Uncanny gap (so to speak). ‘Assume Nothing: A Belfast Haunting’ on BBC Sounds is brilliant - gripping, unnerving, and really well put together. Thanks for the recommendation @swanriverpress.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/serie...

I interpret a semi-colon as a period hitching a ride on top of a comma to cross a river. The comma's sitting a little low in the water, swimming gamely with its mobile tail. We are pausing here in the sentence to watch while the two little guys get safely across.

I’m putting the finishing touches to my workshop for the Winter Haunts online event on Saturday - ‘The Haunters and The Haunted: Developing Characters in Ghost Stories’ and I’m told there are still a few tickets available: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/winter-hau...

Love it when an old meme comes back with a vengeance.

Slowly moving here - if we knew each other elsewhere, or we should know each other here, please tell me so that I can add you to my lists/starter packs This one is writers - go.bsky.app/6pYSigx

We are very pleased to announce a new Bloomsbury Academic series. Spectres, Hauntings and Horrors The series editors are Dawn Keetley, Adam James Smith @elementaladam.bsky.social and myself. More information below. Logo & illustrations by the fantastic Richard Wells @slipperyjack.bsky.social

We moved house in summer and have only just got round to clearing some of the more overgrown parts of the garden. Turns out we have a pet cemetery/sematary (at least we *think* it’s pets). The headstone on the left, barely legible, reads ‘Jack. Died March 12 1872 😳

‘The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen-age club, the Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities.’

JK Rowling: hello children Clive Barker: whoa jk rowling! you're alive! Barker: oh thank god we were all really worried Barker: since you hadn't tweeted in a week Barker: unless there was some REASON you're suddenly not tweeting Barker: hahaha

Always a delight to see my sun-drenched, sweaty little baby on a bookseller’s display (spotted at Waterstones Hereford)

New Critical Reading class! And just look at that line up: Benjamin Myers, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Meena Kandasamy, Stephen King, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Auster Sign up here and get an earlybird discount of 10% (just type EARLYBIRDAUTUMN at checkout): www.galleybeggar.co.uk/school-criti...

It's official. The 2024/25 - and tenth! (we can't quite believe it) - GBP Short Story Prize is OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS. With three amazing judges, and a stunning array of finalists to its name: galleybeggar.co.uk/prize (Please RT! Enter! And tell your writing friends!)

I've not been on here for ages, but feel that now is the time to come back. So, errr, here's a cat pic. Thank you for your time.

There’s a reason this corner of the kitchen has come to be known as Fur City

Just noticed that the ebook of I Would Haunt You if I Could is currently under a quid on Amazon.

Frankly, I'd read @lmcknighthardy.bsky.social's laundry list so to find her here, among so many talented alumni is a total joy. #ForTomorrow

Might have to give some thought to shelving some books

A fantastic day in Bath during which I said hello to Mary Shelley’s monster and also my own 🖤🖤🖤