A few days away from the big six-zero. It’s my party so I’ll listen to 80s-influenced minor key female vocal electronica if I want to. open.spotify.com/playlist/7Jf...

New title from Temporal Boundary Press! Capture Spiral: An Escape From Memory by Jez Conolly now available for preorder. temporalboundary.bigcartel.com/product/capt...

Fans of @scarredforlife.bsky.social will find plenty of 70s/80s childhood neuroses in my upcoming book Capture Spiral. Preorder your copy now! temporalboundary.bigcartel.com/product/capt...

The Monkey. Great first half. Meh second half.

Contributor copy received. Get yours at: temporalboundary.bigcartel.com/product/unde...

Tom Baker’s visit to Cleethorpes Zoo and my numerous visits to the Doctor Who Exhibition in Blackpool feature in Capture Spiral.

#HorrorWritersChat Sooooo… My new book is available for preorder! “Capture Spiral is a user's guide for a night gallery of childhood-origin neuroses, and a celebration of the "great escape" we call imagination.” (Stephen Volk, author of Ghostwatch) temporalboundary.bigcartel.com/product/capt...

My chisel cracks the seal open. Only then, did I understand the folly of my curiosity. His scrotum spread slowly across the vinyl-covered seat pad like pancake batter poured into a hot pan. It formed a low-viscosity magma of flesh possessing the characteristics of recent roadkill. #HorrorWritersChat

#HorrorWritersChat There is something, a terrible thing, that should be forever banished, lest it destroy all in its wake. And that thing is: ‘cliché’.

#HorrorWritersChat See you at the end, guys, for the link share…

#HorrorWritersChat Jez, very nearly 60, based in Aberdeen, Scotland, I write ‘kitchen sink horror’. I’m afraid I don’t understand the rest of the question.

Do we know if it’s registered with Reform supporters that Paddington is a feel-good story about an immigrant? Furthermore, is it registering with them yet that ‘stage Paddington’ is being portrayed by Arti Shah (in the costume) and James Hameed (providing the voice)? Would anyone like to tell them?

Hawkeye Caroline strikes again! A 1st edition 1974 hardback novel by Kit Pedler and Gerry David, creators of the Cybermen and Doomwatch, in near mint condition, spotted in a charity bookshop. Hands off!

This fat furry catpuss gets star billing in Capture Spiral. Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams, but Jeremy loved him.

Lo! The Holy Book of Horror! This gets its own chapter in Capture Spiral. I think I was nine when I got mine. It altered me.

I have a chapter in this.

There’s a chapter in Capture Spiral centred around the internal component of a Laugh Bag, specifically the tiny record that could be found within it. In the 1970s it was amazing what boredom-fuelled curiosity led one to discover…

#horrorsky #horrorwriterschat #doctorwho Plenty of 70s/80s horror and Doctor Who related content in my new book! Also right up the street of anyone who loves @scarredforlife.bsky.social Preorder a copy now!

My new book ‘Capture Spiral: An Escape From Memory’, is now available for preorder. “Capture Spiral is a user's guide for a night gallery of childhood-origin neuroses, and a celebration of the "great escape" we call imagination.” (Stephen Volk) temporalboundary.bigcartel.com/product/capt...

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

Ooo, hello…

I applied for my over 60s bus pass today! I believe it comes a bag of Werther’s Original and some carpet slippers 😉

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

#HorrorWritersChat This week I’m going to big up the film I mentioned earlier - Skinamarink. I saw it on my own, at 2am, in bed on my iPad while wearing headphones. It was like living inside an actual nightmare. Time passes strangely, things repeat. It’s odd. This is the final moment. See the film.

#HorrorWritersChat My absolute base fear is the idea of dreaming that you’ve woken up, when in fact you’re still dreaming. I’m fascinated by the liminality of the waking/dreaming state. It’s a little factory for ideas. And fears.

#HorrorWritersChat I think the two can meet. One of my recent film touchstones was Skinamarink - most people who saw it HATED it, but I loved it. It’s like stepping into an actual nightmare, with haunted TVs and a monster upstairs…

#HorrorWritersChat After visiting Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors at the age of eight in 1974, I became really frightened of the idea of notorious murderers. Just the words ‘Dr. Crippen’ scared the life out of me.

#HorrorWritersChat Jez 59, Scotland, kitchen sink horror, fashion mannequins.

“Time to go home, time to go home, Andy is waving goodbye, goodbye, good-bye”

“Even Bagpuss himself, once he is asleep, is just an old, saggy cloth cat - baggy and a bit loose at the seams. But Emily loved him."

We had to come up with our top 3 C21 horror films for this month’s film club meet. One of my choices was the (very) much maligned Skinamarink. It’s the horror hill I’ll die on. It’s a film that plugs into my ‘fear’ of the half-waking/half-sleeping state. Much like the paintings of Eugène Carrière.

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

If the Texas Tylenol lawsuit comes out in favour of the state, the Earth will have officially entered the 1000 year Reich of Stupid. Newton? Nah. Copernicus? Who? This is intended to crush the human brain forever. Resist at all costs.

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

I’ll soon be scoping out a publisher for a collection of my short stories. Far more often than not, the stories that I write turn out to have a first-person narrator (frequently an unreliable one!) and so the collection will be titled ‘The Dark Narratives’. I’m excited to pull it together!

There’s obviously reasons aplenty to despise what Sarah Pochin had to say about TV ads, but I’d really like her to unpack what she means when she blames the featuring of Black and Asian people in the ads on ‘the arty-farty world’. What exactly is behind that phrase?

Cricket is better. The end.

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

Of course it’s complete AI slop, but Suno has the potential to provide an amusing parlour game. See what songs you can come up with by entering your crudest prompt. Here’s my very own ditty, entitled ‘Butt Plugs at Dawn’. suno.com/song/1cbdc84...

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

#HorrorWritersChat There was some discussion during yesterday’s Q&A about starting a playlist of music that fills our respective writing worlds. I’ve kicked one off on YouTube (rather than Sp*tify) with a few tracks youtube.com/playlist?lis... You can collaborate: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

What’s it like inside your head?

It’s ten years since I was on the Cinematologists podcast, talking about Dead of Night.

It’s taken me until now to realise that #amwriting doesn’t refer to ‘a.m. writing’ ie writing in the morning. No, it’s self-congratulatory. It should be #ampattingmyselfontheback Well, that being so, #amgivingyouaslowhandclap

#Spooktober Every day this month I will post an excerpt from one of my scary stories, just to get you in the mood for Spooky Season.

#HorrorWritersChat great questions Mary! How about more of us share our playlists? I’m thinking YouTube rather than Sp*tify. I mentioned Frank Auerbach as an art inspiration. I wrote and narrated a piece about him, obviously before he died. gayleburgoyne.com/jez-conolly-...

#HorrorWritersChat Reginald Halliday from my story ‘Nuggets’. He is a mass murderer who has monetised his ‘skill set’. He is utterly without redeeming qualities. He is here for my organs.

#HorrorWritersChat Book: Something by Samuel Beckett Film: In a Violent Nature Music: any track by @melissaguerts Art: any portrait by Frank Auerbach