Macabre: out now on ebook

Just in time for Halloween, the award-winning Macabre is out now in ebook format!

Macabre: A Journey Through Australia's Darkest Fears features a whopping 205,000 words of Aussie horror -- the classics (Henry Lawson, Marcus Clarke), the modern masters (Terry Dowling, Kaaron Warren), and some of the nicest people I know (Stephen M Irwin, Shane Jiraiya Cummings and the rest of you... you know who you are!).

Oh, and if that's not enough for you, my short story about the dark heart of journalism 'Feast or Famine' is in there too.

When I first held Macabre in my hot little hands at WorldCon last year, I remember thinking, 'This is awesome. This is massive. What's the shipping cost going to be on this thing?' So it's awesome that it's now being offered as an ebook, so that this weighty tome can be offered without the weight.

It's currently available at Smashwords and Amazon, and will be available elsewhere before Halloween.

And, if you still decide you want the brick, I'm told POD versions will be coming soon.

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Woohoo! Macabre wins Australian Shadows award

Macabre: A Journey Through Australia's Darkest Fears is an important book. Editors Angela Challis and Marty Young set themselves an interesting and uneasy task - to showcase Australia's long history of dark fiction publishing, contrasting that with new output from today's established and emerging writers from the horror genre. They succeeded by avoiding the risk of aiming for whatever might have been popular or attractive in horror's many sub-genre's at the time they selected the included works, while showing deep, nay loving, respect for truly Australian tales from our past.

via australianhorror.com

Big congratulations to Angela and Marty, and everyone who contributed!

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Interview with Steve Austin on 612 Brisbane

Stephen M Irwin and I were on ABC 612 Brisbane last night, talking about horror, Macabre, Brisbane ghosts and more.

You can check it out here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2010/10/writing-horror-gary-kemble-stephen-irwin.html?site=brisbane&program=612_evenings

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Stories tell of brown land's black heart

(Photo: Quest Newspapers - all rights reserved)

The Westside News was kind enough to do a story about me and Stephen M Irwin's appearance in Macabre.

I took the photographer down into the creepy fire escape at work to replicate the setting of my story (a bunker in Afghanistan).

I wonder if he would've been so keen to follow me in there if he knew what happens to the photographer in my story!

via westside-news.whereilive.com.au

 

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Audio: 612 Brisbane interview

I was planning on tweeting just before we went to air, but was so nervous I forgot.

So, if you missed the interview, and would like to hear me, Stephen M Irwin and Will Elliott talking to Richard Fidler about Macabre, you can listen here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2010/09/macabre-anthology.html?site=brisbane&program=612_afternoons

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'Feast or Famine' reading at WorldCon!

I found out today that I'll be doing a short reading from 'Feast or Famine' at the Macabre launch at WorldCon!

This is very exciting, and a bit nerve-wracking.

The launch will be held on Friday, September 3, at 4.00pm in room 203.

You can read more about Macabre at Brimstone Press.

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Macabre: now available for pre-order

It has been a long time coming, but Macabre: A Journey Through Australia's Darkest Fears is now available for pre-order from Brimstone Press.

It features stories from Australia's dark past, the 'masters' such as Terry Dowling and Kaaron Warren, and more fiction from upstarts (or, as Brimstone puts it, 'the new era') such as myself ('Feast or Famine').

Review: 'Feast or Famine'

Kathryn Linge has reviewed my short story, "Feast or Famine" (from The Writing Show's Seven Days of Halloween) for ASiF.

"Now, let me warn you about 'Day Three with Gary Kemble' and, specifically, Kemble's story 'Feast or Famine'. If horror is demonstrated by me, running from the room, squealing with my ears covered, then I guess Kemble has done his job. It wasn’t so much that I was scared by the story, it was the realistic and unrelenting gore that got me in the end. I'm not good with blood and Kemble's story does not come with an 'explicit' rating for nothing."

Kathryn says the ending is "anticlimactic", "unrealistic" and "possibly supernatural". Stubborn as I am, I probably wouldn't have admitted this to be true but, after seeing what Angela Challis and Marty Young helped me get out of the story for Macabre, I can see her point of view.

I'm happy to say the new version of "Feast or Famine" has a much stronger ending although, given Kathryn's aversion to gore, I don't recommend she read it!

Read the full review, of all the stories, here.

'Feast or Famine' makes Macabre

My short story "Feast or Famine" -- about a war correspondent and photographer trapped in a bunker in Afghanistan -- will be published in the upcoming Brimstone Press title Macabre: A new era in Australian horror.

The story has been significantly improved since its appearance as part of The Writing Show's Halloween podcast, thanks to the judicious editing of Angela Challis and Marty Young.

It is certainly the most macabre story I've ever written.

The contents list is a veritable who's who of Australian speculative fiction, with authors such as Shane Jiraiya Cummings, Stephen Dedman, Terry Dowling, Russell B Farr, Paul Haines, Richard Harland, Robert Hood, Kirstyn McDermott, Kyla Ward, Kaaron Warren, Sean Williams and more.