"True Magicians"

In 1991 I left California for my home state of New York, en route to a move to England to get married. Once arrived in Wanakah, I recall sitting on my mother’s bed, certain I’d made a dreadful mistake—and I hadn’t even gotten to London yet. In New York I dreamt of being homeless, sitting on my cartons and steadily being soaked through by the English rain; I was told by an acquaintance that whatever I dreamed, I must make the opposite happen. The second issue of a magazine I started in Los Angeles, Not at Night, never materialised because in May of this year, when I finally left my difficult relationship, I had run out of money and nearly did become homeless.

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After a very difficult five months, I have managed to prove the truth of my acquaintance’s maxim by moving to Hampstead, a stone’s throw (if you throw like Fernando Valenzuela of the L.A. Dodgers) from Keats’ house and, around the corner, George Orwell’s former residence on Parliament Hill. Hampstead is historical, visual; uncommonly beautiful. Endless story possibilities haunt the air—in the trees, on the heath, in the luxurious interiors of basement flats spied on through the windows of unsuspecting residents.

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On Pond Street, Allhallows Church stands derelict. Scarred red stone walls rear back against a blasted sky; like mad Hill House in the movie The Haunting (1963), it towers over broken grounds at a slightly demented cant. In the true-crime biopic Dance with a Stranger, Ruth Ellis shot David Bentley dead and in real life 1955 became the last woman hanged in England. Tanza Road where she laid in wait for Bentley is an alley away from my flat; the Magdala Tavern where she killed him stands at the foot of my street, and you can still see the dents made in the cement exterior by the bullets. (The pub’s landlord has stopped putting up signs commemorating the spot as every time the film is shown, they get nicked.)

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Wishing to do an article on the English horror scene and not certain how to proceed, I went whole hog and invited eight writers and editors for an interview at my home in London. We used a mini recorder which at first was regarded by the entire party with great suspicion; three seconds later the beer kicked in and it was great fun to watch my little machine being eagerly snatched at as ideas and answers began to fly.

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Who was involved? I met my interviewees at the monthly Wellington meets and the British Fantasy Society’s Open House held at the Royal Connaught Pub in Holborn last August. These writers and editors are the "true magicians" poet Brian Patten writes of, "ridding the senses of dust".

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Every month writers, editors, and illustrators are welcome to attend the meets at the Wellington Pub in historic Waterloo, a short distance from the disappointingly utilitarian Old Vic Theatre. Here exists the invaluable opportunity to meet up with other writers—foraging on in isolation as we mostly do—as well as editors, brave souls who will share a pint even while at that very moment, bad news may be winging its way to you from them via Her Majesty’s Royal Mail.

 

It’s a good thing to meet the person behind the market, nipping in the bud any possible misunderstandings or the bad feelings that might result from the mis-read tone of a letter. And however you feel when you walk into the Wellington, how long can you mope in this boisterous kind of environment, where it gets so crowded people climb on the seats and over each other to get to that next pint of beer? Conversely, there is no news like good news and it’s great to be able to share acceptances and sales with like-minded friends.

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If there were pubs in America, I might consider returning. Pubs are not only supremely comfortable environments, but sometimes reminders of history—especially if one’s had the inspiration of a few pints of Greene King IPA or Old Sow or lusty dark Headbanger. Recently, while Sunday lunching in a pub near the Tower of London, as the brass bell announcing last orders clanged, one of my companions bellowed, "Unclean!"

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None of the other patrons batted an eyelash.

 

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

 

—St Augustine, 399 A.D.

 

Looking for interviewees, I suppose I could have stalked the High Head Table at the Royal Connaught, where the Grand Poobahs of the British Fantasy Society (BFS) lounged in conversation—prez Ramsey Campbell was not there—but I found myself hesitating in the presence of Kim Newman’s terrifying hat. R. Chetwynd-Hayes, a writer/editor who was one of my earliest influences, stopped for a brief chat and an autograph. When he wasn't looking I palmed Michael Marshall Smith’s lighter, and met Mark Morris, whose tale in Nicholas Royle’s incredible anthology, Darklands, gave me gastro-intestinal goose bumps.

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Mr Smith writes in an authentic and sometimes loopy voice, beautiful prose he often composes in no more than an afternoon or a day. He’s written for BBC Radio 4 and has screen treatments and a novel in progress. Mr Morris has published three novels: Toady, Stitch, and The Immaculate. His stories, articles, and reviews have appeared in several publications, and I won’t depress you by telling you how young or how cheerful he is.

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In March of this year Nicholas Royle hand-delivered a copy of his anthology Darklands to "cheer me up"; he’d seen a copy of NaN and heard from Des Lewis that I was having a very hard time. This gesture is something I will never forget, that of a total stranger taking the time and trouble to encourage me.

 

And what encouragement! Darklands boasts stories that not only border on literature in their quality content but are entertaining enough to read while eating a double cheese and pepperoni pizza. Nick has published "around" fifty stories in publications in four countries (I first read his work in Dennis Etchison’s Cutting Edge while still an Angelena) and works as a sub-editor on a Sunday magazine. If I may quote him from one of the most original introductions by an editor I have yet to come across:

 

"At this point tradition suggests I should advise you not to read these stories: before going to sleep/when alone in the house/before a dental appointment/at all if of a nervous disposition, etc. I would add: don’t read them with the lights off. You won’t get very far."

 

Darklands is a perfect-bound anthology with not one word of filler between its covers. Unfortunately, it’s also sold out. But now Darklands 2 is available.

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Back to the Wellington, where in a densely smoky environment within walls supposedly once patronised by Wells (or was it Orwell?), one can linger over a pint and share writing discoveries, publishing bitches, successes, disasters, world politics, or nostalgia. It makes writing a little less lonely, a little less daunting.

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Here, the night I met him, Gary Couzens was celebrating a sale to Fantasy & Science Fiction of a short story whose action is almost wholly contained within its characters—much is promised, the promise of what is to come holds our interest—but in the end we are left to speculate, albeit with great satisfaction, due to the care and emotion with which the author limns these characters populating a small Cornish town. As well as fiction, Mr Couzens writes reviews, and is presently seeking a publisher for his novel.

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At the Wellington, against my better judgment, I got involved in a political conversation with Paul Pinn, who writes multi-layered and aggressive fiction: one tale explores a twist on The Ripper legend visceral enough to make Constant Reader re-think sex with—well, just about anyone. Mr Pinn’s are not stories to eat by. But they make great reading if you like your horror brewed strong. The three tales I had the pleasure of reading arrived with a note mentioning Paul felt they weren’t actually representative of his style, which "can be quite diverse". Paul has published stories in several UK magazines including Fear and BBR. He mentioned during the interview that perhaps he writes what he writes to avoid taking the action the characters in his stories do.

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Pam Creais is the only other woman I’ve seen surface at the Wellington so far— I know there must be others, but I’ve as yet to meet them. In the meantime, what fun to belong to one circle in life where the ratio of men to women is about 20 to 2! The delicate and articulate Ms Creais packs a visual and fictional punch in the pages of her magazine Dementia 13, the "illustrated journal of the arcane and the macabre" in horror fiction, running since 1989.

 

During the interview she supplied and answered her own question on whether or not the horror field is dominated by men— "Pretty much so"—and why this might be the case: "Horror is, by definition, not a field that has immediate appeal to the majority of women, but yet there are plenty of talented women writers out there and I’m sure a comparable percentage of horror readers must be female." Perhaps it might also be the unwillingness of the public (myself included) to spend the bit of money they’ve got on an unknown horror writer, male or female, making publishers so hesitant to take chances themselves.

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Jason Smith organises the monthly meets (which move to the Shakespeare in Victoria in December, which I hear is such a large pub, one may need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find the way back out again) and edits Exuberance, probably one of the most popular and certainly professional-looking horror zines in Britain. Exuberance has been running since 1989; Mr Smith has no problem finding contributors and, once in a while, a critic or two.

 

"Why the hell," read one of the editor’s favourite letters, "would you call your zine 'Exuberance' when you fill it full of dreary, downbeat stories?" Actually, the zine has an excellent mix of horror and science fiction stories, with both upbeat and downbeat endings and artwork supplied by some exceptionally gifted illustrators— "a mixed bundle" designed to appeal to a wide spectrum of readers.

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D. F. Lewis should not need an introduction to horror and fantasy readers. He started writing at age five, spurred on by a desire to write things "that would shock the teacher". He holds the honour of being "perhaps the most prolific published author working in the horror field today" (Best New Horror 2). What I see about his success in getting published is that he doesn’t consider himself successful. He’s always writing, always submitting, never stopping very long to admire or agonise over his work and others’ reaction to it.

 

One of the very last true gentlemen left on the face of this planet, Des is also self-contained: I recall the Wellington night he shut down in the middle of a conversation with, "I am pissed, I cannot continue this discussion, good night," before sailing off into the pub crowd like a majestic ocean liner bound on a definite course—if one known only to the captain.

 

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In retrospect, I can honestly say I’m glad my relationship didn’t work out: instead of a husband, I’ve been given a country. I’ve not only met several of the English New Guard—writers and editors who support each other and the genre, an encouraging thing wherever you live—but I’ve been able to learn so much.

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England can be cold, and lonely, an extremely difficult place; but in its difficulty it teaches tenaciousness, and the alchemy of transforming loneliness to alone-ness, the solitude needed for creation. It can be so easy to get caught up in desire, in markets, in who’s getting published (while maybe you’re not); perhaps letting what a 13th century Japanese priest called "the winds of fame and fortune" extinguish that tiny, natural flame burning deep in the heart of every creator.

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England, through its coldly beautiful landscape and its warm and talented artists, reminds me that each of us is the keeper of the flame within ourselves, the flame that fires us to be heard through our writings and our renderings and our publications. For in the end, we do affect our own success: by our personal definition of what success means; by our ability to continue in the face of severe disappointment; and by the depth to which we please ourselves and thereby, others.

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I love the story of the old master who tells the young violinist who asks for an opinion of his playing, "You haven’t got the fire." When the violinist, who gives up music for insurance, later finds out the old master says this to everyone who plays for him, he is outraged at what he believes to be his loss of a brilliant career in music.

 

"Ah," says the old master, "but if you did have the fire, you wouldn’t have listened to a word I said!"

 

Here’s to those who find, as I did in London, and contain, and keep, their personal fire of inspiration and creation burning bright. Clive Barker might have written the words he scrawled on a greeting card presented to me by my friend and sometimes-editor Deborah Drummond, to you as well:

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"Dream on, and NEVER stop creating!"

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He’s someone who should know.