( Above picture, A Terror Scribes gathering in Oxford, back in 2002)
Who am I? Well, I was born in the swinging sixties in not-so swinging Cardiff, was a coal miner throughout the 1980's, and an ex-coal miner from 1990 onwards (Nantgarw/Windsor Colliery & Taff Merthyr Colliery). My first short stories appeared in the mid-90's. Some of them weren't too bad; others ...
So what kicked off this passion for the written word? Reading, obviously. As a teenager, I read a lot of Alistair Maclean; and, of course, the Pan and Fontana books of horror. In 1979 I bought a manual typewriter and a book called Typing Made Easy; it was time to get cracking on my own works of fiction. In the mid-90's I came across a publication called Zene, discovered there was a vast market for my stories, and finally got published in February of 1996 (in a long-forgotten magazine called R.Q.C; and later in this same year, the debut issue of one of the most controversial publications ever to hit the Small Press, Nasty Piece of Work).
I was quite industrious in the late 90's, and in 1997 I started up my own magazine; called Tales of the Grotesque & Arabesque, it gave early credits to a number of writers who went on to make quite a name for themselves. The last issue came out in the summer of 1999; it was short-lived, but it made a mark.
This period culminated with the publication of a collection of my short stories entitled Evil Eye, from BJM Press (Now Rainfall Books).
Then there was the first time I ever got to meet up with some fellow writers. I'd been in touch with a man called John B. Ford. He was having a little get-together in Manchester and asked if I wanted to come along. The answer was a definite 'yes', and on a wet November day in 1997 I attended what was to be the first of many gatherings (New York, Chicago and Toronto being some of the other places I have visited).
It is now the 21st Century, and in this day and age most self-respecting writers have a website to chronicle their successes. This is my second, and I can do a lot more with this than I could with the old, and now defunct, Geocities site (I've no idea what, but I'm sure I'll think of something).
Anyway, peruse at your leisure.
Dave.
So what kicked off this passion for the written word? Reading, obviously. As a teenager, I read a lot of Alistair Maclean; and, of course, the Pan and Fontana books of horror. In 1979 I bought a manual typewriter and a book called Typing Made Easy; it was time to get cracking on my own works of fiction. In the mid-90's I came across a publication called Zene, discovered there was a vast market for my stories, and finally got published in February of 1996 (in a long-forgotten magazine called R.Q.C; and later in this same year, the debut issue of one of the most controversial publications ever to hit the Small Press, Nasty Piece of Work).
I was quite industrious in the late 90's, and in 1997 I started up my own magazine; called Tales of the Grotesque & Arabesque, it gave early credits to a number of writers who went on to make quite a name for themselves. The last issue came out in the summer of 1999; it was short-lived, but it made a mark.
This period culminated with the publication of a collection of my short stories entitled Evil Eye, from BJM Press (Now Rainfall Books).
Then there was the first time I ever got to meet up with some fellow writers. I'd been in touch with a man called John B. Ford. He was having a little get-together in Manchester and asked if I wanted to come along. The answer was a definite 'yes', and on a wet November day in 1997 I attended what was to be the first of many gatherings (New York, Chicago and Toronto being some of the other places I have visited).
It is now the 21st Century, and in this day and age most self-respecting writers have a website to chronicle their successes. This is my second, and I can do a lot more with this than I could with the old, and now defunct, Geocities site (I've no idea what, but I'm sure I'll think of something).
Anyway, peruse at your leisure.
Dave.