Steven Mace

"Just get into the habit of writing. The more you write the better you get."   (Alex Wheatle) "Don't worry about who you're directing to, instead think about what enchants you and seduces you"   (Barbara Trapido) "(Writing) involves such a degree of self-sufficiency and personal determination and such long periods of not having anyone validate you."   (Edmund Conway) "It's like twisting a huge piece of metal into a different shape: you think you just don't have the strength, but then you find you do, especially if you do it bit by bit."   (Esther Freud) "A lot of people who want to be writers don't want to do the writing. A lot of people don't realise how difficult it is to get published and make a living. You always find that you can do better. You have to keep experimenting."   (Elizabeth Laird) "The only thing to do is write. There's no external criterion that determines whether you'...

I hope that visitors to this blog enjoyed reading Little RED Riding Hood...as I explained in the book Beyond Twilight , 'Red' was written a couple of years ago for a competition to update a fairy tale in a modern, contemporary or futuristic setting. This will be my last blog entry for 2011, so may I wish you all a merry christmas and happy new year. After the holiday period, I will serialise two more stories on this blog, and I've chosen two from my book The Splendour of Shadows : 'The Silent Path' and 'Bloodlines'. If you wish to do so, you can buy bound hard copies of my books here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SteveMace or buy them from Amazon for the Kindle here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steven-Mace/e/B005JJLWX6 for the USA: http://www.amazon.com/Steven-Mace/e/B005JJLWX6

It's been a while since I posted an update about my writing. I finished my last short story collection Splendour of Shadows a few months ago and self published it on Lulu and Amazon Kindle. Since then I've been working on new material. I've finished the first draft of a new novel, Staccato House, which I have been working on for some time. The first part of this novel was shortlisted in the novella writing competition held by Contact Publishing earlier this year (see previous posts). Now the entire novel has reached some kind of completion, but it needs a bit more work, editing and polish. I'm also working on a science fiction novel that was originally conceived some time ago, but was put on hold while I completed other work. I have a number of novels that have been started, and are in varying stages of completion, and I plan to spend the next few months working on them as well. I was also planning a collection of plays, but I have since decided against that idea...

I remember first attempting to read Pynchon as an English Lit undergraduate. The book that I chose, ominously, was his postmodern masterpiece 'Gravity's Rainbow'. At that time, I suppose the most literary novel that I had ever read was 'The End of the Affair' by Graham Greene or maybe something by JG Ballard ...I attempted the first one hundred and fifty pages or so of 'Gravity's Rainbow' and gave up. It was completely unlike anything I had ever read before, and I swiftly realised that I had no grasp on the material I was reading and no idea what was going on. Pynchon would remain untouched and unread by myself for at least another decade. The only two scenes that left an impression on me (and rather a rotten, disturbing one at that) were the notorious scenes with Katje/Ernest Pudding and Slothrop diving into the toilet to reach for a lost harmonica (which Irvine Welsh also pays homage to in 'Trainspotting') I revisited Pynchon much later. The f...

Check out this picture of my four published books! I'm very proud of the latest one- 'The Splendour of Shadows', which is my second collection of short stories (fifteen of them, and 477 pages in all!) The others include my previous collection of short stories, 'Beyond Twilight' (fourteen of those), and my fantasy adventure novella 'The Pirate Princess'. Making up the quartet is my first novel, the fantasy-SF novel 'Copper Moon Rising'. You can buy my books here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SteveMace Or download them at Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B005JJLWX6  and http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005JJLWX6

I've recently completed and published a new book. It is a collection of short stories entitled 'The Splendour of Shadows'. Unlike my previous collection of short stories, 'Beyond Twilight', all of the stories in this new collection were written in a shorter period of time before publication- between October 2010 and July 2011. Early versions of the stories 'The Visitor' and 'Bloodlines' were originally conceived way back around 2001/2002 but they have been largely rewritten and reworked by me in the past year while I was creating and compiling this collection. I'd like to especially thank Janne Olkkonen, who gave me permission to use the artwork 'Fear No More...' as the cover illustration for this book. A few words about the stories: Vortex (Genre: SF/Fantasy/Horror) This is the first of what I would call the 'Arcadian Tales' in this collection, which are linked to a universe where an organisation known as the Arcadian Vortex...