November Fringe Readings

Well, this is a little bit late, but treat it as a timely Solstice present. Here is the audio from the November BristolCon Fringe event, with a bonus interview at the end.

It being just past Halloween, November was a horror month at Fringe. Our first reader was Baylea Hart who describes herself as an IT Technician by day, horror writer by night and a reader everywhere in between. She has a BA in creative writing from Bath Spa University and enjoys watching people grow slightly white after reading her stories. Her short story, “Jack in the Box”, won the 2015 Bristol Horror Writing Competition and her film, Behind the Door, won a Top 50 spot in the Bloody Cuts “Who’s There?” competition and has over 500,000 views on YouTube.

Baylea read from her novel, The Log House, which will be available from Unbound very shortly.

Our second reader for November was Jonathan L Howard, who read from his recently published novel, After the End of the World. This is a sequel to the critically acclaimed Carter & Lovecraft. And yes (spolier!), the world did really end in that book. There is a little bit of explanation as to what is going on in the Q&A, but chapter 1 of the new book stands pretty much on its own. The new world that Dan and Emily find themselves in after the destruction of the world we know is rather different. Explaining just how different allows Jonathan to indulge his passion for alternate history.

No tentacled beings from beyond the stars were harmed in the production of this podcast.

As is traditional, I put both of our authors to the question at the end of the evening. We learned that Baylea has the Best Mum in the World, and that horror writers have dreadful habits as children. Jonathan explained some of the background to After the End of the World. And Gareth Powell ask the very difficult question, “Who would win in a fight: Cthulhu or Godzilla?”

As a bonus, because it is Solstice Day today, here from Salon Futura is the interview I did with Jonathan on my radio show at the start of the month. It has a small amount of overlap with the Q&A, but we make up for that in enthusiastic discussion of Nazi-punching.

Fringe takes a break over the holidays, but we will be back in January with the very wonderful Lucy Hounsom.