The Lammas Ghosts: now available in print

For several years now, I’ve shared examples of my short fiction here on this website.

Today, though, sees the start of something new — the publication of The Lammas Ghosts, a collection of fifteen of my own original, Norfolk-based short stories in printed form. You can find out more here.

For me, ghost stories have, first and foremost, been a way of talking about two specific places — often, the North Norfolk coast, and later occasionally the Marshland area, just to the south and southwest of King’s Lynn. They’re what happens when history, topography, folklore and errant day-dreaming run up against the dry stuff of everyday life, fizzing over into uncanny narrative.

Sometimes, the stories give voice to the very real anxieties and frustrations of life in these places. At other points, I hope they evoke the beauty and magic of localities that have, even now, by no means lost their distinctiveness.

Mostly, though, they convey a real truth about East Anglia — that it’s a place where the past is always present, unfailingly ready to leap out and surprise us just when we least expect it — but perhaps also when we need it most.

You can order The Lammas Ghosts here.