The R-word?

Some pictures of Tout Quarry Scultpure Park in Portland, Dorset.  About 40 mins drive from where I live. 

Some wiki-lite: Much of the stone which was used to construct St Paul's and Buckingham Palace, came from Portland.  Some even travelled further afield, across the Atlantic, where it was used to construct the United Nations buildings in New York.  The excavations left vast scars over the landscape.  The quarry fell into disuse circa 1920, then in 1983 was reopened as a Sculpture Park.

'Still Falling' - Antony Gormley (1983, incised work)

'Hearth' - Timothy Shutter (1989)

For you rock lovers, Purbeck Stone is Jurassic.  However, I didn't see any sign of dinosaurs, or a bespectacled Jeff Goldblum.  Boom boom.

This wasn't strictly the R-word (research) as the late, great Iain Banks put it.  But it was a fascinating day out.  Words started appearing shortly afterwards, which eventually became a story, so in retrospect...

Chesil Beach, looking towards Weymouth

Coming soon...

Two Short Stories Published!

Two stories have just landed in the USA!  Oddly enough, on the same day.  Both are free to read.

Firstly, 'Esterhazy's Cadence' has been published by Perihelion SF (who also published 'Time out at the Cafe Metropole' last November).  A character from one of my older stories 'Gestating Elegy' makes a reappearance... I wrote the opening sequence to this many years ago at an Arvon course in Ted Hughes' old house.  The rest fell into place much later on.

Secondly, 'The Leather Bracelet' has been published in Encounters Magazine of SF, Fantasy and Horror.  This started off as an M.R. James style tribute, centring on a hotel I used to work in during Uni holidays.  And whilst I wanted to write a ghost story, the SF crept in and wouldn't let go.

More story news to follow soon...