Vampires, Ghosts and Bela Lugosi

Since my last post on July 12th I have been extremely busy with my writings and discovering new things. Firstly there are two issues of the fantastic The Spectral Times to discuss. As mentioned in my last post issue 7 was to feature both The Haunting of Bela 'Dracula' Lugosi and Who Was Dr Rant (an M R James piece). The former was published in said issue and the latter was pushed back to issue 8.

The Lugosi piece is a look at a piece that was originally brought up in 1927/29, then in '32 and is about his allegedly being haunted by a woman with yellow (or green, depending on the source) eyes.

This was followed by Crazy Duck Press's annual anthology 'Vampire News. Really ... Vampires Suck Vol III. This annual features my revised informal portrait of Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice: "Her Dark and Secret Grace - Anne Rice, Queen of the Damned," and an interview of myself conducted by Bertena Varney, M.A. M.Ed. It is a must have annual for all vampire connoisseurs as it doesn't just cover books - it covers the whole genre. It also features my dear friend Anthony Hogg among a whole host of others :-)

This was followed by Issue 14 of We Belong Dead, that wonderful film magazine that I spend an awful amount of time researching articles for. In this issue they have published my informal portrait of Boris Karloff, which is the bookend piece to my informal portrait of Bela Lugosi that was published in issue 9.

This issue also has my revised review of The Spectral Press's The Christmas Ghost Stories of Lawrence Gordon Clark - which I am very very happy about. I am going to be writing a big piece for the proposed, as yet untitled We Belong Dead book on these stories. I am currently writing a re-examination of Hammer's 1964 classic The Gorgon for issue 15 and they still have the final part of my Lugosi/Karloff collaborations for Universal as well : The Invisible Ray. I am also looking into editing down my piece on Dracula's Daughter as well for them. 

Recently released is issue 8 of The Spectral Times.

 This fantastic issue features my in-depth study into who may have influenced the burial of Dr Rant in M R James' The Tractate Middoth. 

The second article is titled 'A Rain of Stones: A True Truro Ghost Story.' Based on events that happened in 1821, this is the first in a three piece sequence which is followed up with The Ghosts of Wheel Alfred and The Ghost of Gas Hill. I have already drafted a small piece titled 'A Cornish Ghost Story' for issue 9.

I shall try and be more on the ball, so to speak with up-dates and news. So until next time ...