This is a true story spanning almost 50 years, fuelled by events that are unique and horrifying. But my account may offer insight on how the mind works under extreme conditions. A page-a-day diary I kept for 11 years between 1977 and 1988 has been used as part of the account. Certain readers may find some of the content unsettling.
This book is about my novel, North Window. I wrote it between 2010 and 2015. I have written four novels in total and North Window is my third. I had a job, family and a house. My life couldn’t seem more ordinary. I had been writing stories since my early teens and thought nothing of it. This story seemed to bear no relevance to my life at all. Insomniac, Luke has two lives. By day, he is drafting documents between corporations; by night, he pays to watch erotica from his apartment window. But one performer rues the day she took the commission. Who is this client she works for? And why does the night bring unease when her voyeur takes his post within the shadows? A year after completing this novel, I learned something truly terrible about myself. Unbeknown to me, clues to this horrific truth had leaked into my stories, paintings, poems and other creations. I have since discovered an undercurrent to this novel. This undercurrent was rendered invisible to the one I believed I was writing. My novels are not strictly novels at all, but something sinister. The dictionary lacks a word for what they really are. As this is a true story, I have used my diaries as part of this account. Illustrations are provided in order to convey the intensity of my inner world. One word of note: Dispel all preconceptions about this novel. The story is nothing like what it appears.
Between 2011 and 2014, I wrote eight short stories. I had been writing stories since I was about six. Weird scenarios would enter my head and I would feel compelled to write about them. Blood in Water relates on Abby who makes an awful discovery about her family. Dead Letter Room samples the life of lonely Finch at his workplace. Outside enters the disturbed mind of an ex-convict and What Goes Around considers the makings of a bully. On the surface all appear to delve into diverse worlds and minds. But this isn’t quite so. They are all about alienation. My other stories are the same: alienation. It goes right back to my early children’s mysteries of the Seventies. How strange. I hadn’t noticed. The reason is that I would make my own personal discovery in 2016. I was fifty-one years old and living with my partner and two children. Until then, I was completely unaware of a vital truth about myself. This truth has leaked into my stories and creations without my realisation. This account is true. Relevant diary entries have been included as well as illustrations. Analyses and further dissections provides an insight into the force behind these stories, and ventures into the strange phenomena I have discovered. It’s like a ghost language.
This story is true. This book is about my novel Nadia. I published this novel in the spring of 2015. By this time, I had written three other crime thrillers. Nadia is my fourth and final one. Nadia was first conceived when I was seventeen. The year was 1982 and I had just begun art school. Thirty-three years later, I would write it. The story seemed to bear no relevance to my life at all. A playboy billionaire is involved in a horrific car crash, propelling his mystery passenger into a nightmare. During the writing, I felt geared, prompted by a force. I had believed this to be routine writer’s itch. What I didn’t realise was that an undercurrent existed in this novel. This undercurrent was rendered invisible to the novel I believed I was writing. The same thing has happened to all my novels. A scene in Nadia would open my eyes. It was autumn 2016 and the life I had believed in would be destroyed. Five years after beginning Nadia I am ready to analyse it. I have been through this process three times already with my previous novels. All have been harrowing and all have given up hard truths. As this is a true story, I have included relevant diary entries. These inform upon the force that drives this novel as well as tell its own story.
Hindbury’s Run was written in 1978. I would have been 13. I was living in a run-down cottage with my parents and siblings at the time. My childhood appeared innocent, cosseted; I kept a diary, wrote stories and painted. On the lead-up, I suffered terrible health niggles. I have unsettled nights, am forgetful, have ‘ulcer pains in my limbs’ and depression. Hindbury’s Run appears to be nothing untoward. It is an animal story starring sheepdogs who fear a raid on their farm. Little did I realise a sinister message runs beneath every paragraph. A saboteur also lurks within the farm animal company. This saboteur doesn’t want me to write this story. Why? I wonder. And why do cripples, drowning, disfigured faces and deaths in caves recur in my stories? Three years previously, I had been reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm. It echoes events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 where brutal dictatorship results. At the time, a demon in my head made life hell. I avoided my bed at night and kept the lights on. I now realise Animal Farm had provided subconscious notions of an appalling past. Hindbury’s Run appears to have resulted, only the theme for my farm story vastly differs to Orwell’s. My other book, Tales from Daler Cottage uncovers the message within this story and my other children’s stories. But the reason for my PTSD will be given at the end of this book. Hindbury’s Run would remain in the dark until the summer of 2017. My story has undergone necessary edits preserving the story and the tone of the young writer that I was. With illustrations.
This book is about my kidnap thriller, The Locked Door. It is my second of four novels and none are really novels at all but something far more sinister. The idea was confinement. Why, I didn’t know; I just felt a need to express it. Naturally, I made it into a kidnap thriller. During my writing, I connected with this ‘strand’. This strand grew addictive, compulsive, shameful, deathly and creepy. Little did I realize the source of this strand. Not until the age of 51 when I learned something truly terrible about myself. The précis to The Locked Door reads: “This hostage has a secret. “Gemma would appear to have everything: money, a devoted husband, a lively son, and a fulfilling career. But her life takes a nasty turn when she is kidnapped and trapped in an upstairs room by three thugs demanding a huge ransom from her rich father. “In a bid to escape, she cuts a hole in the bedroom floor. From there, Gemma spies on her kidnappers below. That's when their hostage starts playing games with them. That’s when her spying pulls her into a treacherous psychological game that endangers her sanity.” As the story progressed, the captive’s life began to feel as real as mine. She became like an avatar that I would enter when I craved escapism from my otherwise mundane life. With the terrible truth now known, I have analysed The Locked Door. I am appalled at what I have found. This novel appears to possess a shadow novel beneath the apparent one. During the writing, I was completely oblivious to it. In order to convey the intensity of my other world, I have included illustrations and diary excerpts within this account.
Two Hearts Beat as One: When a Twin Dies is the true story of a pair of identical twins and their experience with coming to terms with dying and separation as a result of terminal illness. The book intertwines feelings, emotions, personal thoughts, memories, and reactions to assist the reader in understanding many of the emotions related to losing a loved one. Anyone who has ever lost someone they love can relate to this book. It truly touches the heart, reminds us of the important things in life, and helps us come to terms with death and dying. Tim shares his heartfelt story of the hardest days of his life along with some memories of the happiest days of being a twin. You dont need to be a twin to read this book; it touches the heart of anyone who has ever been loved, lost, and survived. Tim Mannion holds up a mirror and guides the onlooker through a personal story using his wisdom and insight as a readers guide. Barbara Rubel, MA, BCETS, CBS, CPBC; keynote speaker and author of But I Didnt Say Goodbye and Death, Dying, and Bereavement
Kevin Ryan is a writer in the much-maligned genre of true crime who desperately needs a devious, over-the-top story for the subject of his next book. How else can he keep his wife Valerie's roots dyed and keep himself from handing out taco samples at the local supermarket? When Kevin isn't Googling himself or spot checking his books' stock at stores around the country or online, he's bringing the hazards (i.e., criminals and other crazies) of his job home to wife Val and twin daughters Taylor and Hayley. Kevin is on the hunt for the big one, the story that could break him out of the mid-list and onto the bestseller lists. And then there's a knock at the door--a story finds him...A distraught 20-year old Jett Carter shows up at the Ryan house because her mother and sister are imprisoned-perhaps if Kevin writes their story and reveals the truth, he might help exonerate them. The Carters' tale is the perfect white-trash-attempted-murder-love-triangle that Kevin's editor will love and his fans will devour. He begins to write "Love You to Death." Then on a beautiful summer day, the wheels of homicide are set in motion and Kevin's own story begins to eclipse the crime he is chronicling. When his #1 fan is murdered and another body turns up, the Ryans' life in Port Gamble and all that Kevin holds dear is in jeopardy. Somewhere in "Love You to Death" and within the "bunch of low rent losers" he's interviewing is the killer.
The Besieged Ego critically appraises the representation, or mediation, of identity in film and television through a thorough analysis of doppelgangers and split or fragmentary characters. The prevalence of non-autonomous characters in a wide variety of film and television examples calls into question the very concept of a unified, 'knowable' identity. The form of the double, and cinematic modes and rhetorics used to denote fragmentary identity, is addressed in the book through a detailed analysis of texts drawn from a range of industrial, historical and cultural contexts. The doppelganger or double carries significant cultural meanings about what it means to be 'human' and the experience of identity as a gendered individual. The double also expresses in fictional form our problematic experience of the world as a social, and supposedly whole and autonomous, subject. The Besieged Ego therefore raises important questions about the representation of identity onscreen and concomitant issues regarding autonomy and what it means to be 'human', yet it also charts a generic account of the double onscreen. Case studies include horror, fantasy, and comedy.
There is a byway between reality and dream. A transit we call Möbius Blvd … Inspired by the enigmatic Möbius strip, a mathematical construct that defies conventional notions of linearity and infinity, Möbius Blvd has no beginning or end but exists in a place where reality and dream have fused … coalesced … merged. With each turn of the page, you'll encounter a unique blend of horror, fantasy, and science-fiction—fiction that will challenge your perceptions and leave you in awe of the infinite possibilities that exist within the written word. Indeed, Möbius Blvd is far more than a magazine; it's an experience. It's an exploration of the infinite, a passage through dimensions where the only constant is storytelling at its most daring, a kaleidoscope of wonder and terror. Join us on this winding, never-ending journey of speculative fiction that will keep you entranced from the first twist to the last loop. Open your mind to the limitless worlds of Möbius Blvd … and discover that the boundary between fiction and reality is as thin as a strip of paper with a twist. In this issue: THE NEXT STOP IS GRAND CENTRAL Judith Pancoast ARNOU THE PAINTER Lawrence Buentello IN THE DARK THERE IS A HAND Michael Paul Kozlowsky TOMATO KING Nick Marsan EPIPHANY FOR A FERRYMAN Wayne Kyle Spitzer ROAD STORY Mike A. Rhodes DECEMBER’S CAT Michael Schulman TALES FROM BEYOND THE MIRROR Simina Lungu THE MELLIFIED MAN Dante Bilec THE WINDOW Gerald A. Jennings
