Mammoth Books presents Messing With Your Head

Black Country - Joel Lane "'Black Country' is one of a sequence of weird crime stories set in the West Midlands that I've been working on for years," says Joel Lane. " A collection of them is forthcoming with the title Where Furnaces Burn. 'Black Country' is also a sequel to my earlier story 'The Lost District', which describes another narrator's experience of Clayheath. " I'd like to thank The Nightingales and Gul Y. Davis, whose words influenced this story. It was originally published as a chapbook by Nightjar Press, with an enigmatic cover illustration by Birmingham photographer Trav28." We All Fall Down - Kirstyn McDermott " I carried the bones of this story around for quite a few years before I finally stumbled upon its beating heart," explains the author. " In my head was the image of a doll house, huge and not quite right, and a woman searching desperately for something concealed inside. But I could never work a story around it that didn't seem twee. Doll houses, you know? " But then Emma and Holly appeared - trapped within their own fractured, futile relationship - and everything just, well, fell together. Beautifully. Awfully. And now I have a doll house story. Of a kind." Telling - Steve Rasnic Tem " As for the following story," reveals Steve Rasnic Tem, " it began with a dreadful image at the end of a dream. I couldn't remember the other details of that dream, but I was determined to find out where that image might have come from." A Revelation of Cormorants - Mark Valentine "'A Revelation of Cormorants' first appeared in the excellent series of chapbooks published by Nicholas Royle's Nightjar Press," explains Valentine, " and I first encountered the dark grace of the cormorant while visiting Galloway with Jo." Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls - Brian Hodge " I hardly ever write extended fragments of things and then leave them indefinitely," Brian Hodge reveals, " but that's how 'Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls' got started. " I first wrote the part about the fantasised magic show, plus the earliest bit about Roni moving in, after rereading a Thomas Ligotti collection. It may not be apparent to anyone else, but some flavour of his lingered in me for a little while and wanted to come out, and the magic show was the result. " Then it sat idle for three years or so before I knew what more to do with it. Maybe because I had to forget about how it had begun and get back to being myself again."