Back in 2024, Peter Mark May of Hersham Horror Books, who knew that both horror writer Penny Jones and I write on similar topics, invited us to each write a horror story on the theme of children. As I was already a fan of Penny’s work, and we’d vaguely discussed collaborating together on something, I knew I wanted to be involved. Life and other projects kept us busy for a while, but eventually we found time to create our stories. Penny wrote a story called ‘Sugar and Spice’ about two sisters whose life is anything but fairytale-like, and I came up with ‘The Unsilencing’, a novelette about a group of children who suddenly become mute and motionless.
I won’t lie – I found this novelette difficult to write because it took me a good while to find the right structure for the story, and also because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I’d received just one too many rejections/ghostings from publishing professionals and was feeling somewhat low.
That said, I decided to act like a pro and simply get on with finishing a first draft. My husband and members of my crit group offered me some really useful feedback which further enabled me to get the structure right. It also helped that I decided to pour my feelings of worthlessness into the novel – I hope that comes through!
If you like the sound of either of our stories, please do buy a copy and/or help us to spread the word. It would be great to kick off this new series with lots of enthusiasm. Cheers! 🙂
