WyrdStar News

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A CHRISTMAS SINGLE by DITCH THE DEMON is out now as a digital download! (Prozakville Records).

"Santa's Coming (Krampus Is Gonna Get Me)", written by yours truly and embellished by the band, is a satirical prog-adjacent Christmas song for those overwhelmed by the commercial side of festivities. Featuring Terry 'Krampus' Keen's debut performance on crumhorn! (and myself shaking sleigh bells).

This is a download-only single, available now as a pre-release exclusive from BandCamp (name your price!) ahead of its release on further streaming services from 1 December. We recorded this while in the studio in September/October laying down tracks for our second studio album Hail the Fallen (to be released next year); the Christmas single will not be on the album!

Ditch the Demon's next gig is at The Pipeline in Brighton on 22 November, supporting The Roz Bruce Infusion. Gig details and more can be found on our website at www.ditchthedemon.co.uk.

Happy listening! Steph.

THE LUCK OF THE DEVIL is finally out in paperback! This has been on my 'wish list' for a long, long time (the ebook came out in 2018), but I was keen to finish writing my Hollow Moon series first, which I did last year. I never thought it would take so long!

This novel has a special place in my heart. It's almost autobiographical: the main character Susan is also a heavy-metal-loving civil servant who happens to be transgender; and at the time of writing I too was living in South London, nursing fading dreams of playing bass in a rock 'n' roll band. Oh, did I mention that I too drive an elderly Volkswagen camper van? Early drafts predate my time in the band Danse Macabre, way back before my first self-published novel Hollow Moon was even conceived. By the time the ebook of The Luck Of The Devil was ready to be released, I had moved to Hastings and was playing bass in an all-female covers band The Happy Maureens. Which was fun for a while, until that band too fell apart. But I struck lucky and was asked to join Ditch the Demon, the best bunch of musicians I could ever hope to be a part of! The luck of the devil, huh?

Anyway, enough of my musical dalliances. The Luck Of The Devil is a contemporary thriller of both comedy and tragedy, set in a world of superstition, psychiatry and the metaphysical. The book carries a different by-line to separate it from my space-opera stories for younger readers. Here's the obligatory blurb...

"Susan Jones, a transgender woman struggling to get by in the economic woes of 1990s Britain, is under the care of psychiatrist Doctor Mordussen. He in turn is obsessed by her disturbing nightmares. But are her demons real? An unexpected road trip to Ireland awakens traumas of the past. A seventeenth-century sorcerer, evil nurses, a castle reborn from the ashes and a bloodthirsty sheep do not making getting to the bottom of the mystery any easier. The old wise woman of the village knows more than she's telling. Susan must confront her demons in more ways than one. Can her love of heavy metal, her battered Volkswagen camper van and two best friends save the day?"

The Luck Of The Devil has had a full editorial refresh. Paperbacks are available to purchase from Amazon, price £15 / $20 (print-on-demand pricing can't compete with mass-market paperbacks, but they are higher-quality). I also hope to have a copy or two with me on the merch table at Ditch the Demon gigs (direct from me they're £10). The ebook has been reissued with the revised text and is available from all the usual stockists with a recommended retail price of £4 / $5. Happy reading! Steph.

A NEW LIVE ALBUM by DITCH THE DEMON is out now as a digital download! (Prozakville Records).

Live in the Big Bad City is our first attempt at a live album. This came about after we discovered that Setmixer records all gigs in select venues; and that for a small charge bands can purchase the individual sound-desk tracks to mix a live recording. The New Cross Inn in London is one such venue and we happened to play a headline gig there in January this year.

There were sound issues on the day (the perils of live rock 'n' roll), but after selecting the best tracks and much tweaking, we've ended up with something that hopefully captures the raw essence of Ditch the Demon live. The album features one new song - "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" (written by yours truly) - from our forthcoming second studio album, which we are recording late September / early October. Live in the Big Bad City is a BandCamp exclusive, download-only, offering ten tracks for just £5 (+VAT)!

Our next gig is at The Ship in Gillingham, Kent, on 17 August - a KimboFest fundraiser for the Alzheimer's Society, free entry. Gig details and more can be found on our website at www.ditchthedemon.co.uk.

Happy listening! Steph.

JEMIA DE BLONDEVILLE, a Hastings-based poet and artist (and good friend of mine) recently reached out for help in putting together a book of her poetry. The result is WHERE FAIRIES ONCE DWELT, a slim volume of her whimsical writing, which she will be selling to raise funds for local wellbeing charity Arts on Prescription. Her poetry is very evocative of the 1970s hippy spirit, the thirty or so poems in this collection offering an ethereal take on nature and the supernatural. It's a cute little poetry book and should sell well locally.

Artist Arwen Rose of Willow & Wolfe created the front-cover image. My contribution was to design and collate the paperback book itself around Jemia's poems, create the book cover to her specifications (front and back) using Arwen's artwork, then prepare print-ready files for publication. Jemia chose UK firm Print2Demand for the actual printing. I must say I'm impressed by how well the book has come out!

Where Fairies Once Dwelt is available from Bookbuster in Hastings (price £2.99), and from Jemia herself if you manage to catch her at one of the town's many poetry events. I believe she also plans a book launch event at Arts on Prescription at their Art in the Park centre in Alexandra Park, so look out for that too!

Happy reading! Steph.

HOLLOW MOON, the first book of my eponymous space-opera series, has been reissued! After publishing the ebook of Hollow Worlds last year, I decided to go back and read the earlier titles ahead of tackling those not yet in paperback. It's fair to say that my writing style has evolved (improved?) over the years and the temptation to revisit the text of earlier books has lured me back to my MacBook keyboard.

The result is a throughly refreshed third edition of Hollow Moon, which I think flows rather better. I've also incorporated the joke 'deleted scene' from the 2018 ebook version and corrected some minor inconsistencies with later books. Finally, inside the new paperback edition, you'll find the nicer font and layout I used for City Of Deceit. I'm much happier with it now!

Recommended retail prices for Hollow Moon have been revisited: Paperback: £15 / $20; Ebook: £2 / $2.

Alongside this, I've also refreshed the Three Tales For Christmas ebook, the free introductory anthology which includes Chapter One of Hollow Moon. This includes offering a new PDF version, as an alternative for readers who usually use Kindle devices (Amazon doesn't let authors price ebooks as permanently free). The short stories in this collection have also had an editorial refresh.

Looking ahead, the other books of the Hollow Moon series will be revisited in turn. Further new releases are likely, not least the paperbacks for The Avalon Job and Hollow Worlds. Next through, I will be turning my attention to a paperback edition of The Luck Of The Devil, which I've been wanting to do for a long, long time...

Happy reading! Steph.

ATOMIC TWITTEN, our shambolic folk-comedy duo featuring Taylor on vocals/guitar and myself on bass, is once again gracing the five-day carnival that is Fat Tuesday, the Hastings version of Mardi Gras. We're performing on Saturday Unplugged on Saturday (obviously) 1 March, a packed afternoon of free acoustic music sessions, which sees more than 50 emerging and established artists and bands (and us!) across all genres playing 15-minute sets at lots of lovely venues across Hastings and St Leonards, East Sussex.

We will be performing a stripped-down set at the following hostelries in Hastings Old Town:

• 1pm - Noah's Goat, 68 George Street, Hastings TN34 3EE
• 2pm - First In Last Out, 14-15 High Street, Hastings TN34 3EY
• 3pm - Porters, 56 High Street, Hastings TN34 3EN
• 4pm - The Dolphin Inn, Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings TN34 3DN
• 5pm - Anchor Inn, 13 George Street, Hastings TN34 3EG

Hastings Fat Tuesday presents over 350 free gigs, gatherings, parties and parades alongside ticketed events. A full schedule of what's happening over the five-day celebration can be found on Hastings Fat Tuesday website. Programmes are also available from participating venues. See you there...?

Support live music! Steph.

HOLLOW WORLDS is out now! The fifth and final novel in The Worlds Of Hollow Moon series is released today in ebook format, RRP $5 (USD) / £4 (GBP) from all your favourite online retailers. The obligatory blurb:

Dyson trees, biological skyships, space dreadnoughts, alien greys: the five systems are not big enough for this final adventure! Ravana O’Brien, Detective Ostara Lee, annoying young crew-mate Artorius and their disgruntled sabre-toothed robot are marooned a very long way from home. An extra-dimensional labyrinth of hollow worlds, the lair of ancient omnipotent tricksters, homicidal giant spiders, mysterious alien greys and the insular descendants of lost colonists who believe the Earth is no more.

Priest Taranis is reaping his twisted destiny with a new apprentice at his side. Ravana's father and friends are scouring the five systems and beyond for answers. Space dreadnoughts and incompetent mercenaries are on manoeuvres as the fledging Terran Federation slides towards civil war. In the shadows of a hollow moon, a scheming would-be god prepares the last roll of dice to seal humankind’s fate. Can Ravana and crew find their way home and save the day?

So, my little space-opera saga is complete. When I released the first few chapters of Hollow Moon on the HarperCollins "Authonomy" website back in 2011, I never expected to be still developing my fictional worlds thirteen years on. But what about this year's seasonal short story? Well... there isn't one (sorry!). What with finishing Hollow Worlds and my musical endeavours with Ditch the Demon (not to mention a day job), I simply ran out of time. Besides, there's a whole new novel instead! What more could you want for Christmas?!

Happy reading! Steph.