Author Archives: Mark Hayes

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About Mark Hayes

Writer A messy, complicated sort of entity. Quantum Pagan. Occasional weregoth Knows where his spoon is, do you? #author #steampunk http://linktr.ee/mark_hayes

Autumn falls

Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree. ~ Emily Bronte Continue reading →

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What’s in a Name

Before I begin, let me offer some advice to writers looking to self publish for the first time. A simple piece of advice, and one I wish someone had offered me a little over 11 years ago when I published my first novel. Go on to the big river company site, and/or the farm storage for blue bloods site, and type the word Author followed by your name. Continue reading →

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Nice Safe Cosy Fiction Involving No Moral Ambiguity At All…

Shelley Adina is one of my favourite writers for a reason. I read her cosy fiction for a reason, the reason is that it is never quite as cosy as it seems. The good guys are not always entirely good. The bad guys are not always entirely bad, but merely misguided or driven by not unreasonable agenda’s. There are wonderful shades of grey, delicately hidden in behind all that nice safe cosy.

Hiding in plain sight like venetian assassins, waiting to catch you unawares. Continue reading →

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A ritual blade

On a peg in my kitchen, hung by a leather thong tied in a loop, and sheaved in leather wet moulded to the blade, hangs a Damascus steel knife with a hard resin handle. The blade itself is about five and a half inches long, single edged, and extremely sharp. It has a weight to it that the average knife does not, not because Damascus steel is heavier than normal steel, it isn’t, but because the blunt edge is thicker an average knife you might otherwise find in your kitchen. A eighth of an inch of steel on the blunt edge honed down to a fine edge on the sharp. Continue reading →

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Lovecraft and ice-cream

The book about Lovecraft I got paid to write is finally out in the UK. It came out in the US last month. It is a very pretty book, part biography and part exploration of the mythos worlds and creatures. … Continue reading →

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Blyton and Lovecraft

“What’s the weirdest thing you have discovered today mark?”

Why, I am glad you asked… Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar 66 ~ Landor’s Cottage

Becoming an overnight success is easy, provided you are prepared to endure the years of relative failure until your night arrives… Continue reading →

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Nailing my colours to the mast

This is a rant, I make no apologise for this. If you don’t wish to read a rant then you should just stop here, but it is, I feel, an important rant. I also stand by ever word. Originally this … Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar 65 ~ X-ing a Paragrab

As it is well known that the ‘wise men’ came ‘from the East,’ and as Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows that Mr. Bullet-head was a wise man. If that short exert doesn’t tell you all you … Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar 64 ~ Von Kempelen and His Discovery

By April 1849 our dear Edgar was a widower finding his comfort once more in the bottle. Privately he had started becoming increasingly unstable after Viginia’s death in January 1847. Yet publicly he had never been so successful. The initial … Continue reading →

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