Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

October Subscriber Meet-Up

If you’re a paid subscriber to this Newsletter you’ll today be sent an invite to come along to a Zoom meet-up with me, this Sunday evening (29th) at 8.30pm BST. Do come along if you can!

The Comics Multiverse

It was a great pleasure to guest on the YouTube show The Comics Multiverse, talking about not just Con and On, but about all my adventures in comics. Check out my episode here. 

Starblazer is Out Now!

I’ve written the introduction for this second collection of classic strips from D.C. Thomson’s SF digest comic Starblazer, this one containing early work from Grant Morrison. It’s out now, and you can order here. (I’m really pleased with how much comics history I managed to bring to this one!)

Where to Find Us at Thought Bubble

It’s that wonderful time of year when the Thought Bubble festival in Harrogate, with its convention on November 11th-12th, start releasing their details, and they’ve just put out their map of where to find all us exhibitors. Myself and Lizbeth Myles will again be running a table full of my recent stuff, including copies of my Secret Invasion novel. And you can find us in the Bubbleboy Hall at table K12. We’re once again neighbours with Rachael Smith, so that’ll be lovely.

Adventures Across Space and Time: A Doctor Who Reader

This brilliant new book, out on 16th November, edited by Paul Booth, Matt Hills, Joy Piedmont and Tansy Rayner-Roberts, is a collection of Doctor Who critique from many different sources, and it includes a selection from my essay about how the show has never had a canon, and why that’s been enormously helpful to its development. You can order direct from the publisher here.

Con and On #5

The final issue of my decades-spanning satire about the comics industry, with artist Marika Cresta, is out from Ahoy on November 22nd. You can find it in Previews here.

My eBay Page

So, I decided that rather than run individual auctions I’d put up all my duplicate comics (and a few Doctor Who items and other random stuff) in one place. It’s a work in progress, lots more stuff still to be added. What do you reckon?

Witches of Lychford: Night of the Gnomes

My new sequel to my bestselling Witches of Lychford rural fantasy series (urban fantasy in the Cotswolds) is in the form of a serial right here on Substack, and lots of episodes are now out there!

On the first four Thursdays of every month, at 5pm BST (or GMT when we get there) paid subscribers will get an episode of the new serial. It’ll run until the end of November, then there’ll be a four-episode Christmas Special, then another new Lychford serial will run until the end of May, 2024. (So those who’ve subscribed for the whole year will get a full year of episodes.)

It’ll be absolutely fine for those who haven’t read the books to start reading with this serial, because we’ll re-introduce the whole concept. (Though you will be spoiled for what’s happened previously.) And paid subscribers can read all the previous episodes too, so you’ll be able to catch up if you join late.

Lychford is a little modern-day market town in the Cotswolds that borders many of the hidden worlds of the supernatural, the lands of the fairy folk, of demons, of a whole array of magical creatures. Protecting it are three very different women. There’s a lot of comedy in this series, mostly about the clash between everyday life and the world of magic, but there’s also some dark heartfelt emotional stuff and some real-world commentary on what life in such a town is like right now (because I live in such a town).

I’ve missed writing about Lizzie, Autumn, new coven member Zoya and their increasingly-large supporting cast of town councillors, pensioners and creatures of the night. I’m also looking forward to the rollercoaster of having to put fingers to keyboard on a regular basis.

To get this Lychford serial, just subscribe to the paid option on this Newsletter. It’s $8/month or $80/year.

And of course you’ll always get the Friday Newsletter and exclusive subscriber content for free. (And I don’t share your email address with anyone.)

If you’d like to catch up on the Lychford series up to now, five novellas have been published by Tor.com. You can find them all here at Bookshop.org and support UK indie bookstores, or here are links to the first one at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

And if you want to see the last story about my three heroines, it’s a Christmas story from a few years back, available for free here on my blog!

I’m looking forward to my adventure into serial fiction.

If you want to read the Prologue to Witches of Lychford: Night of the Gnomes, you can find it here for free.

Hammer House of Podcast

Hammer House of Podcast, in which myself and Lizbeth Myles watch the Hammer horror movies in UK release order, is out on the 13th of every month, with our October episode being about 1972’s Demons of the Mind. You can get these episodes free wherever you normally get your podcasts, as well as on our site, but if you sign up to our Patreon, for any sum of money from £1/$1, you get an extra episode every month too, on the 27th, in which we watch Patron requested movies and films from other horror studios of the same era.

(What a frustrating mess of a movie.)

Find my Books at Bookshop.Org and Help Out Indie Booksellers!

Bookshop.org is a collective selling tool that sets up a marketplace for all indie bookstores in the UK, functioning exactly like Amazon, except you’re supporting your local bookshop. You can find a selection of my books here, and I get a little cut of the proceeds too if you order from here!

My Linktree

You can now find all my social media links, my website/blog and links to where you can buy my books, in one place here, thanks to Linktree!

My Week

I’m rushing to write this, because what with Thomas having started half-time holiday on Wednesday, and my deadlines this week, and a special thing I went to yesterday, it’s been a very high speed time. (And there’s only one month of Gnomes left before I have to start the Lychford Christmas Special and then the second new novella!)

Thomas’ birthday was lovely. He wanted to have his usual Saturday at soft play with Nanny Louise first (because he worried about missing his beans on toast), but when he came back, several family members and godparents were here to meet him, and there was a special Lego-themed cake and a lot of Lego. He lined up the boxes, and decided on the order in which he would make the sets. He made them all over the next day, took them apart and made them all again in the same order. This is Thomas’ idea of a really good time, so I couldn’t have asked for anything more, honestly.

(From left to right, Nanny Louise, Grandma and Godmother Catherine.) Serious focus required here.

How is the dry stone wall, you ask. Well, it’s now got a couple of specialists standing in our garden, slowly doing the jigsaw of putting it back together. ‘I saw the rock men’ said Thomas. More on that story as we get it.

Work-wise, I’ve been writing (and should deliver today, fingers crossed) the second issue of a creator-owned comic that hasn’t been announced yet, and I also sent off my pitch for something very big in the world of comics, so I’ve now got everything crossed, but you know, I feel I’ve given it all I have, my best shot, and whether or not it succeeds that’s one of the best creative feelings.

Yesterday I went to London to be interviewed. And that’s all I can say about that right now, except that it was a great pleasure.

So I hope you’ll forgive me if this is a bit shorter than usual. Today Caroline and I are taking Thomas out for pizza at lunchtime. I have no time! I look forward to seeing those of you who are paid subscribers for a more relaxed chat on Sunday night.

To Be Continued

I’m looking forward to seeing some of you at Thought Bubble and some of you on Sunday!

And all of you again next Friday.