Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

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.

Con and On #4

The next issue of my satire about the comics industry across decades, from Ahoy Comics, with artist Marika Cresta, Con and On #4, will be out on October 18th. ‘An apparition of the greatest super hero heralds the most tragic change.’ Regular readers may want to buckle their seatbelts. Here’s the entry in Previews.

(Cover by Daniel Schoeneck.)

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?

October Subscriber Meet-Up

I’ll be Zoom meeting with paid subscribers again at 9pm UK time on Sunday, 29th October. The first one was great fun, so I’m going to keep this going for at least a while, see where it goes. Those subscribers will get an invite on the Friday before.

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 September episode being about Dracula A.D. 1972. 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.

(This film does not feature Christopher Lee in hotpants.)

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!

The Work of Friends

The great writer Brandon Easton has a new short story in the Overwatch universe, ‘Shockwaves’, starring Sojourn, which you can download or read online for free here!

My Week

The good weeks keep on coming! Some of this may be down to my mental health, which has improved no end since I started regularly walking 10k steps a day. Plus I feel like I have so much love in my life right now. And, though I hate to say it when so many fellow freelancers are struggling, getting a few new gigs (and signing a long-awaited big contract) hasn’t hurt my attitude either. This week I was again writing to commission, starting a new comics series, as well as pitching and taking meetings, and I actually found myself saying I had too much to do. That is very much my preferred way to be. Oh, and hey, this lovely thing arrived in the mail!

It’s a very handsome trophy, so thanks very much, IAMTW!

Another thing I’m doing, which is soothing the autistic part of my brain, is putting my comics collection in alphabetical order in my longboxes, re-grading as I go (I was being about 1.0 grades too optimistic throughout) and entering everything into the CLZ app ready for valuation. I’ve also been checking against a master list of Marvel Value Stamps to make sure my comics are intact, and had a handful of nasty surprises as a result (hence some of the comics I’m selling have holes in them, which I’m clearly indicating to potential buyers!) This whole process is so relaxing and satisfying I don’t quite know what I’m going to do with myself after it’s over.

Thomas, meanwhile, has been continuing his own run of good weeks, including a positively heroic visit to the dentist when, being given the choice to have the cleaning now or come back on another occasion, he got back in the chair. His autistic stoicism does, on occasion, mask the fact that he’s got a good sense of personal security and can be very brave.

I’m looking forward to another visit by Liz next week. We’re going to try to not regard it as a holiday and do some work side by side. But still, lots of fun will be had. With Thought Bubble in the future too, and an exciting invite that arrived while I was down the pub last night, it feels like there’s lots to look forward to.

To Be Continued

Now you know where to find us in Harrogate, I look forward to seeing loads of you there.

And I hope to see you all again next week.