Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

Three New Interviews

This week I’ve been chatting in three places: to Jendia Gammon on her Substack as part of her series about creative rituals; to Cavan Scott on his about My Perfect Sunday and on the Fansplaining Podcast about my fandom/professional interactions, with particular reference to my life as a fan. Enjoy!

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!

My Week

Certain aspects of this week have been delightful. Liz has been staying, and that always gives me such a wonderful feeling of a house full of joy. Thomas loves her being here. He gets to show her his World’s Strongest Engine videos. It feels just lately like he’s growing every day. In the playground yesterday, having been freaked out a bit the day before by a sudden cheer from the class, he went to stand at the back of the line-up to go in to school, and said ‘I’ve earned a break, Daddy’. I wonder where he hears phrases like that? And last night he saw that a pigeon had left droppings on the window, was all ‘I’m on it,’ and, to our amazement, went to get the hose and cleaned it all off, all on his own initiative. This is great stuff from a developmentally-limited child and we applauded him hugely. He also did his homework fast, well, and non-grumpily enough across the week to earn a Brilliant Day and a trip to soft play yesterday afternoon. (Applause to Nanny Louise for getting him to that point.) I’m starting to think that the transition to a specialist school for Year Seven, if that can be made to happen, isn’t going to be as difficult as I’d thought it might be.

This morning I sent off a first draft of #1 of a new creator-owned comic, for a publisher I’ve worked with before, which feels really satisfying. I’ve also seen the final PDFs for The Complete(d) Saucer Country and the separate Finale comic (for those who’ve already bought the full run and just want the ending), and that heading to press is the end in sight for such a long and hard road that I can hardly believe it’s happening. I’ve also got some new games work. Also, this week I went to see a notary (there’s one about every two hundred miles in the UK these days), to get my signature on a contract witnessed that will mean enormous new developments in something I’m involved with. (The notary asked me questions to see if I understood what I was signing, then watched me sign, took the contract away and added to it a wax seal and a piece of legal prose. He’d already told me there was no need for me to do any of this, but the company I’m working for, for only the second time in my career, insisted.) So there’s something good brewing.

There might be a surprise early next week, or there might not. I await to see the results of that as much as you do. It could amount to a whole lot of nothing, or maybe there’ll be something fun on my social media on Monday/Tuesday. (It’s not Doctor Who.)

Anyway, today I need to go and get 50p to school before lunchtime, so Thomas can buy some cake, and then me, Liz and Caroline will be off to have a bit of a day off together. Perspective is good. Calm and joy under my roof is good. Seeing a little boy growing up is the best thing of all.

To Be Continued

As I say, maybe Monday? Maybe not at all? Who says this isn’t the Cornell age of suspended enigmas? You maye well never hear of this again.

But I hope to see you all again next week.