As i sat beside the fire last night, nursing a Guinness & burning the Yule Log & last year’s Xmas tree offcut, i got to thinking about the importance of rituals in daily life.
And, as is customary on this blog, it’s time once more to ritualistically take a quick look back at events of last year before stepping into the unfolding mystery of the new.
(I know these year-in-review posts can be the last thing you might wish to read if you’re struggling right now. If that’s the case, I’d just like to send you my love & all best wishes for the year ahead.)
2023 was a year of highs & lows for sure, as I’m sure was the case for many of you. The terrible loss of so many luminaries hit hard each and every time. Personally speaking, losing both Chris Fowler & Benjamin Zephaniah in 2023 was nothing short of savage. Both had such an impact on anyone who knew them, and their work, and both left us far too soon.
The highs kept me going some. 2023 was The Year of The Doctor, and not only because it was the 60th anniversary of the much beloved franchise. After 5 years of research, which flew by, I completed my PhD and can now call myself a Doctor of horror. And I finally got to achieve a lifetime ambition to write something officially within the Whoniverse, in the form of Gobbledegook, a 5th Doctor audio adventure for Big Finish Productions.
I was also lucky enough to publish Planet of the Dead, a short story in the Blake’s 7 universe, as part of Cult Edge’s charity annual project — another ambition fulfilled.
My novella series The Daniel Gates Adventures was collected in paperback for the first time by Crossroad Press — just in time for my only live event of 2023, the brilliant Haunted Landscapes Conference in Falmouth, where I presented a short paper (snappily entitled The Jackboot in the Green: Writing Corporate Horrors in Folkloresque Landscapes).
Post-Covid lockdowns, the indie film industry finally kicked into gear again, with my folk horror short The Stay picking up its 30th award on the film festival circuit. I signed a shopping agreement with Play House Studios for my psychological horror feature screenplay Knock Three Times, and launched my next directorial project, Death By PowerPoint with my partners at Reel Fearz, Ash Verma Consulting & Brunel University, and which will hopefully shoot in 2024.
Early 2024 will see the publication of my horror story To Take the Water Down and Go to Sleep, and… beyond that? Well, to be honest it’s all a bit of a mystery right now, and hopefully in a good way! (I won’t even mention the possibility of that ever elusive new The Cure album… oops!)
So, I hope I’ll see you here again this time next year to take stock, count blessings, and to commiserate if necessary. In the meantime, here’s wishing you a happy, healthy, imaginative 2024.
Take care out there and, as always, thanks for reading.
Love, Frazer x
FrazerLee.com 