Selective Mutism

This is a rare personal post, not connected to my books.

If you’re in the UK and you have 50 minutes to spare, can I ask you to consider watching ‘My Child Won’t Speak‘, a documentary which aired last night on BBC1. You can watch it on the BBC iPlayer here.

Selective Mutism (SM) is a strange, often bewildering condition which can have dramatic, long-term and very damaging effects on both the child who suffers from SM and their families. It’s thought to affect around 6 in every 1000 children. Put most simply, it’s an anxiety – it could even be described as a fear or a phobia – of talking in certain situations. A child who is affected may talk freely and normally to the members of their immediate family at home but if they are anywhere else or with anyone else, they probably won’t speak. Not a single word. At a very early age, SM can be little more than an inconvenience and a frustration. But, as the child grows and has to take an increasingly active role in society, their inability to communicate can become more and more of an issue and it can have devastating consequences.

Children who suffer from SM can often be ignored and excluded or written off as being difficult.People who don’t know about SM or who don’t understand the condition might try and force them to speak, or occasionally threaten to punish them if they don’t communicate. Sometimes, SM children are overlooked and undervalued because they’re not disruptive – put simply, they’re quiet and they don’t cause any real problems, so they’re prone to be forgotten about.

The causes of SM vary from child to child, and with the right support and therapies, children often learn to overcome their anxieties and talk in public before the age of 10.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because it’s something that really matters to me. It’s a subject very close to my heart. My youngest daughter stopped speaking when she was 3, and she’s only just reached the stage where she’s finally able to talk to her teachers and other people outside of the immediate family. She’s 9 and a half. More than 6 years of silence.

My daughter was incredibly fortunate. As a family we received a huge amount of support and help, particularly from her school. But we’ve heard about many other children who haven’t been so lucky. So I hope you don’t mind me using this outlet to try and raise awareness of Selective Mutism. Please watch the TV programme if you can and, if you want more information, contact SMIRA – the Selective Mutism Information & Research Association (www.selectivemutism.co.uk).

If you or anyone close to you has been affected by SM and you’d like to talk about your experiences, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Thanks for your time.

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

Horror’s hidden treasures

I know I have a tendency to ramble on when I write, but I didn’t realise how bad I sometimes get! When I was asked to contribute to the SFX Collection special mentioned in my previous post, I geeked out and got a bit overexcited and churned out far more words than were required.

Now, in an extremely cool move, Ian Berriman from SFX has posted my ramblings in full on the SFX website, and you can read the piece here.

This in no way excuses you from buying the SFX special, by the way. Not only is it chock full of horror goodness, it also comes with some excellent free gifts. I now have a ‘Slaughtered Lamb’ beer mat which, as An American Werewolf in London has always been one of my favourite films, has pride of place on my desk!

Posted in Publicity | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

SFX Collection: Horror

The team over at SFX magazine have just unveiled their latest creation. On sale in the UK from tomorrow is the SFX COLLECTION: HORROR – a massive horror collection full of cool features and free gifts. I have a couple of contributions in the ‘Hidden Treasures’ section – a load of horror directors, screenwriters and novelists were asked to reminisce about their favourite lost horror movies and books. I had a blast hunting through my boxes of dusty VHS tapes for the most obscure movies I could find, and it was great watching them again (once I’d managed to find a working video player!). Does anyone else remember such gems as THE ASPHYX, THE MUTATIONS and DEAD AND BURIED…? Why not grab yourself a copy of the SFX Collection and, while we’re on the subject, what are your favourite lesser known horror films? Got any good recommendations for me?

Posted in Publicity | Tagged | 4 Comments

Nominations for HATER

Sorry it’s been so quiet around here this last week. I’ve been flat out (honest!) and you’ll start seeing what I’ve been up to before long.

I’ve been made aware of a couple of awards that HATER has been nominated for. Firstly, RAGE, the French edition of the book, is up for the prestigious Masterton award, and you can read more about it here on the Milady blog.

Secondly, HATER has been nominated in the Best Zombie Book (Fiction) category of the Mail Order Zombie Dead Letter Awards (it’s not technically a zombie novel, I know, but hey…!). Please click here to vote and pick your favourite zombie books and films of the last 12 months.

In similar news, Mihai, owner of the very popular Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews blog, listed HATER as number three in his top ten books of 2009. Mihai also listed Danny McCoyne as his favourite male character of last year! Cheers Mihai.

And finally, I was really pleased to hear that the audiobook of HATER recently won an ‘earphones award’ from AudioFile Magazine. For those of you who enjoyed the audiobook (you can download it from Audible and iTunes amongst others if you haven’t yet heard it), you’ll be pleased to hear that DOG BLOOD will also be released as an audiobook by Blackstone Audio on 8th June.

Posted in Audio books, Awards, Books, Dog Blood, Foreign language editions, Hater, Rage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

SFX Weekender

Anybody going to the SFX Weekender next month? I’ll be there, and it should be a great event. Let me know if you’re going. There’s still time to book if you haven’t got tickets. You can order direct from SFX or through Seetickets or Play.com. The event takes place at Pontins, Camber Sands on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th February and with guests including Tom Baker, Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons,  and many more, it promises to be a geek’s dream of a weekend!

Posted in Appearances, Publicity | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Septiembre Zombie

Spanish readers will be interested to know that Septiembre Zombie, the Spanish edition of Autumn, will be released by Minotauro on 23rd February.

Before you hit me with another thousand emails about the re-release of the Autumn books in English, here’s a little teaser for you. Book one, as you may know, will be released in September this year. The rest of the books, including the long-awaited debut of Autumn: Disintegration will follow VERY soon after. I’ll let you know exact dates as soon as they’re confirmed.

And by the way, if you were planning on picking up one of the spare copies of the Infected Books edition of Autumn I’ve been selling, you’d better get in quick. There are just a handful left. You can get them over at www.infectedbooks.co.uk.

Posted in Autumn, Book sale, Books, Foreign language editions, Septiembre Zombie | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

A very belated Happy New Year!

I intended to write this a week ago, but the beginning of 2010 has proved to be even busier than the end of 2009! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and best wishes to everyone for 2010.

Down to business…

There’s lots going on here, and I’m trying to take advantage of the UK’s coldest winter and heaviest snowfall for 30 years to try and catch up. I’ve got a lot of book, film and other news to share, but my first priority for 2010 is to tidy up this website and give it a lick of paint. Over the next few days, therefore, you might find the site breaks or goes down for a while. Please bear with me.

If you’re in the UK, you can pass the time by watching the AUTUMN movie on Zone Horror. It’s showing again on Tuesday 12th January at 12:50am.

I also just wanted to mention that my sale of signed books is coming to an end over at www.infectedbooks.co.uk. I now have the last few copies of the Infected Books edition of AUTUMN to hand but please get in quick if you want one as they’re disappearing fast. I’ll be announcing the winner of the competition I mentioned here next week.

That’s all for now. Check back next week for more! Don’t forget, to be notified when I update, you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Goodreads, MySpace, Friendfeed and probably a few other places I’ve forgotten.

Posted in Autumn, Autumn movie, Book sale, Books | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Happy Holidays

This is probably going to be my last post of the year, so I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy holiday season. I hope you’re able to relax, enjoy yourselves, and spend some decent time with the people who matter to you. I intend doing as little as possible for as long as possible (if the kids will let me!).

I also wanted to thank everyone – particularly those of you who’ve followed my writing for some time and who’ve been incredibly patient – for your support throughout 2009. It was a landmark year for me as I finally made the switch from independent to traditional publishing. I know it’s been a long time since I actually gave you anything new to read, but all that will change in 2010. As well as DOG BLOOD, the re-release of the first AUTUMN book, and the US and UK release of the AUTUMN movie on DVD, there will be plenty more to announce next year… release dates for the rest of the AUTUMN series (sooner than you might think), news about the HATER film, free HATER fiction and much more coming very, very soon!

Enjoy the holidays. Have a great time. See you back here in 2010!

Merry Christmas!

Posted in General | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Author Z.A.Recht has died

Plague of the Dead

Permuted Press has announced that Z.A.Recht, author of Plague of the Dead and Thunder and Ashes, has died.

This is shocking, horrible news. I never had the pleasure of meeting Z in person, but I talked to him by email as recently as last month. He seemed like a genuinely good guy – polite, funny and enthusiastic about all things zombie. Plague of the Dead has been picked up as part of a deal between Permuted and Pocket Books and is due to be re-released later this month. Such a shame that Z won’t be here to see it.

My sincere condolences go out to his family and friends at this terrible time.

Posted in Other authors | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Domain of the Dead

You might remember me mentioning Iain McKinnon in my post about Grimmfest last month. I said you’d be hearing more about Iain, and here’s why: Permuted Press has just published his debut novel Domain of the Dead. I was honoured to be asked to write an introduction to the book, and you can see my endorsement on the cover above. It’s a great read – an exciting, fast-moving, traditional zombie novel with a cool cast and more than enough wild moments and flashes of originality and invention to keep even the most jaded fan of the Undead entertained this Christmas. As if that wasn’t enough, you can watch a trailer for the book (and an absolutely cracking zombie-short – The Dead Walk) over on Iain’s official website, www.domain-of-the-dead.com.

But if you want to see something REALLY scary, check out this picture of Iain and myself taken at Grimmfest when Iain was kind enough to host the post-screening AUTUMN Q&A session.

DMandIM

Domain of the Dead is available now from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and many other bookstores.

Posted in Appearances, Other authors, Publicity | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments


  •  

    davidjmoodydavidjmoody: RT @caitlinmoran: TV review in which my comments about George Osborne have already got me in trouble hahah: http://tinyurl.com/yhs9azx
    1 day ago
    davidjmoodydavidjmoody: @liseo we're all freaks together! Don't worry about it!
    1 day ago
    liseoliseo: @davidjmoody what can i say? ime a zombie freek hm dose that make me a zeedk?
    1 day ago
    davidjmoodydavidjmoody: @liseo I'll try and find out when the DVD will be out in Australia. No plans as yet to film the other books. Glad you've enjoyed my stories!
    1 day ago
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