Book Update!

I am guilty of having neglected this blog. It's been over three months since my last post, but I have an excuse. I've been working solidly on the book for which this blog is 'companion', and am pleased to say that it's now finished and sent to the publishers.

It's been quite a journey these last few months; hard work for sure, but very fulfilling. It's the culmination of five years' research and writing, and now the words are on the page I feel sad that it is in some ways over, although the work is not finished yet. There's proofing and indexing and marketing and promotion to come. Exciting stuff!

One of the joys of working on the book these past few months has been finding the movie stills to illustrate it. I've been incredibly fortunate to have received the help of the legendary Ronald V. Borst, who has delved into his own private collection of movie memorabilia to provide some rare stills from movies like Cat People (1942), House of Whipcord (1974), Shivers (1975), Witchfinder General (1968) and countless others. Ron wrote the book Graven Images, which features hundreds of amazing movie posters from his collection, and he also provided movie stills from Kevin Brownlow's excellent documentary, Universal Horror (2000). I met him in his shop, Hollywood Movie Posters on Hollywood Boulevard, and I am grateful to him and his wife, Margaret for all their help. Harvey Fenton at Fab Press also provided me with difficult-to-find stills from Frightmare (1974), while Joyce Pierpoline, producer of Teeth (2008), graciously provided me with stills from her film, and Greg Chick at Blue Underground helped me out with images from Deathdream (1972).

And still more exciting news: the foreword has been written by none other than Jeff Lieberman, the director of Squirm (1976) and Blue Sunshine (1977). He has written a fantastic piece about the subversive qualities of his films, adding an extra layer to the book whilst supporting its arguments at the same time. I really couldn't have asked for more. Thank you, Mr Lieberman!

Publication is set for Spring 2014, and I'll provide updates over the coming months. In the meantime I'm looking forward to getting back to regular posting and catching up with other people's blogs.