Have you heard the expression “May you live in interesting times?” It’s apparently a translation from a Chinese curse. As a horror author, I certainly find such an expression ‘interesting’ and hope that we don’t indeed live in interesting times.
Anyway, here are two poems about identity and race. ‘Bernard’ is in ‘Toebirds & Woodlice‘ and ‘Tick the right box’ is in The Redundancy of Tautology.
Happy summer solstice! It’s time to say goodbye to the darkness and embrace the light.
Today’s post was inspired by a conversation with a friend, who lamented about a colleague trauma-dumping on her out of the blue. The person was someone she knew from the office, but wasn’t close enough to even call an acquaintance. She offered him a lift home last week, during the rioting across Belfast when Translink had suspended all bus and train services after a Glider bus had been set on fire, and he proceeded to tell her all his personal woes during the twenty minute journey, leaving her reeling in horror. Since it’s the summer solstice, here’s my advice on shedding the darkness.
Don’t trauma dump, write horror instead.
Such a thing has been a staple of many a horror author, for many a decade.
Got internal pain to process? Don’t worry.
You can get it all out on the page. Hey, it’s free, unlike therapy, lol.
Have some psychological ‘demons’ to exorcise? It’ll be ok.
Write some dark poems, or turn those monsters into a great scary story.
Writing horror fiction makes art out of fear.
And make sure you do it the old-fashioned way, writing it yourself. It doesn’t count if you use AI. That’s just stealing from the work of the authors who have done it the hard way, and their copyrighted work was stolen to train those AI programmes.
Anyway, Happy Solstice… and don’t have nightmares!
Conflict, identity and immigration have been issues in Northern Ireland for over 700 years. Listen as I read on BBC Radio Ulster from book 3 in my Belfast Ghosts trilogy, Matthew’s Twin, of a working class man who begins having flashbacks to a past life as a soldier in Ulster during the Scottish conquest of Ireland in 1315AD.
Last month marked 711 years since Edward Bruce’s conquest of Ireland, beginning in May 1315. Scottish garrisons arrived at Latharna, now modern day Larne in Northern Ireland. From there, they moved to Carraig Fearghas (Carrickfergus) and surrounded the Norman Castle positioned on the ‘Rock of Fergus’.
My novel involved a huge amount of historical research, as it is over two decades since I finished working as a field archaeologist. For those reading my blog who don’t know, I studied archaeology and palaeoecology from Queen’s University Belfast. Although I no longer work as an archaeologist (I changed career to teach English in Japan more than two decades ago, and have pretty much been in secondary education ever since) I am an advocate of lifelong learning and like to keep any research I do for my books as accurate as I can.
Matthew’s Twin is available to buy from Waterstones, Foyles, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and more.
This week saw the worst of Belfast, but today saw the best of Belfast. Thousands were in Belfast city centre (and I was one of them!) for an anti-racism rally at 1pm today on Saturday 13 June 2026. Belfast made headlines across the world for all the wrong reasons at the start of the week, but this was an end to the week that shows the true Belfast, and the Northern Irish spirit, where the majority of people stand against racism, fascism and bigotry. We are Belfast.
For those not in the know, a brutal knife crime by a Sudanese man against a local man from North Belfast on Monday 8 June sparked racist riots across Belfast on Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 June. I saw the knifing video on social media before it got removed and I must say, it was so barbaric that I had to look away. I really hope the victim is okay; currently he is still in ICU and has lost his left eye.
Nevertheless, what followed on Tuesday was also brutal and barbaric, as innocent families were burned out of their homes as a result, purely because of the colour of their skin. I woke up and cried on Wednesday morning when I saw videos of Belfast burning in the news, including Roma families hurrying out of their burning homes into police vans and Ugandan nurses having to be rescued by their Northern Irish church pastor from their flaming houses. The racist rioting happened in working class areas of East Belfast and the Shankill. Although I now live in a different area of Belfast, I grew up close to some of the areas affected.
The sad fact of the matter is that, despite fears about immigration and asylum seekers, in Northern Ireland they make up only 3.4% of the population. No threat there, unless you’re a racist.
I admit to feeling some level of despair around mid-week, realising that this is now the third year in a row of summer race riots in Northern Ireland, though each year grows more sinister: a ‘hitlist’ of homes to be targeted by rioters showed a sinister level of organisation that really made my blood run cold. Not only that, but nurses going to work being chased by masked men and asked to show ID at roadblocks staged by masked men near Belfast hospitals, which didn’t happen in previous years. But, it was something my sweet innocent son said on Thursday morning that spurred me into action by attending the anti-racism rally. He said simply this:
“There were 12 of my friends missing from class today.”
Twelve wee kids who were afraid to come to school because of their skin colour, or religion, or both. Children deserve to go to school and receive their education in safety. Adults deserve to go to work in safety without masked men chasing them away. And families deserve to live in safety in their homes without fear of being burned out.
Getting back to the original issue of the crazed knifeman who sparked the riots this week. Back in 2023, he flew from Sudan to Paris, Paris to Dublin, then took a bus to Belfast and claimed Asylum, which was ‘fast-tracked’ by the Tories/Home office under Suella Braverman at the time. My question is, why was a clearly deranged mentally ill person allowed to complete a simple questionnaire and then be released onto the streets of Belfast to commit a horrendous crime against a neighbour in his block of flats, a man who only wanted to help him settle into his new home. As for who was in charge of that, well, Suella Braverman is, of course, now with Reform. Yet, none of the rioters flew over to England to riot either in front of the Home office, or at Nigel Farage’s front door.
I wonder why.
Just a writing update from rainy Belfast! I’m working on a new body horror short story collection, inspired by the experience of body dysmorphia. I’m no stranger to body horror, as my novel Matthew’s Twin has a lot of it, and there’s some in my novella, Zombie Reflux, in my collection, Diabolical Dreamscapes. Some of the stories in it will be quite ghostly, but others are just pure and utter corporeal horror… so brace yourself.
If you’ve ever experienced body dysmorphia, you’ll be able to relate to my new body horror work in progress. I’m working on it while also working on a new novel draft, a psychological horror set in Belfast, although unrelated to my previously published Belfast Ghosts series.
I’ll keep you posted with updates as they happen.
What is my Buddha’s Bone series like? Like living in Japan with a dash of J-horror, lol. I am a big fan of Japanese folk horror, particularly the stories of Lafcadio Hearn. Some of my reading influences bleed through into my writing – particularly in The Wabi-sabi Doll with the psychological horror elements.
Wanna check it out? Here are the links:
What’s in the box? Something strange and macabre… Maybe the question should be, ‘what do you do if you find a box big enough to hold a body?’ The answer? Why, you get inside it, of course!
Here’s a reading from Diabolical Dreamscapes: Strange and macabre short stories. If you’re reading this post, watching my video, or if you’re even weirder and have read my book, Diabolical Dreamscapes, then you must be a strange and macabre kind of person. If you are, then hurray! We’re kindred spirits. I am definitely a strange and macabre kind of person; I’m a horror author, first of all, and second of all, I’m the kind of person who would get inside a coffin-sized box in a secluded alleyway, lol.
Well, they say there is a fine line between creativity and insanity, and maybe there’s some truth to that. This is my dose of creativity and craziness to kick off the weekend… and infect you with my little slice of feverish insanity too, ha ha!
If you don’t already know, I’m Leilanie Stewart, and I write ghost horror books. I’m the author of three ghost horror novels and two ghost story collections, two of which are award winners (hurray). But did you know that I’m also an avid reader of supernatural books? Since I read and review books semi-anonymously online, allowing me to support fellow authors while giving my honest opinion, I thought I’d take a moment to share some favourite spooky reads with you. Please do check out these fabulous authors and their supernatural reads:
Two Groves by G.K. Wilson has a very freaky supernatural antagonist and is a different kind of horror.
Bubba and Squirt’s Big Dig to China by Sherry Ellis has a great supernatural adventure plot and I love ghostly emperor Ch’in.
Amanda Sheridan’s Rapid Eye Movement quadrilogy of paranormal suspense books feature a unique story line, and one of my big fascinations as a reader and writer: astral projection.
Rosalind Barden’s story, Friends Indeed, in the Strangely Funny X horror anthology has lots of wacky supernatural fun when Bigfoot finds an opossum familiar.
I really recommend all of these authors, not only for their awesome writing, but also their amazing supernatural storylines.
Did you read the article on Sky News on 11th May, titled I’m a literary agent – here’s what makes me sign a writer instantly and what most authors actually earn? It mentioned that the average salary of UK authors is around £4000 a year. Pretty depressing, huh? No wonder the majority of us have day jobs, or are writing after retirement, funding a literary lifestyle with a hard-earned pension, accrued from a lifetime of non-creative writing work. I’ve heard it said that some people consider creative writing a privilege not a profession and I wonder if that is part of the issue?
Anyway, the figure of £4000 prompted me to do a quick search, just to see if there was any more data to explain the figure. I didn’t find any sources to support that number, so it seems that was from the literary agent’s own experience. Instead, my general search suggested an average salary of around £7000 for UK author’s earnings. This is the same amount I found back in 2023 when I was looking into the topic for an earlier blog post, What percentage of authors make a full time living from it? Hmm. I can’t think of too many writers who could get by on that kind of money when rent and mortgage rates are at an all time high, and we’re in the midst of a cost of living crisis.
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Do you ever get imposter syndrome? Recently, I was out running errands in Belfast when a woman approached me and asked, “Are you that author? I think I’ve read one of your books.” I was caught a bit by surprise, but confirmed without knowing if she meant me or not (lol) that I am, indeed, an author. The reader then went on to say that she had read my book, The Blue Man, as it was one of the titles that came up at her book club when the group was focusing on local authors. I’m guessing that her book club was through Libraries NI, but I didn’t ask, as I found myself somewhat thrown for a loop at being recognised.
Situations like this don’t happen to me a lot; this is the second time in the past year, to put it in context, the other time being when I was shopping in Belfast city centre and was recognised by a follower of my social media. This latest occasion really gave me a moment of disconnect, a real feeling of imposter syndrome, and a sense of detachment from Leilanie Stewart the author and even from the success of my book, The Blue Man.
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Leilanie Stewart 