Allyson Bird - Bull Running For Girls

[Calenture]

Cover art by Vincent Chong

Click the cover to visit Allyson's site.

A selection of adventure/horror stories set in many locations, from the excitement and danger of bull running in Pamplona, to small town life in Madison County, U.S. Stories set amidst the bustle of Hong Kong, on The Silk Road in China and under a Hunter’s moon in Bordeaux. Then there are those which are much closer to home.

Table of contents :

In the Hall of the Mountain King
Shadow upon Shadow
Hunter’s Moon
The Bone Grinder
The Conical Witch
In the Wake of the Dead
Bull Running
The Caul Bearer
The Sly Boy Bar and Eatery
The Celestial Dragon
The Critic
Wings of Night
The Silk Road
Medium Strange
In a Pig’s Ear
A Poison Tree
Blood in Madness Ran
Dissolution
Deathside
Silence is Golden
Pompeii

Extract from The Caul Bearer :

When the tide was out you could walk all the way across Stoupe Beck Sands to Ravenscar; she’d done that often enough, but not today. Many a wreck lay off the Ravenscar headland, hundreds of years of them, sailors and fishermen had been washed up on that shore, and their bodies harvested by the scavengers of the deep. Men in their pale mottled skin with slivers of flesh hanging from them. They were so rotten you could peel out the spine of the fishermen as easily as with fish.

Allyson Bird's Screaming Dreams

This link will take you to Laird Barron's review of Bull Running For Girls at The Imago Suite

Laird Barron recently won a Shirley Jackson award in America and is very much respected.

[allysonbird]

Thank you Rog!

Steve Upham is still recovering, so I'm taking delivery of the books and shipping/posting/carrier birding from my site next week.

[Calenture]

I gather that this book's emerged despite a good many problems and some trauma, so I wish you luck with it, Ally.

You've certainly worked for it.

[benedictjjones]

siounds good, i'll keep an eye out and add it to the list!

[allysonbird]

Thanks Rog and Benedict!

I started writing Bull Running for Girls after my mum died and finished it after my sister Sylvia's death in March. Deathside the final story, was written for my mother and Medium Strange for my sis. And of course there are many more personal references in the stories etc...I promised myself ages ago that I wouldn't censor myself - just get on with it.

Many of the stories surround strong women and females who 'seize the day!' :>) Not all protagonists are female, and some of them aren't even alive...The collection explores innocence ad experience.

Influences include Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, Hemingway, Orson Welles, the film M, Christina Rossetti, Edith Wharton, R.L.Stevenson, Yeats, Shakespeare, Bram Stoker, Boccaccio, Keats, William Blake, Virgil and Crowley.

[carolinec]

And I've heard Ally reading her story The Caul Bearer and I can tell you she writes some pretty amazing stuff! ;D ;D

[allysonbird]

Why - thank you Caroline! Hope to see you in York. Are you giving Petra a lift?

www.birdsnest.me.uk

[carolinec]

Aug 4, 2008 19:52:39 GMT allysonbird said:

Why - thank you Caroline! Hope to see you in York. Are you giving Petra a lift?

Yes, I hope to be - but I'm still waiting on Lee's "official" announcement. Is it definitely on then?

[allysonbird]

There was a little leaflet in Prism that said Open Night York 30th August. Venue might change. Will confirm after 17th August. Check forum for details.

I hope it will still be at the York Brewery - I like the Back Bess and Centurion's Ghost beers :>)

www.birdsnest.me.uk

[carolinec]

Aug 4, 2008 22:24:52 GMT allysonbird said:

There was a little leaflet in Prism that said Open Night York 30th August. Venue might change. Will confirm after 17th August. Check forum for details.

Ah, that explains it. I was waiting for Lee to announce it on the BFS forum. I didn't realised it had been announced with Prism as I don't get that any more (lapsed BFS membership ).

I hope he doesn't have to change the venue as that's ideal - and I don't even drink!

[allysonbird]

You lapser you I heard recently (after the final rec's went in for awards this year) that people who attended BFSCon 2007 and had joined for BFSCon 2008 could have voted for their choices. Did I dream that? I'm a member so it didn't matter much to me.

[carolinec]

Aug 5, 2008 0:11:25 GMT allysonbird said:

You lapser you I heard recently (after the final rec's went in for awards this year) that people who attended BFSCon 2007 and had joined for BFSCon 2008 could have voted for their choices. Did I dream that? I'm a member so it didn't matter much to me.

Yes, I found that out just two days before the deadline - can't recall how I found out now - might have been on this forum or another? I therefore went and voted very quickly, but it left me wondering how many other people who could have voted didn't because they didn't realise this. Apparently, the website said "members only" whilst the BFS constitution says "FCon members" too!

[allysonbird]

The online voting asks for a membership number. Did you email them? I know a few writers who get the money together for BFSCon but is hard to do everything. I can't see it on the constitution...still looking.

[carolinec]

Aug 5, 2008 12:17:03 GMT allysonbird said:

The online voting asks for a membership number. Did you email them? I know a few writers who get the money together for BFSCon but is hard to do everything. I can't see it on the constitution...still looking.

Ah, I remember now - it was on the BFS forum! Someone asked about the membership no thing and they were told to put FCon07 or 08 in there - so that's what I did, and it worked!

It's all very confusing and a little misleading if you ask me! Initially someone there said "no, it's BFS members only", then someone else came back and said they'd seen it on the constitution that it was FCon "members" too. They need to make that much, much clearer next time if it's going to be fair.

[allysonbird]

Very true Caroline. If people go to all that effort to attend the conventions and (the Sat day rate is beginning to grate a little now) they should know that they can vote - they should put membership number or FCon (year) above the online voting.