Musings From Oblivion's Vault

Due soon from Brian Shower's excellent Swan River Press is an anthology of ten new stories edited by Mark Valentine, tales that respond in many differing ways to the themes of Oscar Wilde's  The Picture of Dorian Gray . The line up of authors is as follows: Reggie Oliver, Caitriona Lally, Lynda E. Rucker, John Howard, D.P. Watt, Rosanne Rabinowitz, Avalon Brantley, Timothy J. Jarvis, John Gale and Derek John. My contribution is entitled 'A Labyrinth of Graves', the title taken from a poem by John Warren, Lord de Tabley. I was working on the story when Mark asked me if I would be interested in writing for the anthology. Obviously, I said yes. Fortuitously the main themes of the tale in progress seemed to fit perfectly. The story has quite a long history, because I originally had the idea for the tale at the end of the 1990s. I only wrote around a hundred words at the time, and under a different title, 'The Ship Forever-Seeking', before I set it aside. I wen

Just after last Christmas I completed a new story called In the Palace of the Lost Winter Stars, unfortunately I failed to finish it in time for the anthology it was intended for, so at the moment it's awaiting a home. However, I felt that the first few hundred words, with a little editing and a fresh ending, would make a decent little prose poem. So here it is. The ending here, by the way, is closer to my original intention for the story: the longer piece - over 5000 words -  has a completely different dénouement.   In Opal Twilight I walked out into the white and wondrous garden with my visitor; out into the transformed world that was now filled with the rose-opal luminescence of twilight, for a fine snow had fallen heavily for half the day. We strolled to the end of the pallor-mantled garden and through the black gate in the white yew hedge, then across the lane, now hidden beneath a crisp mask of ermine, and so into the wood beyond. My pale breath was the pallid b