I first met Mark Morris at a FantasyCon in Birmingham: I guess it was the mid to late 1980s and his debut novel, Toady (aka The Horror Club in the USA) was either just out or imminent. I was in the early throes of putting together a contributor list for my debut anthology (Narrow Houses, as it turned out) and I liked the ‘cut of his jib’ as they say, so I asked him on board. He was sitting with Nick Royle and I asked Nick, too. (As it happens, Nick’s story—a riff on Schrodinger’s cat-in-a-box theory—was the first tale I accepted for the book. Mark’s story didn’t appear until either the second or third volume: so it goes.)

Since then, Mark and I (and Nick, for that matter) have become firm friends. He’s a straight player, dependable, solid as a rock . . . and, to be sure, one of the nicest fellows you could ever wish to meet. We’ve published a novella from him (The Uglimen, long since sold out), a novel (Nowhere Near An Angel) and we’ve taken a story or possibly two for Postscripts. We’ve also published Mark’s two volumes of genre movie essays (Cinema Macabre and Cinema Futura). Plus I took a novella from him (‘Stumps’) for the Fourbodings volume I did for Rich Chizmar’s CD Books.

I guess I don’t have to tell you that we hold him in fairly high esteem here in the crumbling turrets, dank cellars and lonely walkways of PS Towers. So we’re absolutely delighted to be publishing Mark’s new collection, Long Shadows, Nightmare Light. Finished copies are hotly anticipated (as, indeed, are copies of all our upcoming titles for FantasyCon) and to mark the occasion, he’s written us a piece for this week’s Author Focus. If you haven’t read any of Mark’s work then you’re missing a treat. Remedy it immediately—go and buy his book. Believe me, you won’t regret it.