I Was A Secret Bram Stoker Judge

I didn't release any new books in 2018. I have a good excuse for that, and it's nothing to do with the dog eating my homework.

For the whole year I was Chair of one of the juries for the prestigious international Bram Stoker Awards, run by the HWA /  Horror Writers Association (an organisation I'm a professional member of).

Background On The Bram Stokers And The Judging Process

The Bram Stoker Awards have been running since 1987. They celebrate the best horror and dark fiction released each calendar year. The winners are announced the following year. So the 2018 award submissions were all horror works published between 1st January 2018 and 31st December 2018; then the winners were announced in 2019, at StokerCon in the US - though in 2020 StokerCon will be coming to the UK (Scarborough).

For those who don't know about it, there are numerous categories every year: novels, anthologies, screenplays, short stories etc. There are a huge number of submissions in each category, which get whittled down to a long list for the preliminary ballot (one of my works was in the preliminary ballot once), then to a short list, and finally to an overall winner. You'll find the 2018 short lists and overall winners here.

How do the submissions get whittled down to these shorter lists? It's refreshingly democratic for a big prize, which no single avenue that controls everything. There are two parallel procedures. One is that HWA members all submit and vote for works, to create one list. However, there is also a jury for each category, which looks at all the submissions and rates them, and that creates another list. Finally, the two lists are combined to come up with the preliminary ballot list. Having two systems in tandem helps prevent any bias from skewing things, and leads to longlists as a result of a lot of input, deliberation, considered critiquing, and popular voting.

I said I was a secret judge. One of the jury guidelines that the judges don't announce their position on a jury publicly, while they are serving. Presumably it's to prevent any risks or accusations of bribery or manipulation. The authors of the works up for consideration have no idea who is on the juries. All works get treated equally. Only after the whole process is completed, and the judges have no more impact on the awards (i.e. after the votes are all tallied in January), can a judge mention what they did.

My jury were responsible for the Long Fiction category. Long Fiction was defined as 7,500 - 39,999 words (above that it was classed as a novel; below that, a short story). I was appointed as Chair of the jury, so had additional responsibilities in terms of dealing with award-related queries about rules or eligibility, liaising with my jury, setting out the jury voting system and compiling votes, giving updates and so on. A lot happens during the year, not even including all the reading! My jury contained four other respected authors and people connected with the horror industry.

Oh, just in case you wondered: jurors don't receive any payment. It is always volunteers who give their time freely to help in the smooth running of the awards. People are judges as a way of giving something back to the organisation and profession.

In my case, I had an extra reason for volunteering my time: I believe that in any writing competition, the only important criteria for eligibility is the quality of the work itself, not the route to publication. It makes no difference if a book is independently published (author keeps their rights), or trade published (author assigns rights to a publisher in exchange for a smaller cut of royalties). If a competition is claiming to find the best book, then it has to include all books. If it excludes independently-published books and only considers trade-published books, then it is doing a disservice to authors and also lying to the readers - how can it say it found the best book when it didn't even consider many titles? I've written about this topic before, many times. With any prize, always investigate whether it excludes works based on route to publication or not (unfortunately, if they do exclude independent books, the prize organisors will often try to hide this fact, and certainly won't mention it in announcements). The Bram Stoker Awards, and HWA in general, are refreshingly non-discriminatory. Not all prizes and writing organisations are so progressive. Okay, rant over, let's get back on track.


I read and scored around 93 works during the year, so that meant reading c.7-8 works a month. I wrote short summaries and critiques of what I felt were the pros and cons of each piece, paying attention to style, originality, plotting, characterisation, pace, and a stack of other criteria. I wanted each submission to get full consideration. My notes meant I could go to my spreadsheet of summaries and immediately recognise and remember each work, even when I returned to it twelve months later! You can see how being chair of a jury swallowed a lot of my time. Pleasure reading took a back seat to the volume of close reading I needed to do as part of this jury - yes, some of it was still pleasurable, but there was the work element of analysis added on top.

My Favourite Works Of 2018

I'm not going to give my jury's recommendations (they're always confidential), just my own top ten of the works I read in 2018. I've removed the scores and randomised the order, so it is just a list of ten horror works published in 2018 that I enjoyed. They're all available for you to go and seek out and read right now!

Cruce Roosters (Brent Michael Kelley)
I wrote about it in some detail here. Only yesterday, when I was in a writing group and talking about different approaches to exposition that avoid the staleness of infodumps, I used this book as an example of good practice (in this case, with its use of fictional adverts for world building). That's how much this wildly inventive work stuck with me.

Body of Christ (Mark Matthews)
It included many things I'd never seen before, was confident, and had depth from combining many unexpected elements. And that premise: "A boy secretly builds his own Jesus out of communion wafers and the flesh of his dad. On Halloween night, his Jesus shall rise." Genius. One of the books I recommended in my blog post Some Scary Books To Read In October.

You Are Released (Joe Hill)
One part of me felt bad for including this - it's not as if Joe Hill and his family need any more praise or horror awards! Generally I wanted to find fresh new voices that people hadn't heard of. Yet I couldn't ignore the quality of this work. Well-written, with nice shifts of voice with PoV, and compelling to read. It's exactly what good short fiction should be. It's not surprising that this made the overall shortlist for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction.

The Devil's Throat (Rena Mason)
An excellent story because of its interesting undersea setting, its creepiness, and the author's resistance to telling us every detail. I'm pleased that I championed this and it went on to become the overall winner for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction.

Black's Red Gold (Ed Kurtz)
Even though I didn't like any of the characters, this alien and bizarre story stuck with me for its haunting nature, gruesome detail, and possible message.

All Internal (Terence Hannum)
There were some clunky elements and issues with protagonist passivity, yet this gruesome body-horror story compelled me to read on, and stuck in my mind long after it had finished. It required work to unravel because it uses structure in a way that is confusing at first until you have an "aha!" moment regarding voice and perception, but I like things that are different. In fact, this story, and Black's Red Gold, and Cruce Roosters all help to illustrate something that's true for me (and which also applies to The Tank by Nicola Lombardi) - I would rather read a work that is half brilliant and half clunky, than something that is all average. After being involved with writing and publishing for so long, it's freshness and originality that I seek. I read a lot of books which are perfectly good in themselves, but they are going down routes which have been trodden so often before that the earth is too hard-packed to bear fruit. Life's too short for mediocrity. Seek out the things that make you feel something new instead, things which can surprise you.

Bent (Rebecca Rowland)
A gruesome short piece about horrible bondage.  The details got to me most.

The Barrens (Stephanie Feldman)
Some good horror tropes and nice writing, with hints of IT.

Midnight Gods (Greg F. Gifune)
A fast pace, with no slack or downtime. The ending wasn't as strong (I have an aversion to cliched good and evil) but this story still stuck in my mind. It's another of the books I recommended in my blog post Some Scary Books To Read In October.

Dead Air (Nino Cipri)
I like the structural format, which built tension and mystery well (though I'd have liked more distinction between voices and a fraction more resolution).

There were many others that I enjoyed, but this post is long enough already!

Looking Back On My Year As Chair

It was hard work. Reading so much, in such depth. And it dismayed me when a book with a great concept was let down by poor execution; or when there was great writing but it was let down by being based around a poor/cliched/overfamiliar story. Authors need to get both right. After all, judges want to discover great writing and promote new authors; authors need to make that easy for the judges. It reminds me of the comment at the end of one of the Bram Stoker submission forms:

HALT! Take your time. Make sure your recommendation is neatly formatted and complete. Remember, you're trying to impress the jury, not make their jobs harder.

So bear all that in mind if you are ever submitting work for an award. Although my comments above showed that I would high-rate a book for the brilliant elements, even if other elements were less good, not all judges think that way. Here are some other tips on what some judges and writing professionals look for in good fiction.

If you do submit anything, then good luck.

Despite the hard work, it was rewarding. I got to see a huge amount of contemporary work, like a snapshot of current writing, good and bad. It gave me an unprecedented understanding of current styles, market conditions, approaches, tropes, interests and trends. That's useful for me as an author, and also for any author clients I work with via my editing service.

I had a great jury to work with. They were supportive and friendly and professional, as were the HWA staff we worked with. One of the sweetest things was at the end of the year, when all the works had been read and judged and all the votes had been cast and tallied, and we could finally take a breather and wonder what the next year might hold now that we had done our duty. (A few of my fellow jurors immediately volunteered to do it again, but I wanted at least a year out!) There was a wonderful feeling of camaraderie, and people said lots of nice things about each other and me. I think this was my favourite quote:

"Thanks to Karl for being a superhero leader in our Long Fiction Category. He was a rockstar at keeping us on track and making sure the results were timely and fair."

I've always wanted to be a rock star. :-)

Thanks for reading.


I'm Now A Bestselling Author (Sort Of)

14th May: #1 Bestseller in Horror (Amazon USA)

It's been a good week for my Lost Solace books. A very good week. I had reduced the price of Lost Solace and advertised it in various places. As a result I sold over 2,400 copies of Lost Solace and the sequel, Chasing Solace in a few days. Wow. Note that Lost Solace was published in 2017 - so that's a fantastic result for a book that is almost two years old!

It was enough to move me to the #1 spot on Kobo and Amazon in a number of categories (since Lost Solace straddles both sci-fi and horror). Not just #1 in the UK, but globally - US, Canada, Australia etc. And it's maintained its position well throughout the week: I checked just now and Lost Solace is still the #1 book in Kobo Australia's horror category (and #2 in sci-fi).

13th May: UK Kobo, #1 Horror book, just ahead of one of my all-time favourites: IT by Stephen King

14th May: #1 book in a number of Amazon (Canada) sci-fi categories

14th May: #1 Bestseller in a sci-fi category (Amazon Canada) - note the lovely orange Best Seller label applied to the book!

14th May: #1 Bestseller in Horror (Amazon USA), just ahead of Stephen King (again)

15th May: #1 Bestseller in a few categories (Kobo UK)

17th May: #1 Bestseller in Horror still (Kobo Australia), ahead of Paul Tremblay's "The Cabin At The End Of The World" and Stephen King's "The Outsider"


Show, Don't Tell

I was recently asked:

"Can I get tips on show not tell? I have been trying to incorporate it into my story telling narrative but haven’t been able to implement it."

Happy to help.

It's something I flag up when I edit my own or other people's work, but hard to explain without specific examples, because there are actually a number of different ways this advice applies (and note that not all cases of telling are bad - there are good reasons for some of them).


One type of telling is the infodump at the start of a story (or even at a later point) - we're told everything about the background to a place/setting/character/situation - but that separates the reader from the story. It's a hurdle they need to jump over. Many won't bother. Instead, any relevant background is better gradually revealed (shown) through actions, speech, relationships, settings, and so on - the reader pieces it together from subtle clues, so is active and interested, as opposed to smacked around the head with a brickload of exposition at the start.

Here's an example. In book A we begin with a page telling us that Joe and Mary argue a lot, and their relationship is on the verge of breaking up, and the underlying disagreements from the past are recounted. In book B we instead begin with a scene where Joe and Mary dig at each other, try to maintain poise but get drawn deeper into bickering, with hints of past betrayals and escalating viciousness. Book A begins with telling. It is cold, after-the-fact, dry and complete and uninteresting, and pushes readers away. Book B begins with showing. It is hot, live, sparking with potential, interesting, and pulls readers in. Book B doesn't tell us everything, just enough. It makes us want to know more. And we read on to find out the truth, the references, the causes, and what happens next. That's when readers are happy.

Basically, this kind of telling fails because we get engaged with stories through caring about the predicament the protagonists are in. The infodump is instead of getting to know the protagonist via their words and actions.

Telling Via Narration

Another kind of telling is the straightforward narration and commentary by the author/omniscient being. Sometimes that narrator can work well and become a character in itself (especially when it ties in to unreliable narration), but often it is a lazy way of storytelling, picked because it is easy. Clue: generally the easy route is the most-trodden and boring.

And this type of telling often also ties into infodumping, so is a double curse.

The move away from telling applies to all media, as this type in particular shows. Watch films from the 1960s-70s and you're more likely to have a narrator setting the scene and providing commentary (a la the opening of The Twilight Zone) - nowadays a lot of that background is instead revealed through the action, dialogue and cinematography (all showing), with outright narration saved for special purposes, and even then often coming across as old fashioned (as seen in the rather dire Vicky Cristina Barcelona). Books aren't the only medium where this piece of advice applies.

Wriggle Room For Readers

To illustrate a third aspect this advice might refer to, here's a brief example, which I think of as telling makes the reader passive. It's probably the type that is most subjective.

"Mary held herself still for a beat as she reined in her temper."
= Telling. There's nothing for the reader to do, no room for interpretation.

"Mary glared at John while clenching her fist so hard the nails dug into her hand."
= Showing. We aren't told she's angry, we interpret it from the context. We're shown, and make our own instinctive interpretation, meaning we are more engaged as we're involved.

A subtle difference, but I know which one I'd rather read (in general - it can be overdone, or lead to repetition if not careful). Maybe not the best example in the world, but at least it's a clear difference between a statement, and a hint.

That's just three examples if how telling can weaken a story. There are others. Generally we want to pull readers into a world and the character's lives and challenges without putting up barriers, without taking the easy route. There are more interesting ways to do things, which often separate experienced or professional writers from new authors and enthusiastic amateurs. Happy writing!


They Move Rubbish Below

I often pick up litter when I'm out walking, or complain about it when I can't pick it all up. I also try to do other things to improve my local area e.g. cleaning it with soap. Yesterday I decided to go one further than my normal litter picking.

I live near a river, and hate seeing litter in it - from plastic bottles and crisp packets, up to heavier items that have been chucked in. Recently a bench on the public footpath had become corroded and hadn't been fixed; some vandals then broke it off and threw it in the river. The Council weren't keen on fishing it out "because of health and safety reasons" (even though a few men with a rope and hook could have pulled it out easily when the water levels were low). So I decided to tackle it with two friends and a step ladder, since it's sometimes the only way to get things done.

Since I didn't have a hook or rope, it meant getting into the river. That was the first problem. I climbed down a vertical 8 foot wall. I was wearing shorts and plastic shoes, but it was hard going to move along the river bed, which at that point is made up of slippy rocks. One fall and I'd be swimming in the deeper water. So I took my time, and when I found an item I carefully hoisted it above my head after finding secure footing, so that my friends could then reach it from the river bank and pull it up.

The first item - a rusted Council sign

The first bits of rusty metal were easy enough, though I was immediately coated in orange and green slime. The first excitement came when I found a hollow metal bed frame. I hoisted it up and watery mud poured from the tube ends. But once it was on the bank, a huge eel wriggled out of the tube. My friends managed to flick it back into the river, unharmed, and luckily it just missed my face where I was stood looking up to see what the shrieking was about. The eel swam into a gap between some rocks so I moved on carefully after we checked that the bed head didn't contain any more surprises.

I'd never seen an eel before, let alone a large one, so that was pretty amazing.

I made my way carefully along by the wall. The stones were irregular and slippy with algae, and there were big gaps between them (unknown how deep), so lots of chances of falling or twisting an ankle if I didn't take my time. I eventually reached the bench.

The bench. My original target.

The hollow bench frame was again full of water, with dangerously-rusted sharp edges where it had snapped, and bits coming away. Again, it would have been easy for a few men with basic equipment to pull it up from the bank without needing to go in the water, but I was forced to do it the harder way.

I got it up against the wall but we couldn’t get it any higher. It was just too slippery and heavy. Mmm.

This shows the height of the wall - the bench was about six feet long. I could only just reach the path with my fingertips if I fully stretched my arms up.

One of my helpers ran home to get some rope while I held the bench up.

Then I felt tugging on my feet. And I thought of eels and piranhas and flesh-eating crabs.

I looked down to find that small fish had gathered and were pulling at the skin between the holes in my croc shoes. And, as I stood there, more and more came, and bigger ones, maybe five inches long, all nibbling at my ankles and skin. I tried not to be paranoid and just enjoy the affection, but it was quite creepy at first as they all gathered and nibbled away while I had to stand still.

I was too busy holding the bench to get a close-up so there are no good pics of the bigger fish, but you can see two of the tiddlers that were the first arrivals nibbling my ankle in this photo. Soon there were around a hundred fish there!

Then there was a further challenge as a big spider came down the wall towards me.

I'm scared of spiders, even though I love them as much as any other animal.

I leaned away.

Then it crawled onto the bench I was holding, and headed towards my hands. My grip wobbled. But it wasn't me in trouble. It was the spider, who fell into the water and began to splash away in panic.

One of my helpers held onto the top of the bench so I could pluck a dock leaf and pick it up, overcoming my fear. I passed it up to the helper and took the bench again. The spider was safe, and crawled off into the undergrowth.

My other helper returned. She'd had to cut her washing line because she couldn’t find any rope. Sacrifice. We got it looped around the bench. I had to edge into deeper water to get to the other side, away from the rusted edges (the bench had been in a poor state for years, but not maintained).

Even then, I wasn't sure if we could succeed. I couldn't get enough grip on the slimy wood to lift it. Time for Plan B. Every author has one.

A helper held the bench upright with the washing line. I wedged a stepladder amongst the rocks, climbed carefully up the wall and onto the path, then pulled the ladder up behind me.

Then two of us lay on out bellies and reached down to get hold of the bench. We managed to haul it up the wall and onto the path.

Some of my treasures.

Now everything was out, we moved it off the footpath so it didn't block the way, and carried all the items to my own garden where it wouldn't be a danger to anyone (a bit of a trek, with many breaks!) Along the way I rescued a butterfly from the river by tying leaves to the washing line and dangling it in until the butterfly climbed on and could be hoisted out and put on a flower. The butterfly was grateful.

I’m still surprised we succeeded in getting the bench out without incident.

I then gathered up some rusting Council roadsigns that had been dumped on the grassy bank, and added them to the growing pile.

I was due for a meeting and needed to clean up, so the sensible thing would be to call it a day.

However! I also knew that there was a shopping trolley embedded in a sandy river bank further up. It had been there, uncollected, for so long that it was mostly hidden. Obviously it would present a danger to anyone paddling at that edge of the river in the summer, once it broke down into sharp and rusting edges, hidden under the water's edge.

So, I grabbed a spade and headed to the river bank. I splashed around and dug for ages but we ran out of time and still couldn’t move it, and by then I really had to head off for my meeting (now without time for a shower, only a change of clothes - yuck!)

"Hi ho hi ho it's off etc, we did dig dig dig ... shit, can't sing that, Disney will sue me."

My new art installation

Mr Grumpy Scruffy Bastard, of Scotland

Good news: the Council then collected the river items from my garden very quickly, and said they'd finish digging out the trolley and take it away (the twelfth I've found in rivers during the last few years - ever since supermarkets stopped doing money-deposit locks on trolleys, they've increasingly ended up as a new form of litter). Likewise, I have had positive experiences in liaising with the Community Assets team at the Council (covering Nithsdale) whenever I have reported items that were too big for me to move, or litter areas too expansive for me to clean.

So there you go. The amount of litter increases year on year, in line with the growth of roads and houses and human population. In fact, I dread looking at population counters like this or this - amazing use of statistics tied to something incredibly depressing. Population multiplies every environmental problem. When I was reading about another species going extinct yesterday, I was reminded of how, just as human population clocks increase, the numbers of species going extinct also increases. It's possible that we are now wiping out other species and making them extinct at the rate of about 100,000 species a year (up to 10,000 times higher than the average historical extinction rates). Of course, my actions as an individual count for nothing in the face of that. My achievements, my failures. Irrelevant. But you either sink into despair, or you continue to act and try to do the right thing.

So let's keep acting to preserve the world. It's the only thing that stops me having nightmares of a Britain where every green space is turned into this:

Image by Lukas Drinkwater, (no relation), titled "Garden/prison hell in Newbury". Usually Councils let developers build these, then - without any hint of irony - give the estate names like "Pleasant Field" and "Green Wood" and "Meadow View", even though those were the very things destroyed for the sanitised executive homes. This won't change, because as our population grows, no politicians or party will say anything about the issue, and they all just make manifesto pledges to build more houses.

I'm such a cheery soul. Peace and love.

The bench, back when it was still on the footpath. It was not maintained by the Council when it rusted and broke; if it had been looked after better, it wouldn't have ended up in the river.

Update: 2019-04-26

Today I had a nice letter from Dumfries & Galloway's Community Assets Manager (Nithsdale), thanking me for what my friends and I had done on Riverside Walk. The Council are launching a new initiative called Neighbourhood Champions in mid-May, to "capture some of the wonderful work our residents and communities do are doing to improve the area". I may be interested in taking part, but will also put together a list of people and organisations they might want to include and celebrate, who do good work and have done far more than me including: D&G Eco warriors beach cleans, Incredible Edible Dumfries and the South West Railway Adopters Gardening Group (SWRAGG) (read more about them in my article about train stations); The People's Project (though I was less happy about them being involved in cutting some trees down); the Dumfries lady in an automated wheelchair who picks up litter around the town, and so on. I will have missed out a lot of worthy groups and individuals, but I'm sure people will point out my many omissions. So many people doing good things: it's good to focus on that when we feel


Publication Day For Chasing Solace!

I said Chasing Solace was coming.

It's here! Today is publication day for me!

Paperback to come later.

That is all.


Men of Many Words #6: Karl Drinkwater

On 1st of April I was interviewed on Book Addict Rambles as part of their "Men of Many Words" series. You can read the interview over on their site. I've also included a backup of the interview below.

Another Monday, another Man of many words. This week I’ve got a Q&A with Karl Drinkwater. After my recent step into the sci-fi genre, his books intrigue me!! Especially Lost Solace, you’ll find info about that one at the bottom of the post!


Who are you?

Karl Drinkwater. A serious author (and editor) with a ridiculous name.

How many books have you written?
I think I have seven published (depending on whether anthologies count), with a couple of others due out later this year.

What kind of things do you write?
All sorts! My most recent books have been sci-fi (Lost Solace), with elements of fast-paced thriller and horror. I’ve also written literary/contemporary novels (such as Cold Fusion 2000), and horror/thriller (Turner, Harvest Festival, They Move Below). I vary genres because it should be the story and characters that determine genre, rather than being forced into one. Regardless of genre, I always want to tell a good story with believable and varied characters.

What’s your favourite book out of those you’ve written?
That’s tricky! Often it’s the book I most recently touched. So probably Lost Solace. It’s been really successful, with praise in stacks of reviews (I list some of them on the book’s page), demands for a sequel, and an amazing audiobook from a supremely talented narrator. The sequel, Chasing Solace, is due out soon. That will placate my fans for a while (I hope!), but I have a lot of plans in this area. If the books continue to be so popular I’ll round them off as a trilogy with a third book (I already have the framework laid out); also some spin-off short stories exploring other tales and characters from the Lost Solace world; and an almanac of details about the world – politics, science, organisations etc.

Why’s the response to that book been so good?
The reviews suggest a few things – fast paced, tension, twists – that’s all plot-related stuff. But mainly I think it comes down to the characters. Which is all the more gratifying because I tried a few unconventional things with this book, and one of them was limiting the characters to two, for most of the book’s length. They mostly just talk to each other, yet their changing relationship really seems to grip readers. In fact, in the Jera’s Jamboree list of Best Fiction Books 2018, Lost Solace was awarded “Best Kick-ass Heroine Award”, which made me incredibly proud! See, characters are so important for making a good book.

Can you tell me more about the characters?
I don’t want to give away plot points, but the two characters are Opal and Clarissa. Opal is an ex-soldier, on the run from the military, and risking her life to find something on a creepy and deadly spaceship (I say “something” because one of the other unconventional elements was hiding the main character’s true goal until the end of the book – normally that is made clear at the start, but I like to try out new things and take risks). Clarissa is an amazing artificial intelligence embodied in a top-secret spaceship Opal stole, and at the start of the novel Opal can’t be sure that Clarissa is fully trustworthy and won’t kill her at the first opportunity, especially if Clarissa discovers how she was hacked by Opal. This is one of the underlying tensions of the book.

Were you trained to do writing or have you taught yourself?
Both, I suppose. Studying English and classical literature at university taught me appreciation. Reading books about writing gives advice. Going to courses and classes encourages experimentation and diversity. Conscious reading gives hints on how effects are achieved. Advice from professionals and editors guides you away from common faults. Editing fiction for other authors brings the elements of good writing and stories to the fore, as well as highlighting things to avoid. Being a professional librarian for over twenty-five years immersed me in books and publishing. The rest is practice and accepting that it is not something you’ll ever master, but over time you should improve.

What messages are there in your work?
Firstly, watch out for chainsaw murderers, aliens, and zombies.
Secondly, no man or woman is an island.
Thirdly, without love and affection we become susceptible to depression and hate.
Fourthly, we should all be excellent to each other, to all species, to nature.
They’re in reverse order of importance.

Other plans?
Last year I was working on a few books, but didn’t release anything – I was just so busy! Partly that was editing books for other authors (I’m a bit of a fiction book doctor for authors who I respect), but also I was chairing a jury for the huge international Bram Stoker Awards. It meant a lot of work, for the whole year (all in secret – while you are a judge you can’t let people know). I got a snapshot of a mass of contemporary work for twelve months, which really trained my eye on what the current market is. That’s useful for me and my fiction clients. I’ve judged a few competitions over the years, it is always hard work but rewarding, and is partly tied to my professional membership of groups and organisations such as the Horror Writers Association, and the Alliance of Independent Authors. I like to give something back.

Blurb for Lost Solace:

Website karldrinkwater.uk
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Website Redesign



  • My logo in the header.
  • Social media icons in the header.
  • A more visible search box.

The old website homepage

The new website homepage

The old website - how a page looked

The new website - how a page looks


The Political Corruption Of Language - Europe's Secret War Of Bias

The Greatest Democracy

You know what the greatest democracy is? Guess.

No, not ancient Greece. No, not the US. Not the UK. Not Europe. Not even a country. It’s language. That's right, the most democratic institution in the world is language.

It's the one thing we all have a say in, every day, as we communicate, and as we describe the world. It isn't some fake democracy where we vote every few years from a pathetically-limited number of options, none of which represent our views, and vaguely hope that the strangers we voted for sometimes make choices we might agree with (whilst not being able to do anything about it when they don't). Language is direct democracy.

Language Changes Due To Usage

And language evolves. This happens when enough people make changes to how they communicate and a new consensus forms. We vote with tongues and pens and the majority gains power. It's even fully proportional and inclusive, in that regions and dialects can choose to differ and have their own forms.

This evolution is why full stops are fading away from acronyms. We have an AI, not A.I., BBC not B.B.C. It’s why new words appear, new formations. It's why portmanteaus like chillax pop up. It's why separate words get merged with hyphens, then the hyphens eventually disappear as a form of evolution (electronic mail, e-mail, email). This isn't driven by rule-setters, it is driven by the people.

The meanings of words change too. The word "split" originally referred to a ship breaking up on rocks, but people widened the meaning to refer to anything that broke completely apart. Whereas the word "senile" used to refer to anything related to old age, but people narrowed the definition to refer specifically to those with senile dementia. Even the word "meat" didn't originally refer to animal flesh - it meant any food substance (so plant-based foods were also "meat" - worth bearing in mind as you read on).

In the same way, in primitive times when there weren't alternatives for items, words referred to the only form that was available. Nowadays the meanings have naturally broadened to include all the alternative forms. That's how people use language.

It would be ridiculous to try and use legislation to force words to go back into the primitive past, and over-rule the way people use language. Yet that is exactly what some politicians try to do, spurred on by the vested interests of industries they have connections to.

Politicians With Vested Dairy Interests

I once asked Who Determines What A Word Means? This was triggered by politicians wanting to redefine words to promote industries that were splashing cash around to influence politics (that's what lobbying often seems to be - legitimised bribery). The underlying reasons - to benefit one industry over another - are embarrassingly transparent. It's not surprising people suspect corruption in these cases.

In that case it was politicians with vested interests saying the word "milk" should only apply to one type of milk (dairy milk). And it wasn't just limited to the US. We already had a similar persecution in Europe in 2007, where the EU banned calling soya milk "soya milk" (Council Regulation 1234/2007). That's why it is now labelled "soya drink" on the carton, even though everyone in Europe and the rest of the world calls it soya milk. The words people use are ignored by politicians, as vested interests try and sway things. (The other tactic of dodgy industries is sending propaganda into schools under the guise of "educational materials" to try and brainwash children and legitimise their products: e.g. it has been done by the dairy industry, tobacco and oil industries, etc) It shows how out of touch these biased politicians are, and how dishonest they are in their use of law to interfere with language and people's commercial choices.

Let me drop this in here (and it's worth bearing in mind throughout my article):

"When people who have a duty to act on behalf of others, such as elected officials [...] shape the law to serve the interests of some private parties, a conflict of interest exists. [...] The failure of government officials to serve the public interest as a consequence of lobbying by special interests who provide benefits to the official is an example of agent misdirection." [Source]

Even twelve years after the EU said soya milk couldn't be sold as soya milk, you know what? People still call it soya milk. Because that's what it is. All the EU directive did is create a confusing mismatch between what a thing is, and what the EU allow it to be called. Sounds like 1984 Newspeak to me.

Let's just take a step back, in case any of you aren't sure about the definitions of "milk". The word "milk" not being exclusive to dairy products isn't a new thing: the OED's definition 2 of milk as plant-based is over 600 years old. That's authority.

"Milk" can refer to any white edible liquid. Dairy milk is just one type of milk; plant milk is another. If politicians really want to stick their oars in where they aren't needed or wanted, then instead of banning the terms "soya milk" and "plant milk" they could just say that it's a requirement to always include a prefix to "milk" to clarify the sub-type. So you'd go into a shop and see:

Dairy milk.
Oat milk.
Goat's milk.
Coconut milk.
Soya milk.
Almond milk.
(Outside of a shop we might talk about  human breast milk too, which also isn't from a cow.)

There is no ambiguity with this system. No confusion. No favouritism. No attempt to over-rule how people use language. No hints of shady bribes from vested interests. Just sensible decisions.

Too much to ask, maybe. Unfortunately, Europe has an insidious historic bias in favour of animal agriculture. It gives EU dairy farmers alone more than €970 million in subsidies every year, and runs schemes such as the European School Milk Scheme “to encourage children to consume milk and milk products and develop a lasting habit of doing so.” This shifts more than 27,000 tonnes of dairy products some years, at taxpayer costs of over £8 million.

So it wasn't surprising that this bias happened in Europe again in 2017:

"In 2017 the European court of justice ruled that plant-based products such as soya and tofu should not be sold as milk or butter. It said dairy terms could only be used while marketing designated animal products, after complaints from German competition regulators about the German firm Tofutown’s tofu butter, veggie cheese and rice spray cream products." [Source]

The European court of justice and the politicians are not even consistent: "Cocoa butter, coconut milk and salad cream were exempted under EU law." They openly admit that these terms (milk, butter, cream) are widely used for both dairy and non-dairy products, but the hypocrites are only interested in trying to diminish the profitability of plant sources that compete with the animal industries they favour - the industries that some people believe will pay the biggest bribes. And yet these bodies of politicians and civil servants are meant to support all agriculture (i.e. plant-based agriculture too), not just animal agriculture. There is something very suspicious here.

Yet More Politicians Trying To Over-ride How People Use Language

And it is still happening.

I saw this on The Guardian today: ‘Veggie discs’ to replace veggie burgers in EU crackdown on food labels

In a move that some MEPs suspect bears the fingerprints of the meat industry, the parliament’s agriculture committee this week approved a ban on producers of vegetarian food using nomenclature usually deployed to describe meat.

The protected designations would include steak, sausage, escalope, burger and hamburger, under a revised regulation that passed with 80% approval. The measures will now be voted on by the full parliament after May’s European elections, before being put to member states and the European commission.

The French socialist MEP Éric Andrieu, responsible for overseeing the legislation, said the prohibition was just “common sense” and he appealed to Europeans’ sense of foodie history.

“The meat lobby is not involved in this,” he said. “It has generated a considerable debate among the political groups and a large majority wanted to clarify things. Particularly in the light of history, the history we share, you can have a steak or burger, you can’t call it something else.”

The decision to protect meat-related terms and names “exclusively for edible parts of the animals” was firmly opposed by NGOs such as Greenpeace and Birdlife who insisted it presented a blow against sustainable food."
[...] Under article 17 of regulation (EU) no 1169/2011, names currently used for meat products and meat preparations will be reserved exclusively for products containing meat, MEPs have decided.

"The meat lobby is not involved in this," Éric Andrieu said. "Bollocks," I say. It's so obvious where their preference and protectionism is coming from. These same bodies, that want to redefine language and try to attack plant-based food products, certainly wouldn't intervene if the profits of farmers who grew sprouts or soy beans or potatoes were affected because fewer people wanted to buy them any more. It's just a weird bias for animal products. If you have never heard of the resulting butter mountains and milk lakes, read this. Such extravagant waste, despite all the suffering caused in the creation of those products.

(Aside: note that consumer choice is the other important democracy - when you buy anything, you vote with your wallet. Fewer people are voting for animal products in the modern world, for various compelling reasons.)

If this really isn't something coming from the meat lobby (which sounds like a disgusting part of a hotel in a horror novel) then why aren't they also targeting products like "fish fingers" and "fish cakes"? By their same argument, "fish cakes are not cakes so should be renamed as fish discs". Which shows how hypocritical some of these MEPs are. 

You know what this is like? If some company that still made old dial telephones started lobbying politicians and throwing money around to persuade them that they should pass legislation so that their competitors who made popular smartphones couldn't call them "phones" because they don't have dials and plug into a phone line. If that happened we'd all know who was in the pocket, or deranged.

The Worst Kind Of European Reputation

The thing that pisses me off most about this is that, at a time when so many of us are fighting to stay in Europe (because there are a lot of good things about it), we have European politicians pushing bizarre anti-consumer, pro-animal agriculture laws from motivations that look either corrupt, stupid, or out-of-touch. Possibly all three. These people cast Europe into disrepute and are responsible for providing the fuel for every pro-Brexit paranoiac.

I suspect it is part of the reason why the UKs Brexit is such a mismanaged clusterfuck. The options were "stay in Europe" and "leave Europe", as if it is a black and white issue. The world isn't like that. People aren't like that. What we have is greys, mixtures of good and bad. I voted to Remain, but really I'd have liked an option "Remain, but work harder to reform the bad stuff." That bad stuff would include Europe's historical pro-dairy, pro-animal-agriculture attitudes that are a relic of the past, knee-jerk responses to a post-war period that is long gone, but where the protectionism has become part of the culture and remains long after it has become outdated.

And here we are, at a critical time, when I'm hoping the current UK's mood (which has shifted overall to Remain after people saw what a disaster Brexit would be) will lead to Britain cancelling Brexit and staying in the EU ... and yet we have irresponsible politicians in the EU playing games with language for their "special friends" and pulling anti-democratic, anti-consumer, pro-big-business shady shit like this. Those politicians and bodies should be ashamed of their role.

They are out of touch with the fastest-growing food trends to move away from animal products to healthier plant-based options. (If you wonder about that - there are many recent scientific recommendations for people to adopt a predominantly plant-based diet for a sustainable future and good health.) This is the response of industries running scared from the rise in veganism, leading to reactionary and outdated defensive protectionism. The response from these pro-meat politicians doesn't even make sense. Do they really think that by messing with names the end result will be vegans or vegetarians who get confused and buy a beef burger rather than a nut burger? This is not going to boost sales for a flagging industry that puts profit above compassion.

I am very angry today. Let's be clear - I'm not arguing about what should or shouldn't be sold. Only that politicians shouldn't try to redefine words to favour particular industries that they may or may not have shady connections with.

Back To Basics - Definitions

I already covered milk earlier. In short: there are many types of milk, both plant based and animal based. It's the same with cheese, yoghurt, and any other product that has both dairy and non-dairy options. Dairy cheese and non-dairy cheese. Soy yoghurt and cow's milk yoghurt. Cocoa butter, dairy butter, soya butter and peanut butter. There's no confusion when we give the complete combination of noun plus source.

Other foods are no different.

A sausage isn't defined by its ingredients. A pile of pork is not a sausage. A round patty of mincemeat is not a sausage. A sausage is defined by its appearance - shape and consistency (which can also include colour, smell, taste). It has to be an elongated edible food formed from a mushy substance, possibly with the addition of herbs and spices. Then the sub-type is governed by the main ingredients.
A sausage could be a pork sausage. It could be a vegetable sausage.

Same with burgers. It could be a beef burger. A mushroom burger. A lentil burger. A nut burger. A tofu burger. A seitan burger.

(Fuck it, if they really cared about making it clear where things came from, beef burgers would be labelled as cow burgers; pork sausages as pig sausages. But they don't really care about accuracy or clarity, they care about protecting the interests of certain industries.)

Agriculture and Rural Development Committee [AGRI]

So, who is responsible for trying to pass this pro-meat industry legislation? The Agriculture and Rural Development [AGRI]. You can find the members of the AGRI committee here. Based on this vote, 80% of them seem to be anti-vegetarian/vegan/plant-based foods, and pro-meat industry (for whatever reason: whether bias, ignorance, corruption, or something else).

I have contacted every member of that committee which was easily contactable (e.g. Michel Dantin's email address was "undeliverable"), and may later add a summary of which ones replied and what they said.


We live in a world of pluralities. There are alternatives. We all know them. Only outdated or corrupt politicians would deny this, and try to change the meaning of words to benefit their hidden agendas. Our representatives should not be making rules to benefit vested interests. Yet that is what we are seeing. And that corrupt shit needs to be challenged.

These proposals are part of an ongoing process of trying to use law to control language, that ultimate democratic thing determined by usage. They are trying to overturn the billions of votes to use language a certain way and force through their own narrow agendas. That’s as anti-democratic as it could possibly be. This secret war of redefinition and favouritism, which looks like the worst kind of corruption and abuse of power, has to stop.

Words gain definitions through how the mass of people use them, and definitions change all the time. You either live in your current culture, or cling in panic to some imaginary past like a panicked Brexiteer. Unfortunately, incomprehensibly, and paradoxically, that’s how a small part of the European Government is acting, and has been acting for many years.

Moving Forward

I'll be contacting various MEPs and NGOs about this, and including any relevant responses in the form of updates. Hopefully this shitty proposed legislation will be overturned at the plenary session and then during negotiations between Parliament and Council.

Still, there are a number of questions.
  • How did each of the members of the Agriculture and Rural Development [AGRI] vote? Who were the 80% who voted for this nonsense?
  • Where is the list of the vested interests of those 80%? What contacts and friends and acquaintances do they have in the meat and dairy industries? What payments have they or their parties received from industry lobbyists? How could they be investigated for potential bias and corruption?
  • How can these dodgy pieces of legislation be permanently overturned? That includes Council Regulation 1234/2007; the 2017 European court of justice ruling that plant-based products such as soya and tofu should not be sold as milk or butter; and article 17 of regulation (EU) no 1169/2011.
  • How can the EU be encouraged to make an overarching statement that acknowledges what the words actually mean to European citizens and the rest of the world? The EU needs to accept that milk, cheese, yoghurt, burgers, sausages, whatever, exist in multiple forms, multiple ingredients, both animal and plant-based. They should show no favouritism. If any definitions are required, make it an onus on all products, animal and plant based, to include the derivation, as I have delineated above. Dairy milk and soya milk. Beef burger and lentil burger. Pork sausage and vegetable sausage. That would be clear for consumers, match how language is actually used, be unambiguous, exclude bias, permit no vested interests, and allow no potential for corruption.
  • European agricultural policy should be aimed at organic plant-based foods. They should be anti-GMO, and push for foods grown as naturally and seasonally as possible, limiting food miles, removing unnecessary packaging and waste etc. That would be a direction for the future that Europe could be proud of. Not this cringeworthy protectionism, transparently influenced by big money fears from industries resistant to change. The politicians should realise that we are heading towards a more compassionate, democratic, sustainable, and caring future. Attempting to apply punitive measures to stop that is just an example of pettiness.

Update: 2019-04-09 MEP replies

I contacted my six MEPs, replies as follows:
  • Ian Hudghton [Scottish National Party]: No reply.
  • David Martin [Labour Party]: No reply.
  • Nosheena Mobarik [Conservative Party]: No reply.
  • Alyn Smith [Scottish National Party]: No reply.
  • Catherine Stihler [Labour Party]: Auto reply: "Catherine will no longer be a Member of the European Parliament from the 31st January 2019 and consequently her office will be permanently closed from this date."
  • David Coburn [The Brexit Party]: No reply.
On the plus side, I received a useful and supportive reply from Molly Scott Cato MEP (Green Party). It's a shame we don't have more Green Party politicians - which comes down to how we vote in elections.

Update: 2019-04-25 MEP replies

I haven't had a reply from any of my six MEPs. I also contacted every one of the members of the AGRI committee. Only one of them replied: Thomas Waitz MEP (Greens/EFA).

I think that is some proof that, apart from the two Greens who did reply and vote against this ridiculous policy, the rest of this group of MEPs cares nothing about democracy and representation, they are just following their own suspicious agendas.

I have contacted them all a second time. I'll follow that up with formal complaints about non-response.

Please don't vote for any of the MEPs or committee members who did not reply if they stand for re-election. They are a waste of space.

Update: 2019-04-26 MEP replies

Thomas Waitz MEP (Greens/EFA) replied. So that is two replies from Greens, none from any other parties. The Greens also told me they voted against this daft proposal, which is good news. They seem to be the only party which is trustworthy. Here is the bulk of the email from Thomas Waitz, which has useful background information:

Legislation: Proposal amending the CMO Regulation establishing the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products 1308/2013 (as well as amending the regulations on quality schemes and regulations on specific measures for certain regions). One of three files in the CAP package.

Background: In negotiations on the CMO, a French S&D amendment 667, later worked into Compromise Amendment 41, proposes that certain traditionally meat-related terms (steak, sausage, etc) should only be used for products containing meat, and excludes any vegetarian or vegan versions. A similar amendment was proposed in France in April 2018 (by a LREM deputy and cattle farmer), but did not yet become law. (See article for background.)
There is also similar case law from ECJ ruling of 14 June 2017, Verband Sozialer Wettbewerb eV v TofuTown.com GmbH, stating that certain terms are reserved for animal products, and are not to be used for purely plant-based products. For example, almond ‘milk’ and soy ‘milk’ is not real milk, as it is not from an animal, and is not to be labelled as such. Taking the precedent of this ruling, the same logic is extended to meat.

Problematic text: The controversial text can be found within Compromise 41, which covered all changes made to the annexes of the CMO. This compromise therefore includes other amendments on categorisations/definitions, eg definitions of apiculture products, and age of lamb. See page 2 for the text concerning meat-only terms.

Media: The issue appeared in Swedish, Danish, Irish, Austrian, UK news. Certain media reported it as a “labelling regulation”, which it is not. The CMO concerns far more than labelling, as it includes market monitoring, crisis prevention, public intervention, contractual relations, regulation of supply for certain products (notably wine and PDO/PGI products), application of competition rules in agriculture, rules on how producers can organise themselves and their activities. Labelling and marketing standards are only a part of this file. Further, other regulations are more central for the issue of labelling for consumers - such as Food Information to Consumers Reg 1169/2011

Green position on the Compromise 41: We voted against. Final result 25-5-6.
We voted against this compromise 41 on Annexes, mainly because of this unnecessary restriction on vegetarian/ vegan/plant protein products.
Whilst we are in favour of clear consumer information, we did not hear from consumer organisations that this is a significant issue, or indeed a helpful change in labelling.
Whilst we support clear and sufficient labelling (for all consumers, vegetarians, vegans and meat-eaters alike), it appears that consumers searching for a meat product do not have difficulty in doing so. More important for Greens is the possibility to label animal feeding and animal welfare practices, which is now a possibility thanks to the Compromise Amendment 11. This enables the Commission to adopt delegated acts to set marketing standards, including marketing standards related to feeding and welfare.

Next steps: Decision on (potential) further amendment of the CMO will be taken in the new mandate (changes possible at Committee level and/or plenary level.) The prospect of meat-only terms may seem unnecessary, but given the ECJ ruling on animal product terminology, it is not impossible that other MEPs (in AGRI/in plenary) follow the precedent and keep this text in.

I would like to underline that we share your position and that I voted against Compromise 41. I hope that this information is helpful for you. The only thing which can be done meanwhile is to put pressure on MEPs from other groups.
That summarises many of the mistakes these groups are making in Europe, including the ECJ court cases which are completely wrong and biased in their conclusions.

Milk is not exclusively a word for dairy milk any more: it is any white liquid culinary ingredient. Oat milk, coconut milk, soya milk, nut milk, dairy milk, and so on are all are types of milk equally.

Likewise a burger or sausage is not a term only applied to meat products any more. Meat varieties are just one type. You can have a nut burger, a ham burger, a tofu burger, a beef burger, a lentil burger. They are all burgers.

These attempts to change what words mean nowadays - in order to prioritise some industries that are losing popularity to more ethical, modern and growing varieties - is as corrupt and incorrect as it looks. All these decisions need to be overturned, starting with the earliest precedents to do with misunderstanding that plant milks are as much milks as dairy milks. Those early  judgements, are now leading to further classification errors using the original mistaken decisions as an excuse. They need to take a step back and correct the original errors.

Update: 2019-05-16 Another MEP replies

David Martin MEP (Labour) replied:

Thank you for your email. The work of the European Parliament is firstly discussed and voted on in various committees. When proposed legislation is agreed by a committee, it is then put to the full Parliament for approval.

On the 1st of April there was a vote in the European Parliament´s Agricultural Committee, which I am not a member of, on the somewhat controversial issue of the language that can be used to describe vegetarian and vegan products.  The vote, which was passed, supported the idea that we should move away from using terms and descriptions historically used to describe meat products or products containing meat e.g. burger and sausage to describe vegetarian and vegan products. On balance the majority of MEPs in this committee felt this was a sensible approach which on the one hand helps the meat industry to define its products clearly and on the other hand helped promote the argument that vegetarian and vegan foods are valid in their one right and don't need to 'piggy-back' on terms traditionally used to describe meat products. However the backlash that followed the vote on the Common Market Organisation Regulation (CMO) on the 1st of April was a clear message of discontent from citizens' organisations, green NGOs etc.

The fact that, according to the CMO Regulation, even the word 'substitute' won't be allowed in descriptions for vegan or vegetarian products is not ideal. The concept of 'cheesiness' or 'milkiness' has been broad for many years and that some businesses established their customer base on this.

Labour MEPs on the whole however do not feel that this will have a negative impact on consumers opting for vegan or vegetarian products. For many people these products aren't just a substitute for meat and dairy. It is a lifestyle, an important choice and a huge change in their diet, and it's irrespective of the name vegan and vegetarian products bear. 

A few things here concern me.


But that is at the expense of the non-meat industry having their options reduced and language twisted away from how it is actually used by Europeans (as discussed above).


Vegan foods are valid foods, but “sausage”, “burger” etc no longer exclusively describe meat products, and haven’t for a long time, which is why the proposal makes no sense to consumers.


The problem is that the Labour Party is not made up of vegans and vegetarians, and – as this comment shows – have failed to understand the reality.

Some vegetarians and vegans avoid any products that resemble meat, and favour other cuisines. However, just as many (if not more) do like/make/buy products that resemble meat in terms of taste or texture (whilst avoiding the cruelty/ethical issues). A disservice is being done to the latter category if this proposal goes ahead. It is false to choose one subset of a group and then claim that their preferences represent the whole.

Also, some people go vegan for health reasons, nothing to do with cuisines or ethics. For them it is very much a healthier substitute for meat e.g. Bill Clinton said:


These people want things that resemble meat but are healthier. They like being able to have the flavours and textures they are used to, and not feeling any social stigma. Saying that these products can’t be called what they are (they are vegan/vegetarian sausages and burgers) would have repercussions on the health of these people.

Milk is the same. There is soya milk, oat milk, goat’s milk, cow’s milk, coconut milk, human milk. They are all equally milks. The misguided refusal to acknowledge that fact by those who voted to try and misapply the term to only certain milks (categories which include coconut milk, showing what a selective nonsense it is) has led to the ridiculous situation that everyone calls soya milk “soya milk”, but it can’t have its proper name on the carton because of EU rules set in place by politicians with dairy interests.

As far as I can tell, only the Green Party voted against this proposal, so are the only ones protecting the rights of vegetarians and vegans, and the food producers who supply them.


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