Why Mental Health representation in SFFH matters This entry was posted in Blog on Maby Penny Jones.Trigger Warning: This article addresses mental health. On the plus side a quick rejection does mean that you can get that story ready to be submitted once again. For me that waiting is the hardest bit of the writing process, though that rejection smarts when it pings into your inbox (I scored bonus points last year for shortest time before a rejection when a short story was rejected in 2 minutes). Of the remaining stories (and some that I completed in 2019) I submitted them 25 times: I have so far received 17 rejections (In addition to my own I also received two for someone called Jenny, please give her my condolences, and one for a completely different author who had subbed to the same anthology), 3 acceptances, 1 invite that is still pending final acceptance, and there are still 4 open submissions I am waiting to hear back from. The novella Matryoshka I am happy to say is being published by Hersham Horror on April 21st, and the poem was published as part of the Sinister Horror company’s Christmas Advent Calender. In 2020 I managed to write a novella, 10 short stories and a poem. Last year I was thrilled to be nominated for the BFS 2020 Best Newcomer Award for my collection Suffer Little Children, and also to have my short story Dendrochronolgy nominated for Best Short Story, and although I didn’t win, I was awarded this wonderful “Making up Words with Friends” trophy for my prowess at on-line scrabble by my fellow nominee (and dual award winner) Laura Mauro. It has been an odd 12 months (for everyone and everything, not just for my writing), there have been both highs and lows in my writing since I last up dated my website. Haunted Houses – Spooksville at Adventure Island, Southend-on-sea This entry was posted in Blog and tagged ghost train, Haunted House, scare maze, tivoli gardens, villa vendetta on Januby Penny Jones. Now I love and hate a scare maze in equal measure, but there is definite safety in numbers, so I grabbed not only my husband, but also Priya Sharma and Mark Greenwood to join me on our journey round the haunted stately villa that presides over TIvoli.Ī good balanced scare maze, it didn’t terrify me so much that I couldn’t enjoy it (though the video of the people who went in after us showed them collapsing to the floor in terror at the first jump scare ?) but it was definitely unnerving enough to make you avoid any of the “ghosts” potential hiding places. Opened in March 2021, Villa Vendetta is a scare maze attraction, it contains 12 different haunted rooms with scare actors hiding along its 150 meter route, that winds its way through the 800 square meter building. Villa Vendetta is Tivoli Garden’s newest attraction.

Matryoshka by Penny Jones