Amongst my students at Clarion South 07, there were a couple of real stand outs. Jason Fischer, who I talk about regularly on this blog, was one. Peter M Ball was another.
When it was mentioned to him that I loathe stories about unicorns, he set out to write one that even I couldn't object to. The result was a stomach-churning mix of detective noir, gross supernatural sex, maggots and blood. Frankly, I loved it. It was an utter hoot.
Peter went on to publish equally disturbing and wonderful stories, such as The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga in Dreaming Again, and On The Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves in Fantasy Magazine. It was all going so well for him.
And then Twelfth Planet Press announced this week that they had bought a story from him for their new novella line: an expanded version of that unicorn story he had presented to us back in January of 07. Peter even announced that it would see light in the latter half of 2009. And that was why I had to hunt him down and kill him, your honour. Because I couldn't stand the poor fellw being known as Unicorn Boy his whole life. Because he was such a talented guy, and the readers of this blog, having already seen his above-mentioned work, would go out and buy the novella, and he'd never be able to dress in a fairy costume in public again....
It was a mercy killing.
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