When Bill and Liz Rich moved into an isolated farmhouse, it already had a reputation locally for being haunted. What they found there was far, far worse than their wildest imaginings…and it threatened their sanity and ultimately their lives.

And on top of all the writing and the endless, endless meetings, I do various talks, lectures, and signings here and there. The next one is a screenwriting workshop at the Derby Book Festival Writers’ Day. A film script is a palate-cleanser after a novel, and vice versa. Journalism and comics and TV all have their particular joys, and they all complement each other. In the multi-media, cross-platform, constantly mutating 21st century, why would any writer want to limit their storytelling to only one area? After reading Testimony, do I believe that Riches experienced a haunting? I still honestly don’t know. The sceptical part of my brain falls firmly into the camp that just because there isn’t a scientific explanation we shouldn’t automatically afford events a supernatural explanation. But there is still also that niggling shadow of doubt. Do I believe that The Riches believe they experienced a haunting? Absolutely. I’ve tried to remain open-minded about supernatural events and it strikes me that in documenting this account Mark Chadbourn does too. The details of Bill, Liz and their shared experiences are presented without embellishment. I never felt that as a reader I was being pushed in any particular direction regarding what I should think or feel about what was going on. I’d be genuinely surprised if anyone finished this and discovered all their questions had been answered. This is the sort of book that is going to leave you thinking.

Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast’ (in The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, edited by George Mann, Solaris; also in Year’s Best Fantasy 8, edited by David G Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer, Tachyon) Some complain about the ending. I think it’s perfect for a series that is a drama about people. It’s all a matter of perception, which is one of the themes The Haunting of Hill House plays with so effectively. I want to tell you a true story. About ghosts, and things more terrifying than ghosts. I‘m a journalist, fully rooted in the real world. I write about foreign affairs and politics, economics, the arts, science, health, archaeology. Reality and evidence-based. Remember that.

Occasionally, just to keep things interesting, I like to throw a bit of non-fiction into my reading mix. As far as horror fiction is concerned haunted house stories have always been a bit of a favourite of mine so the thought of reading non-fiction that details a genuine haunting seemed like a good fit.It includes plenty of people who won’t make it into the podcast because they’ve subsequently died or disappeared. What is The Haunting of Hill House about? Not ghosts, not really. They sweep by on the surface, terrifying and driving the plot, but it’s what they really mean that is truly horrifying. All of it contributed to the art that he laboured over all his life, all of it, in some way, haunted. In the book I wrote about the works he completed during the frightening events that swirled around him in his home, Heol Fanog, and which were influenced by the horrors there. But Bill, who died two years ago, also left a body of work from the years before and after that troubled time. One of his surreal paintings heads this piece. A dozen people of varying degrees of credulity, differing ages, sex and religious persuasion are convinced something beyond the bounds of reason happened at Heol Fanog between November 1989 and June 1995. Something supernatural. Something Evil.

Hellboy is expected to find the Kiss of Winter that will prevent a takeover of the world by these wolves. In this race against time, Hellboy is drawn to Beacon Hill in Boston. The Grant Mansion in Beacon Hill is said to be haunted and the most obvious place to find the truth. As Hellboy is working to uncover the truth, the author also introduces the reader to Brad Lynch. Lynch worked as a journalist, and after witnessing horrible events in Iraq, he was diagnosed with PTSD. It did not help that he did not have a great relationship with his father. The blend of dark fantasy and family dynamics turned this into an outstanding piece.A story not just of the supernatural, but of raw human emotions as ordinary people struggled to cope in the face of madness. Of how lives can be unbalanced by the real world and those who claim to be spiritual saviours. And I was angered by how these two people could be treated by the arrogance of those who refused to believe – called liars or fools because they dared to talk about an experience at odds with the scientific rationale. All across the USA, people are showing up dead. The deaths don't appear to be connected in any way until one particular death occurs and gets the Secretary of Defense's attention. He arranges for a task force to investigate. Born in the English Midlands from a long line of coal miners. [3] he gained a degree in Economic History [1] and went on to become a journalist, working for some of Britain's leading newspapers and magazines including The Times, [3] The Independent, and Marie Claire. [2] Six of his novels have been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award for Best Novel, and he has won the British Fantasy Award twice, for his novella The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke (2003), and for his short story "Whisper Lane" (2007). [5]

What you are about to read is not fiction. It is fact. Then again, we are told there are no facts – just different perspectives of the same view, subjective, coloured by personal beliefs, doubts, fears. Yet when two of those perspectives are aligned, we start to get closer to the heart of the matter. When three, four or five are in tune we can be pretty sure we have got as close as we can to the truth of an event. But at its heart, Testimony is a human story, about two people who found themselves at the heart of something they couldn’t explain, trapped in a place they no longer wanted to be, and preyed upon by those allegedly offering help. Bill’s dream would have been that his work could at last be appreciated and understood. I know he would have been overjoyed to see his art work reaching a wider audience.”An old house in mid-Wales seemed like a haven to Liz and Bill Rich. But within weeks of their arrival, inexplained happenings turned their enchantment to horror. This is their story - the true story of an experience that has defied all explanation. But then, if you’re a writer, why wouldn’t you? Story telling is the same all over. Once you’ve mastered the new skill-set for a new medium, you’re drawing on the same natural ability wherever you’re employed: your ideas. When the artist Bill Rich and his wife Liz moved into Heol Fanog with their young family it was supposed to be an idyllic hideaway. Within weeks they were afflicted by a series of inexplicable events, including a massive power drain that took their electricity bills to industrial levels.