'The Sinners of Crowsmere' - Shameless Self-Promotion Time!

A couple of days ago I published a short novel via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing service. As a former bookseller I will always choose the beauty and sensuality of a physical book if given the chance: however, I do like the potential ebook publishing offers. Arty chapbooks aside, literature doesn't quite have its equivalent of the DIY culture of music and film: self-published works produced by dodgy vanity press companies often feel and look cheap and nasty. There's rarely the thrill of looking through the undiscovered: something I have actually experienced whilst browsing through listings of ebooks online. The market is still dominated by established authors and established publishing houses, and I can't see that changing any time soon, but it's cool to have the possibility of having mad, bizarre, original content up there in easy reach.



My book is called 'The Sinners of Crowsmere.' It's trim - about 13300 words - and I include about a dozen photographs, some from EastScapes and re-edited, some seeing the light for the first time. The blurb reads thus:

"A man is released from prison and returns to his coastal home town. Broken figures inhabit a decaying landscape. Curses and crows haunt the air.

As influenced by the transgressive writings of Dennis Cooper and Derek McCormack as the East Anglian ghost stories of M R James, The Sinners of Crowsmere is a bleakly skeletal novel about erosion, misogyny, folklore, old photographs, and half-remembered films."

The book's relationship to EastScapes is actually fairly strong - it started life as me attempting to put my photography into words, and sort of remained that way. As a reader, I'm not terribly interested in page-turning thrillers with complex plot and character interactions: I prefer things that are stranger, follow their own pace, wander off the track into the wilderness, sometimes returning, sometimes not. If this sounds like a preemptive defense of any criticism, well, I guess it kind of is - but it's also true. Authors I have found massively inspirational include the likes of Dennis Cooper, Derek McCormack, and Harmony Korine - all of whom dance to the beat of their own drum, and all of whom have crafted beautiful pieces of writings that at times seem so spare and slight they could at any moment fade into the nothingness.

'The Sinners of Crowsmere' is also, of course, about the East Anglian landscape, my usual obsessions all correct and present - coastal erosion, darkness beneath the surface of the landscape, M R Jamesian folklore, broken things. Its subtitle is 'A Fractured Novella,' and that's how I like to think of it: broken, oddly-shaped, a bit freaky. Hopefully like some of the images I stick up here.

'The Sinners of Crowsmere' can be seen here:

Buy The Sinners of Crowsmere here

Christmas in Doggerland

Another couple of images lurking on my hard drive, from (I think) January 2011. It was certainly into a new year. Have always quite liked the image of discarded (natural) Christmas trees following the festive season. They make the unremitting misery of January feel even more bleak. This tree, dumped in the wash on the beach just outside West Runton, also ties into my neverending fascination with the decaying coast.

Coastal Defences: Cromer, Warren Woods

Another 1940s World War 2 pillbox, this time in a small patch of woodland off the coastal path near the lighthouse.

Out of Season: Kiddieland Hi-Slide

On the seafront, close to the pier. Rain was looming.

The Buses Don't Stop Here Anymore

The disused Cromer bus station, closed in 2006. The site owners, Ortona, have been unsuccessfully attempting since then to gain planning permission for a shop and flats on the property.

The closure has left Cromer - with bus links to Norwich, Holt, Hunstanton, and others - without a proper bus station, with many of the roadside bus-stops only adding to the traffic congestion.

Out of Season: Amusement Arcades

The quiet, early-morning amusement arcades near Cromer's seafront. I always find the shabby spectre of a seaside aracde - even at the height of summer - strangely sad. They seem to always smell of cigarette smoke, even though, of course, this is something long past.

Revenge of the Cromer Crab

Cromer's most famous export is the Cromer Crab. Here a giant specimen was spotted crashing through the wall of a local Budgen's carpark. Guy N. Smith did warn us, after all.

The Cromer Tunnel

Remnants of the long-defunct Cromer Beach - Mundesley railway line, running beneath the (also long gone) Cromer High - Norwich line. The railway services, as well as the writings of Clement Scott, are often attributed as the reason for Cromer's increasing popularity as a holiday resort during the nineteenth century. Nowadays Cromer is served only by the Bittern Line service, which runs from Norwich to Sheringham.

This is the only remaining former railway tunnel in Norfolk, and surrounded by overgrown and litter-strewn embankments.