Scott Tullis / Gary Couzens

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SCOTT TULLIS

The Death Knell (Nemo 4)
The Hills Are Alive (nemo 5)

In the scant few years since my two appearances in Nemonymous (I'm a relative newbie, having appeared at the tail end of the burgeoning Neumonemon) I've written mucho but published zippo. No excuses, really, other than the fact that I got married, bought a house, and am currently in the process of renovating portions of it (the house, not the marriage). I have a piece of fiction due out around the end of the year from Ash Tree Press, but let's face it: who doesn't? Am I right? Huh, kids? Upon publication of that piece I intend to begin shopping around my first short story collection, which I hope to name after one of my two Nemonymous contributions.

What difference has appearing in Nemonymous made? A huge personal one, considering that I've been an enormous fan of DF Lewis ever since reading "My Giddy Aunt" in a beat-up paperback copy of Year's Best Horror Stories many moons ago in a local used book store in Indianapolis, Indiana. Now that's one mighty tentacle across the Atlantic! The mind numbs. Since that day I set about collecting everything of his I could find, which was next to impossible, considering that the bulk of his output existed only in the UK small press (and this was in the days before
widespread personal computing, when the Net was still a fledgling, squishy little thing). But, I was resourceful, and persistent, and after spending many hundreds of dollars in shipping costs, I soon had a vast quantity of small press publications with which to fill my closet. It was like, heaven in a closet or something.

And then DF Lewis decides to publish everything he's ever written on the Internet for free. So there you go.

Des' note: Sorry, Scott! Still, I shall probably be deleting all the blogs before long - as a happening!

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GARY COUZENS

"A Smile in the Sky" (Nemonymous #1)
It's always an honour to have the opening story in the first issue of any magazine, let alone one as well presented as Nemonymous and with as consistently high a quality of fiction contained in its pages. I can't pretend that "A Smile in the Sky" is at all typical of my work - at 900 words it's the shortest story I've ever had published, shorter even than my contribution to the Thackery Lambshead Disease Guide anthology.

I'd like to be upbeat and say that my writing has gone from strength to strength since "Smile" appeared in 2001, but that wouldn't be true. I think I'm certainly writing better than before - well, anyone would, as all writers worth their salt are still learning until the day they stop. However, productivity has been hit; add the fact that certain stories that have originated in the 20th century ("Smile" among them) have finally found homes in the 21st, and the number of stories available to send out is countable on one hand - until I write some more! This is partly due to other interests, such as being the Chairman of the British Fantasy Society for three years, and the Awards Administrator for four. I've also written a large number of DVD, film and book reviews for various venues. But no excuses.

However, I'm nearing the end of the first draft of the first novel-length work I've completed since 1992 (and the first story since 1994 over 20,000 words). I was proud to have a short-story collection published in 2003 by Elastic Press that was well received, and I've just completed editing an anthology for the same publisher, Extended Play: The Elastic Book of Music, which is due to be published in November.

So I'm still active, and I do intend to write more. Part of this is due to passing the "landmark" age of 40 and deciding what's important and what's less so. So let's draw a line over the last half-decade and move on.

I still live in Aldershot and work for a major telecommunications company. When relaxing, I'm teaching myself to play the bass guitar.

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