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Taverns of the Dead
21 March 2006
This morning, I have mostly been collecting things. I have collected myself, and restored me to the proper centre of my life, this desk and all that that implies. I have collected prescriptions, which will make me well (see what a touching faith I have?); I have collected Barry, who will make me happy (he is well and heavy and full of bounce, utterly incapable of settling anywhere until he has re-examined every corner of the house and made it all his own again); I have collected a parcel from the post office, which turns out to be the author’s copy of a book I've been waiting for.
The book is Taverns of the Dead (pub Cemetery Dance, ed Kealan Patrick Burke), and I do seem to have been waiting for it for a very long time. I cannot remember a book ever taking quite so long to appear; my story I wrote, what, four years ago? And sent it the day I wrote it, which was New Year's Eve, and went to a party, and came home to find an acceptance in my inbox already, which was fab. And faster than ever heard of, but obviously not to be regarded as a precedent at all, because it has taken from then till now to achieve book-shape.
Still, it is here now, and it's a lovely-looking thing, with some fine names in it. A privilege to share their pages... (And my story is set entirely in the Bodega, which is my pub-of-choice, as it is the pub-of-choice for many regulars, some of whom are even in the story, and chances are that they will never ever know...)
© Chaz Brenchley 2006
Reproduced here by permission of Chaz Brenchley, who asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.