GG Authors 5 Sherlockian Questions - Christopher Sequeira

Christopher Sequeira

Story: His Last Arrow

1) When did you first encounter Sherlock Holmes?

Probably at about 8 to 10 years of age, via the Rathbone Holmes movies being re-run once a week on TV in Sydney when I was a child.

2) Do you have a favourite story from the canon?

I have more than one favourite! HOUN is great, but from a social justice point of view, and being the son of a (white) Irish-Australian and a very brown Indian-Australian, The Yellow Face is a remarkable effort that means a lot to me.

3) Are you active in any Sherlockian societies?

You bet! Australia's premier one, The Sydney Passengers! Twenty-five or so years of membership, I think.

4) Are you involved with any other Sherlock Holmes projects?

You get a scoop -

http://www.blackhousecomics.com/

Will be doing a Holmes comic that I will be writing, Tim McEwen and Phil Cornell will be drawing, whilst Academy Award Nominee Dave Elsey does covers and story and design elements!

5) Any other of your projects you’d like to tell our readers about?

The Black House project grew out of a screenplay Dave E and I are working on intermittently. Forget Guy Ritchie! Our stuff is something fresh yet totally respectful of Doyle by two blokes who KNOW the material, not some upstarts (OK, just joking - I wish Mr Ritchie the best of luck. In fact, if he really wants luck, tell him to email me so he can have a good script).

Also, you might enjoy my blog:-

http://comicbookwriter.blogspot.com/

GG Authors 5 Sherlockian Questions - J. R. Campbell

J. R. Campbell (Co-editor)

Story: The Entwined

1) When did you first encounter Sherlock Holmes?

I remember my Grandmother asking, when I was quite young, who my favorite detective was. My answer, (Coloumbo), won me an approving nod. Growing up everyone in the family was expected to have a favourite detective, I didn't think anything of it. Sherlock Holmes was always there, a familiar figure, and I do remember reading a story or two as a schoolboy. It wasn't until I'd read the stories as an adult that Sherlock earned topdetective ranking. At the time I was very keen on reading short stories and it was in that format that I truly discovered Holmes. Not to take anything away from the novels but it's in the short stories that Holmes really comes to life. Found myself fascinated by Holmes' eccentric nature and the way he evolved over the course of the stories. Holmes doesn't just evolve in Doyle's writing but throughout pop culture as well, making Sherlock just too fascinating a character to pass up.

2) Do you have a favorite story from the canon?

'Silver Blaze'. I love the quote about 'the incident of the dog in the night'. Impressed when the mystery was solved not by a clue but by the absence of a clue. Holmes in this tale isn't a terribly upright citizen, waiting until after he's cashed in a bet before bringing the guilty parties to justice. For some reason that appeals to me.

3) Are you active in any Sherlockian societies?

Sadly no, although the good folk at the Singular Society of the Baker Street Dozen here in Calgary very kindly allow me to tag along to some of their functions.

4) Are you involved with any other Sherlock Holmes projects?

This is the third Sherlock Holmes anthology I've co-edited with Charles, each of which has been great fun.Whenever an opportunity arises allowing me to take up a pen and write for Holmes and Watson I'm quite willing to do so. As well as contributing stories I've had the good fortune of working with the talented folk at Imagination Theater contributing to their radio drama 'The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'. It's great fun to hear the Great Detective speak your words.

5) Any other of your projects you’d like to tell our readers about?

Well, I'm always writing and have been lucky enough to have stories turning up in anthologies and magazines now and again. I work mostly in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres but whenever a murder clever enough, or a thought scary enough, enters the imagination I've been known to cross the genre boundaries. Among other places, I've been published in Challenging Destiny , Spinetingler Magazine and in the forthcoming anthology Fantasical Visions IV . Imagination Theater looses me on the airwaves now and again, broadcasting my Holmesian and non-Holmesian work with reckless abandon. Enjoy putting together anthologies so you may tumble across my name there. Would love to do another Sherlock Holmes anthology, something in Science Fiction or Horror sounds like great fun.

Gaslight Grimoire Advance Review in The Harrow

Dru Pagliassotti has reviewed Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes in "The Harrow: Original Works of Fantasy and Horror", Vol 11, No 9 (2008). Click here to visit The Harrow site and read the full review.

GG Authors 5 Sherlockian Questions - M. J. Elliott

M. J. Elliott
Story: The Finishing Stroke

1) When did you first encounter Sherlock Holmes?

When I was growing up, the BBC had an annual tradition of screening the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies... and I had an annual tradition of watching them. When I was about 10 or 11, I checked a copy of His Last Bow out of the library... and I was lost forever.

2) Do you have a favourite story from the canon?

An unexpected choice: Wisteria Lodge. I suppose everybody has a fondness for the first story they read, but I admit, at age 11, I didn't have the faintest idea what this one was about! It was all horribly confusing. Now, I read it again, and it seems to be the Sherlock Holmes story with a bit of everything: murder mystery, international politics, voodoo...

3) Are you active in any Sherlockian societies?

I host the annual film evening of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, screening rare Holmes movies for the members. Of course, in this DVD age, it's getting harder to find anything really rare.

4) Are you involved with any other Sherlock Holmes projects?

For the past five years, I've provided scripts for Imagination Theater's Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio series, starring John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Dr Watson. I've also dramatised several stories from the Canon for their series The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The achievement of which I'm proudest must be my three-hour version of The Hound of the Baskervilles (in which I had the small role of Cartwright, the boy from the District Messenger's office!). The shows can be heard and purchased here: http://jimfrenchproductions.com/zc137m/

5) Any other of your projects you’d like to tell our readers about?

I've just finished a three-part radio mini-series for Falcon Pictures Group entitled The New Adventures of Mike Hammer, in which Stacy Keach will re-create his famous role. I'm also scripting several new episodes of Falcon Pictures Twilight Zone series - it's hoped at this stage that Mena Suvari, star of American Beauty, will play the lead in my first show. You can read more about it here: http://twilightzoneradio.blogspot.com/ I'm also working with the cast of cult TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 on their new project, Rifftrax. If you were a fan of the show, you'll be pleased to hear that Rifftrax is much the same. I've recorded commentaries for two movies thus far, Dark Water and House of Wax (in which Paris Hilton has a metal pole thrust through her head - anywhere else on her body, and it could've done some real damage). At the moment, I'm preparing for a collaboration with MST's very own Mike Nelson. Visit their website: http://rifftrax.com/ I've edited five volumes for Wordsworth Editions: two collections of H P Lovecraft stories, two of Robert E Howard, and the forthcoming Charlie Chan Omnibus. You can find out more here: http://www.wordsworth-editions.com/jkcm/default.aspx?pg=34 For Imagination Theater, I supply scripts for many series, including my own creation, The Hilary Caine Mysteries. Other shows include Raffles the Gentleman Thief, The Adventures of Harry Nile and Kincaid the Strangeseeker. For Colonial Radio Theatre, I've scripted a sixteen part series based on G K Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries. I've also written the second in a continuing series based on the original Perry Mason novels of Erle Stanley Gardner. Colonial's website is here: http://www.colonialradio.com/ and the first eight episodes of The Father Brown Mysteries can be purchased here: http://www.blackstoneaudio.com/ If, after visiting all those links, you have any strength left, you can follow the trials and tribulations of a writer's life on my MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/matthewjelliott

GG Authors 5 Sherlockian Questions - Kim Newman

Kim Newman
Story: The Red Planet League

1) When did you first encounter Sherlock Holmes?

Probably first in some comedy sketch program on UK TV in the late 1960s - maybe Peter Cushing on the Morecambe and Wise Show, just possibly a forgotten Welsh comedy team called Ryan and Ronnie who did a knockabout serial with Holmes and Watson versus Dracula. My copy of the Complete Short Stories was given to me for Christmas in 1971 by my grandmother. I also have early memories of a radio Hound of the Baskervilles with Carleton Hobbs. I think the first Holmes film I saw was the Hammer Hound, on TV in the early '70s, but I remember seeing the posters for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes up on the London underground during its first release.

2) Do you have a favourite story from the canon?

Not really.

3) Are you active in any Sherlockian societies?

No

4) Are you involved with any other Sherlock Holmes projects?

I seem to have three or four loosely-related series of stories that relate to the subject - the story in this book fits in with a series I've been doing about Professor Moriarty ('A Shambles in Belgravia', 'A Volume in Vermillion' - with 'The Hound of the d'Urbervilles' due next); Irene Adler was in the first of a series of stories ('Angels of Music') about the Phantom of the Opera in J-M Lofficier's Gentlemen of the Night books; and the Diogenes Club, Mycroft Holmes and others appear in the Anno Dracula novels and, in a slightly different way, the stories collected in The Man From the Diogenes Club and Secret Files of the Diogenes Club. To date, the only time I've actually written Holmes himself has been in a chapter ('The Private Files of Mycroft Holmes') I deleted for structural reasons from my novel The Bloody Red Baron (it's appeared a few times since).

5) Any other of your projects you’d like to tell our readers about?

I've just finished a science fiction play for BBC Radio ('Cry-Babies'), and am working on a couple of book notions in fiction and non-fiction. I'm also fiddling with some film projects. Eventually, I'd like to glue the Moriarty series into a book.

GG Authors 5 Sherlockian Questions - Peter Calamai

Peter Calamai
Story: The Steamship Friesland

1) When did you first encounter Sherlock Holmes?

Not a date fixed in my 65-year-old memory but I suspect on the silver screen with Rathbone rather than in the books. My childhood detective was Freddy the Pig and then I graduated to the Swallows and Amazons series (Arthur Ransome) from England.

2) Do you have a favourite story from the canon?

The Hound. But you'd expect that from someone whose BSI investiture is The Leeds Mercury, wouldn't you?

3) Are you active in any Sherlockian societies?

The Bootmakers, BSI, Sherlock Holmes Society of London, The Sydney Passengers

4) Are you involved with any other Sherlock Holmes projects?

Yes.

5) Any other of your projects you’d like to tell our readers about?

Very slowly compiling a collection of the original newspaper accounts about SH's cases, some snippets of which are also quoted by John Watson in the cannonical versions.
Also travelling to Portsmouth, England to take part in a SHSL weekend there Sept 5-7

GG Authors 5 Sherlockian Questions - Barbara Roden

Barbara Roden
Story: The Things That Shall Come Upon Them

1) When did you first encounter Sherlock Holmes?

My first encounter with Sherlock Holmes came when I was eight; I remember being ill in bed, and my mother brought me a volume of Holmes tales from the library, perhaps figuring that as I'd exhausted my store of Nancy Drew mysteries I might appreciate another type of detective story. Sad to say, what stood out for me were the Paget illustrations, although I do recall being thrilled by 'The Speckled Band'. A year later my grade 5 class did a radio play of 'The Red-Headed League', and I was cast in the minor role of Major Duncan Ross. However, come the day, and the classmate cast as Holmes got a severe case of stage fright; so it was decided that she would swap with someone who had a smaller role. Thus it was that I played Holmes; but even that didn't quite do the trick. It wasn't until my grade 7 year, when we were assigned 'The Speckled Band' as an assignment in English class, that I was well and truly hooked. I immediately went out and bought all nine of the original canonical volumes, and it wasn't long before I was immersing myself not only in the canon, but in any books about Holmes and Conan Doyle that I could find. I wrote a Holmes play (shamelessly ripped off from the plot of 'The Speckled Band'), began writing - or at least trying to write - Holmes stories, and watched the Rathbone/Bruce films whenever they appeared on television, back in those far-off days before VCRs and DVD players. I can still recite the pubkeeper's eerie opening monologue from SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH at the drop of a deerstalker: 'There's folks hereabouts swear they've seen corpse-lights round the old greenhouse, and heard a wailing, like lost souls, in the Lime Walk.'

2) Do you have a favourite story from the canon?

Of the novels, my favourite would be THE SIGN OF THE FOUR, because it seems in many ways to be the novel where Holmes is most fully integrated as a character. Of the short stories, probably 'The Final Problem'; it isn't much of a mystery, but the introduction of so great a villain as Professor Moriarty, and the climactic confrontation at the Reichenbach, makes it a gripping thriller from start to finish, overlaid with sadness on the part of Watson, who knows at the beginning what the tragic outcome will be, but still feels compelled to write it down in vindication of his friend.

3) Are you active in any Sherlockian societies?

I've been a member of the Bootmakers of Toronto since the mid-1980s, and was made a Master Bootmaker in 1990. In 1987 I co-founded The Stormy Petrels of British Columbia, and have belonged to the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and The Northern Musgraves, although at the moment am a member of three societies in addition to the Bootmakers: The Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota, The Pondicherry Lodgers of 44th Street, and the Baker Street Irregulars , in which I was investitured, as 'Beryl Stapleton', in 2005. Since 1992 I've co-run, with my husband Christopher, The Arthur Conan Doyle Society, which examines the life and work of Holmes's creator.

4) Are you involved with any other Sherlock Holmes projects?

For the past year I have been editor of Canadian Holmes, the journal of The Bootmakers of Toronto; I've been a regular contributor to the journal since 1988, and in 2002 was awarded the Society's Derrick Murdoch Memorial Award for my contributions to the journal. I've contributed numerous articles to Sherlockian publications in three countries, have spoken at many Sherlockian conventions and meetings, and co-edited, with my husband Christopher, several books about Holmes and Conan Doyle for our Sherlockian imprint, Calabash Press, as well as for The Arthur Conan Doyle Society.

5) Any other of your projects you’d like to tell our readers about?

In addition to my Sherlockian work, I co-edit All Hallows, the World Fantasy Award-nominated journal of The Ghost Story Society. My husband and I run Ash-Tree Press, an award-winning press which specialises in the publication of classic supernatural fiction. Amongst the 140 or so books we have published are four—soon to be five—anthologies of original supernatural tales; the third of these, Acquainted With the Night, won the International Horror Guild and World Fantasy Awards for the Best Anthology of 2004. I've been writing short supernatural; fiction for several years; in 2005 my short story 'Northwest Passage' was nominated for the Stoker, International Horror Guild, and World Fantasy Awards for short fiction. In fall 2009 a collection of my dark fiction, Northwest Passages, will be published by Prime Books.