Twenty-five years ago Graham Joyce and his wife Sue left the grey skies of England to live by the sea on a Greek Island. As an unpublished writer he had gone there to live in isolation to write. After the hordes of uninvited summer visitors left he was finally able to fulfil his ambition and so started a writing career. Some of the stories contained in this collection were written in Greece under a vine canopy with light from a hurricane lamp. Others were inspired by travels around neighbouring islands. This collection represents a gathering of the best Graham Joyce short stories written since his stay in Greece. Settings vary from the mines of the East Midlands to the lonely landscape of the Norfolk Coast and the frozen streets of Leningrad during WWII. Included in this collection is a foreword by Owen King and an afterword by Kelly Braffet, as well as an individual commentary on each story by the author.
Author
Graham Joyce (22 October 1954 – 9 September 2014) was an English writer of speculative fiction and the recipient of numerous awards for both his novels and short stories. After receiving a B.Ed. from Bishop Lonsdale College in 1977 and a M.A. from the University of Leicester in 1980. Joyce worked as a youth officer for the National Association of Youth Clubs until 1988. He subsequently quit his position and moved to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Crete to write his first novel, Dreamside. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Joyce moved back to England to pursue a career as a full-time writer. Graham Joyce resided in Leicester with his wife, Suzanne Johnsen, and their two children, Joseph and Ella. He taught Creative Writing to graduate students at Nottingham Trent University from 1996 until his death, and was made a Reader in Creative Writing. Joyce died on 9 September 2014. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013.
