“16 superbly written, often surreal stories of misogyny, blood, anger, agony, and abuse. Bruce’s stygian tales are technically acÂcomplished, but also powered by a profound depth of feeling. They often compel and overwhelm at the same time. Like the cover art by Catrin Welz-Stein, This House of Wounds is both beautiful and horrific.” PAULA GURAN, LOCUS
“The stories in This House of Wounds are richly allegorical, formally innovative, thought-provoking and ambiguous. All the things I love, in other words.” NINA ALLAN
“Bruce is the real deal. This House of Wounds is an essential read across all genres… It is a compulsive, powerful collection… a debut to behold.” BLACK STATIC
“This is an eminently impressive debut collection of sixteen stories that showcase the author’s virtuosity, range and potential… This collection establishes Georgina Bruce as a genuinely original writer.” INTERZONE
“Bruce’s collection of feminist, fantastical short stories has something to please nearly every taste. Bruce’s knack for ethereal tales that cut straight to the core of what it means to be a human (and specifically a woman) will delight readers who enjoy a smattering of the supernatural and blurred edges of reality.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“An astonishing, totally absorbing debut collection. Edgy, disturbing and delicious in equal parts. Georgina Bruce plays with myth and horror beautifully.” KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE
“The stories in This House of Wounds strike me as both an emotional and intellectual examination of pain, from how it spreads and is passed on to others to how it can easily turn us into different, crueller creatures. Each act formed in pain leads to another, then another, and this makes for twisted, beautiful reading. Georgina Bruce is a courageous and compelling writer.” ALIYA WHITELEY
“Ms. Bruce is not one for linear narrative or an easy distinction between reality, dreams, analogy, art, intoxication and self-deceit. In many ways the whole book is an exploration how we distance ourselves from reality, and from ourselves. A truly astonishing achievement.” STEWART HORN
“Very bloody, disturbing, female-centric and gorgeously-written – I would recommend it to you!” TRACY FAHEY
“Oh you are in for a treat. One of the best debut collections I have ever read. The Bruce is a genius.” JIM MCLEOD, Gingernuts of Horror
“This House of Wounds is simply a gorgeous book, with ravishing cover art by Catrin Welz-Stein to complement the contents. Fairy-tale motifs abound – Red Queens, sorcerous crows, Princess Beasts, Woods Kings – yet they’re frequently jump-cut past the reader in fragmented, discontinuous, subjective glimpses, like a mystic marriage of Angela Carter with J.G. Ballard. And the beauty and glitter is frequently the sparkle of streams of blood or the shine of polished bone – the wounds are there, laid bare and held open by retractors for probing and examination. This absolutely is not horror per se, but it touches on horror territory persistently. It’s anything but pedestrian.” PAUL ST.JOHN MACKINTOSH, author and journalist.
“Your book gave me nightmares.” PENNY JONES, reviewer and author of Suffer the Children.
There are a couple of aspects of advice-giving that make me roll my eyes. The first is that just by giving advice (no matter how inane it might be) the advisor puts themselves in a position of authority. Now in some cases that might be earned, but in others it seems to be a way of controlling the conversation by minimising the advisee’s input.
The second is when advice-giving covertly creates opportunities for schmoozing. I get a bit fed up reading advice posts on blogs which are swiftly followed by hundred and fifty obsequious comments below the line.
But I’m OK with advice of the “this is my experience, take whatever applies to you” variety. If only because I’m nosy about how other people do things 🙂
Yes. I was in a very strange mood when I wrote this post, as it happened, and probably could have been a little more direct. I also quite enjoy reading about other writers’ experiences and thoughts – and that is pretty much what I write here myself. But I am so bored of reading the same advice over and over. And, like you say, seeing hundreds of comments about how wise and perspicacious the writer is for giving advice about writing that you can read basically everywhere you look on the internet.
Well, some people are very good at giving writing advice, as it happens. Some writers (I can think of two) appear to have a gift for writing endlessly about writing, finding new ways to talk about craft and technique and voice and style. But most writers do not have this gift, and I really wish they would just stop. I would rather read about almost anything else. A daily journal of their dog walking trips. An entirely fabricated account of the trials of living secretly in someone else’s basement. Whatever, really. In fact that last one sounds quite fun.