Live hungry. Sleep fucked. Die trying.


Writer, Performer and Book Doctor

Scotsman & Sodomite, swearier than a sailor, Hal Duncan is the author of Vellum, Ink, Testament, and numerous short stories, poems, essays, even some musicals. As New Sodom Press, he's also self-published various chapbook and audiobook sets for sale via Bandcamp. As a spoken word artist he produces regular video and audio performances for Patreon supporters to stream and/or download. Finally, as a book doctor, he offers manuscript critique, one-to-one mentoring, and other editorial services.

Homophobic hatemail once dubbed him "THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!!" (sic). You'll find him on Twitter as @Hal_Duncan, revelling in that role.

Publications

Hal Duncan's debut Vellum was published in 2005, garnering nominations for the World Fantasy Award along with the Crawford, Locus, and BFS awards, and winning the Spectrum, Kurd Lasswitz and Tähtivaeltaja.  As the Book of All Hours diptych together with the sequel, Ink, it was described by Lucius Shepard himself as "the Guernica of genre fiction."

Other publications include: the novel Testament; novellas Escape from Hell! and Susurrus on Mars; the chapbooks An A-Z of the Fantastic City and Errata; poetry collections Songs for the Devil and Death and Sodom / New Sodom; short story collections Scruffians! and The Boy Who Loved Death; and Rhapsody, a book-length essay on strange fiction.

Most recently, The Land of Somewhere Safe came out from NewCon Press, a stand-alone novella and fourth sortie into the Scruffians mythos of A Scruffian PrimerA Scruffian Feastiary and A Scruffian Survival Guide. A fifth chapbook, A Scruffian Funferal, will be available from 21st October 2018.
Explore my published works

Spoken Word

From readings at book launches and conventions, Hal has taken to spoken word, performing stories and poetry at various live events. He's supported The Vaselines at a charity gig, joined Glasgow acid rock legends The Cosmic Dead onstage, and was one of the team of artists from different fields who collaborated with Skye band The Dead Man's Waltz on the show Story's End, subsequently playing Edinburgh Fringe with them. Most recently he collaborated with Glasgow punk band LAPS at Arika festival in the Tramgate.

For the last few years, he's been recording monthly readings for Patreon sponsors, and now with hours of material built up on Vimeo is regularly releasing readings from the vault to the general public.

Explore my videos on Vimeo

Book Doctor Services

Manuscript Critique

Get an in-depth manuscript critique, identifying flaws in your writing and suggesting solutions.

Mentoring

Get a one-to-one mentoring session scheduled to suit you and tailored to your needs.

Hal is a seasoned member of the GSFWC with ~30 years experience in rigorous manuscript critique, ~10 years experience working as a professional book doctor for Writers Workshop, and ~5 years experience running workshops and mentoring aspiring writers one-to-one. With his work on innumerable books over the years for writers, he's now moved into freelance editing for publishers, the latter including one novel subsequently nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award.
Read more Explore my editorial services
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