Joseph D’Lacey writes Horror, SF & Fantasy, often with environmental themes, and is best known for his unsettling novel, Meat.
Other books to-date include Garbage Man, Snake Eyes, Blood Fugue, Black Feathers, The Book of the Crowman, Splinters, The Veil and Clown Wars (with Jeremy Drysdale). He won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer in 2009.
He also writes children’s stories with his daughter.
“Joseph D’Lacey rocks!” Stephen King
Find out more at Joseph’s Website
Joseph D'Lacey 
Having read your work I can say with certainty a new publisher is going to snap you up pretty sharpish…well I hope so, I want a new D’lacey book to read!
I’m torn between print books and Ebooks at the moment, on one hand I want to reach the most people possible but on the other I feel as if converting to the dark side (Ebooks) would somehow kill some of the magic in my work. Hopefully something will come along soon that suits your work down to the ground and have you back on the bookshelves (actual or virtual) soon!
Good luck!
‘No, I will not keep calm
…and you can f*ck off’!
Hello,
I’ve read that Stephen King wrote “D’Lacey rocks!”. I was wondering if he said more and where this quote come from?
Thanks for reading,
Jeremy.
Hello, Jeremy.
Thanks for stopping by.
Mr. King’s comment was, in totality: “Joseph D’Lacey rocks!” It was his reaction to reading the novel MEAT. It remains one of the best things ever to happen to me in this rather odd ‘business’ of being an author.
You made me vegan… it’s a long story. You also made me enjoy a good read after surviving solely on videogame magazines for far too long. Thank you. Twice.
Well, Jason, you’re welcome twice!
It’s one thing to be told someone enjoyed your novel but to find out it had a positive inluence on their life – it doesn’t get much beter than that for a writer.
Thanks for taking the time to let me know!
Mr. D’Lacey,
Meat was a wonderful audio book. It was deeply scary/disturbing, that it’s one of the few audio books in my library that I haven’t listened to multiple times. At the same time, it was so well written and performed that I feel it’s a real gem that demonstrates an unrelenting horror, but not in the gratuitousness of most American horror movies. It does what it does with such subtlety, allowing the reader to really get invested before they realize what they are investing in, which is the biggest “closing the loop” experience in horror I’ve ever experienced.
However, I cannot find it on Audible.com any more, which is where I bought it. I also can’t find the audio version on Amazon, which owns Audible.com, although they do have the paperback. Was there some strange unfortunate incident in the licensing of the audio publication that has caused it to become unavailable.
I’m not an attorney, but I do hold a law degree and often work with American IP rights, so I understand how that can happen; but I don’t understand how/why a solution cannot be reached. An audio book is one of those real cash cow assets, because once it’s complete, sales take place on a server, absent any effort or energy on the part of the owner.
I keep looking for more audio books from you, but haven’t seen anything for awhile. I know you’re real busy from your blog page, so don’t stop what you’re doing to write back to me right away. But if you could let me know in sometime in the future, that would be great.
Hi, Andy and sorry for the late reply.
My publisher went out of business and when that happened, the audible.com titles and all the physical books ceased to be available. Aside from that, no other audio books were created by Beautiful Books. That chapter has, therefore, ended.
The good news is that, as we speak, audible are putting together the spoken version of Blood Fugue http://blog.saltpublishing.com/2012/03/16/initial-work-on-the-cover-of-joseph-dlaceys-new-novel-blood-fugue/ which launches on 16th Nov this year. So there’s not too long to wait.
There’s recent news about Splinters here http://timelinebooksuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/time-for-catch-up.html and I’ll be posting more about Blood Fugue soon.
In April next year, my apocalyptic fantasy Black Feathers will be released by Angry Robot http://angryrobotbooks.com/2012/07/angry-robot-to-publish-joseph-dlaceys-black-feathers-duology/ both here and in the States.
Finally, available right now from Bad Moon Books, also in USA, is Snake Eyes http://www.badmoonbooks.com/product.php?productid=2878&cat=0&page=1
I hope this gives you something to be going on with and I look forward to more of my work being available in the audio format very soon.
Thanks for asking!
Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever had an author speak so directly to a fan question. Thanks. This all sounds really exciting. It seems a waste that no income is being generated from a completed audio book. While I’m not a solicitor or an attorney, if you need a consultant to help with that, I would be glad to offer my assistance. It really is a tremendous audio book, and I’m just glad I was able to down load it while it was available.
I’d like you to know that I enjoy your blog so much that I am passing along the Liebster Award to you. This is an award passed from blogger to blogger and you are very deserving of it! There are certain criteria you must follow, as I have done on my blog when I received my award from a reader in America (Ned Hickson). Here’s the link to mine which explains how it works.
http://ihijinx.wordpress.com/and-my-leibster/
Thank you!
Hello there –
Just finished enjoying Blood Fugue from the Kindle store. A great read with some truly unpleasant moments, and it looks intriguingly open to a sequel.
I wondered if you might be interested in one or two typos I spotted. They’re not major problems, so if you think I’m being far too fussy I’m sure you won’t take it as criticism.
Chapter 14 – ‘Agonies to be appreciated’ is missing a full stop.
Chapter 16 – ‘Mierda.’ He said’ has a capitalised H.
Chapter 28 – ‘course’ should be ‘coarse’
Chapter 29 – ‘It was as if the man knew nothing of life outside the forest’ is missing a full stop.
Chapter 31 – ‘Don’t go far,’ he heard’ needs a space between the speech marks and he.
Hello, SS!
Thanks for grabbing a copy and for taking time to stop by.
I’ll pass these typos on to my publisher – we do try very hard to present a perfect book but, in my experience, a few errors always slip through.
Anyway, I’m grateful for your input because we can now push Blood Fugue at least a little closer to a ‘clean’ presentation!
Did you take advantage of the price reduction, by the way? I thought the previous price had been too high…
I have to admit I’d been waiting for the price to drop before buying it. I’m pretty much doing the same with Garbage Man; I already own the paperback so I’m happy to wait and see if there’s a special offer…
I already have Meat as both paperback and electronic versions; I did mean to get Garbage Man around the same time (it was years ago) but then it suddenly vanished from Amazon.
eBooks seem not to sell too well if they’re over a certain price and that price seems to be dropping all the time…
Garbage Man was unavailable for a while but everything’s back on track now – with extra content. I’ll see if the new publisher will consider putting the new versions on special for a little while, too.
Cheers!
Hi Joseph,
I’d like to buy your book Meat, extracts from which were given out to us in a recent creative writing class. I thought they were brilliant. Which way of buying the book ensures you get most money?
Best,
Pete.
Dear Peter,
Lovely to hear from you – sounds like a great creative writing class! *preens* Where do you attend?
Thanks for the great vibes about MEAT. Honestly, it won’t make too much difference where you buy but do try to get hold of the new edition (Oak Tree Press, 2013). Personally, I prefer sites like The Book Depository to Am*zon but even better is if you ask your local bookstore to order it in for you.
Whatever you decide, I do hope you enjoy the rest of the novel – do let me know!
Hi Joseph,
I’m doing the MA in literary fiction at City Uni, London. Your book was introduced by a guest lecturer called Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone during a session on what she calls ‘the unpalatable’ in fiction. It prompted a whole discussion on the phoniness of ‘literary fiction’ as a category – MEAT was marketed as ‘horror’, right? Not that it really matters which it is, it’s all divisive bullshit anyway. But for what it’s worth, I reckon it was too radical to be allowed into the ‘literary’. Genre is where real social critique is at, so that’s where it’s put.
Thanks for the tip – I think I will head to my local independent and ask for it to be ordered. They’ll probably drop their cups of tea in shock.
Thanks, and keep up the good work,
Pete.
Thanks, Pete – I’ll do my best!
Yes, MEAT was definitely marketed as horror. Though, with a different cover and a different kind of ‘push’, who knows what shelves it might ultimately have graced? Honestly, I’m glad to know it’s being read and still shaking things up six years later.
There’s a discussion here between myself and Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes, a Research Fellow in English at Manchester Metropolitan University http://www.gothic.stir.ac.uk/interviews/%E2%80%98in-the-land-of-the-pig-the-butcher-is-king%E2%80%99-an-interview-with-joseph-d%E2%80%99lacey/ which might be of interest when you finish the novel. Even being considered ‘Gothic’ felt like quite the step up!
I hope the reaction in your bookstore will be favourable, once they’ve recovered their composure. Perhaps they’ll stock it from now on!
Thanks again for your interest and support and happy reading…
Whoops – sorry that wasn’t at all clear. I meant they’d drop their cups of tea in shock at a young person coming in and ordering a book, rather than buying it on the web. I didn’t mean for ordering your book in particular. They might already stock it! Pete.
Hi Joseph, was wondering what your connections with Yelvertoft and the surroundings might b e ? Having lived in the village for a number of years, drunk in the pub at Clay Coton before it shut, shopped and eaten Crick, lived in Coventry, worked in Rugby – to say that the move from the motorway to CC, then onto Yelvertoft was amazing. Have walked up Cracks Hill many times, but no luck yet in finding the entrance to the elusive treacle mines below.
Kind regards and thanks for a great read
Derek
Hi, Derek – thanks for stopping by.
Short answer is I’ve lived in the area for 35 years on and off. I used Rugby and Daventry as visual templates for my mind’s eye to focus on while I wrote MEAT and Garbage Man. However, the first time I’ve ever mentioned real places has been in the Black Dawn books. In The Book of the Crowman, I substituted a road for the canal at the base of Cracks Hill, otherwise everything is pretty close to how things were when the books were written. The landscape has already changed a great deal since then, of course.
Anyway, I’m delighted you enjoyed the Black Dawn books.
Good luck finding those treacle mines, by the way!