Showing posts with label Kim Bannerman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kim Bannerman. Show all posts

Friday 29 November 2019

A Guest Post About Nothing: Kim Bannerman

On 29th November, we’re having a belated birthday party for Nothing, an anthology of short stories I edited for Hic Dragones (writing as Hannah Kate). In the run-up to our not-quite-a-launch party, I’ve invited some of the authors whose work is included in the book to tell me a bit about their story.

Today’s guest is Kim Bannerman, author of ‘Nobody’, one of the stories in Nothing.

Nothing & Something (But Not Everything)

There is no greater tragedy than losing oneself in love.

Imagine, if you will, two sparks of light coming together in the universe. Maybe they’ll combine and grow together into a flame, but what if they don’t? What if one consumes the other, until all we see is the light of the stronger fire? Does the weaker spark simply vanish, eclipsed by their combination? Does it wither into nothing?

When two people meet, they might balance each other and make each other greater than before, but there’s a risk, too, that one life might eclipse the other. No one wants to wither into nothing.

And yet, the concept of nothing has a kind of power of its own.

‘Nothing’ gives ‘something’ form. Without nothing, there would be no way to measure the volume, the shape, the size, the texture of the items that stand in its opposition. There has never been a time when there was not nothing, because there must be things to recognize something for nothing to be, and we are here, providing the universe with our minds to contemplate both the notion of nothing and the notion of time. Our nature of being means that the concept of nothing exists.

There doesn’t necessarily have to be everything, though. You can hold a piece of something in your hand without holding the whole. So while nothing is critical to the existence of something, something doesn't necessarily need everything. We are more capable of visualizing the concept of all than the concept of none, and yet some does not require all in the same manner that all requires none to define its form and function.

Perhaps nothing can be visualized as the state of not-being. A difficult concept to comprehend, it’s true, as we’re all very comfortable in our state of being. But who were we before we were born? Do you possess memories of your interactions with the universe before you gained a corporeal form? If not, was this a state of non-being? Does a contemplation of our experiences before we had the senses to experience allow us insight into our brush with nothingness?

If nothing was here to experience something, then the idea of nothing would not exist. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

Perhaps love is like nothing, too. You can’t experience the feeling of losing love without once possessing love and giving love. The absence of love is only made possible by the existence of love.

And even when love changes us, the act of connection helps to define us, for better or worse.


Kim Bannerman lives on Vancouver Island, Canada, where she writes short stories, novels and screenplays. Her novels include the cosmic-horror-romance Love and Lovecraft (2018), the werewolf tale The Tattooed Wolf (2014), and the historical murder mystery Bucket of Blood (2011)). She’s also host of the weekly podcast, Northwest By Night.

The Belated Birthday Party for Nothing is on Friday 29th November, 7pm, at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Cambridge Street, Manchester. It’s a free event, with readers from the authors and launch party discount on the books. For more information, or to book a ticket, please click here.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

#lycanthrovember

As some of you might have seen, Hic Dragones have been talking a bit about #lycanthrovember, so I thought I'd do a quick blog post about it. #lycanthrovember was my idea, as basically a month-long version of #WerewolfWednesday. (And yes, I did come up with the name. And no, it's not my best work.) It's shaping up to be quite a werewolf-y month for me, so I thought it would be cool to share the lycanthropic love on social media - if you have any werewolf related projects, artwork, books or films, feel free to add the hashtag so we can share them.

To kick off, then, at Hic Dragones are running a November-long offer on K Bannerman's wonderful Canadian werewolf novel The Tattooed Wolf: order the paperback or eBook from the Hic Dragones website and get our short collection Wolf-Girls: Dark Tales of Teeth, Claws and Lycogyny absolutely free!


Also from Hic Dragones, if you fancy a bit of Victorian Gothic werewolf fiction, Digital Periodicals is currently serializing George Reynolds' Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf. New instalments are published every fortnight in eBook formats, and are available for the princely sum of £1.


On a personal note, I have a werewolf short story entitled 'Nimby' coming out in the Fox Spirit Books' European Monsters anthology. I'll be blogging a bit more about that as the publication date gets closer. And my academic book on female werewolves (with Manchester University Press) finally has a wonderful cover and a publication date: She-Wolf: a Cultural History of Female Werewolves will be out in April 2015.

Now it's over to you... what werewolf-y things would you like to plug this month?

Happy #lycanthrovember!

Wednesday 16 April 2014

OUT NOW: K Bannerman, The Tattooed Wolf (Hic Dragones, 2014)

A fantastic new novel, edited by yours truly...

http://www.hic-dragones.co.uk/tattooed-wolf/


Caufield muttered as he slouched back in his seat and crossed his hands over his belly, smirking. “You’ve got my attention, Dan; I’ll humour you. Tell me, from the very beginning, how you got into this whole bloody mess.”

Morris Caufield thought he’d seen it all...

Until the moment Dan Sullivan walked into his office. Dan needs a divorce lawyer he can trust, and he thinks Morris is the man for the job. The thing is, Dan wants Morris to represent his wife. Who tried to kill him. Twice. And as if that wasn’t enough, Dan expects Morris to buy some crazy story about werewolves...

As Dan reveals the truth about his life and his marriage, Morris listens to a captivating tale of lycanthropy, love and betrayal. It’s lunacy, he’s sure of that, but there’s something about Dan Sullivan that makes it all very easy to believe.

Praise for The Tattooed Wolf:

“[K. Bannerman] displays unusual and sometimes uncomfortable characters, and I care about them all, the significant players and the extras. If you like reading stories about intriguing people, this story doesn’t disappoint... buy this book.”
- Joe Murphy, The Dragon Page

K Bannerman lives in a tiny house surrounded by forests on Vancouver Island, Canada, where she writes short stories, novels and plays. She is the author of four novels, including the historical murder mystery Bucket of Blood. Together with her partner-in-crime, Shawn Pigott, they run Fox&Bee Studio, where they have written, produced and directed over 100 short films.

For more information, please visit the publisher's website.

Friday 14 September 2012

GUEST POST: The Poetry of the Wolf-Girl by Kim Bannerman

It gives me great pleasure to welcome another guest post from a writer taking part in the Hic Dragones Wolf-Girls blog tour. Today I welcome Kim Bannerman, author of the story 'A Woman of Wolves Born'.



Question: What’s so fascinating about female werewolves?

Answer: For me, it’s simple. Female werewolves are fascinating because they are completely, utterly free. They embody the capricious, confident spirit that so many women desire: they are free of hesitation, free of obligation, free of restraint. Female werewolves do not cast fearful glances over their shoulders when they walk down dark alleys. They do not stay safe behind locked door. They don’t freak out when they find a bit of hair where society tells them none should be. Female werewolves can be bitches, and it’s totally okay, because it’s not an insult: it’s biology.

Image: Shawn Pigott


Of course, I can only speak to finding them fascinating in a female sort of way. I love to read about female werewolves because I love what they can do, and I wish I could do it, too. I can’t speak to why men find them fascinating, if they even do at all.

But while men might not find the concept of unrestrained liberation as intoxicating as I do, I wager there’s a good portion of the male population that finds female werewolves fascinating in a whole other way. A werewolf is powerful, unpredictable, and brimming with bestial sexuality. Female werewolves are sleek, lithe and strong, and unabashed by their body. (Vampires are sexy, too, but they don’t run around naked and athletic.) Have you ever seen a pack of wolves, running through the snow? Their bodies are fluid and fierce, and they slice through the air like arrows.

Now translate that into a woman’s form. See her move with grace through a crowded street, her head held high, her bright eyes catching every movement. She is an apex predator, a silent shadow that slips between the cacophonic traffic of an urban setting. Her heightened senses sample the delights that surround her: the smell of almond biscotti in a bakery window, the sound of the heartbeats of those around her, the touch of the cool autumn breeze as it ruffles the leaves of the elms in the park.

Image: Shawn Pigott


And tonight, when the moon is full, she will leave behind her human form to creep silently along silver-touched paths, a beast capable of poetry. She will embrace her bitchiness, delight in the taste of blood on her teeth, and drive all the wolf-boys wild.

Kim Bannerman's story is one of seventeen new female werewolf stories in Wolf-Girls: Dark Tales of Teeth, Claws and Lycogyny, edited by Hannah Kate and published by Hic Dragones. For more information, or to buy a copy, please visit the publishers' website.