Notes from the peninsula
I’m Michael Walters, author of The Complex, my debut speculative fiction novel which is available through Salt Publishing and all good bookshops. Welcome to my creative home on the web.
I post about books, films and writing, with the occasional life update. You can follow me on Bluesky (my Twitter replacement of choice) to say hello and become a member of my Patreon for more book-related stuff.
On the Patreon free tier, you get my reading and creative writing thoughts, by email if you choose, and with the “Weird and Wonderful” tier, if you want to support me financially, you get my everlasting gratitude (as well as a few extras).
July 07 2024, 10:35
Suspiria
Suspiria is a vivid, colourful dream where death stalks us, out of sight but ever-present. Characters die in complicated and fantastical ways to Goblin’s driving mix of Moog synths, bells, whispered vocals and a drum beat for the ages. And it’s a film filled with strong women. The men are all ineffectual side characters. [more...]
June 23 2024, 08:11
Deep Red
After making a couple of thrillers for television and a hard-to-find historical comedy that was a commercial flop, Argento returned to Giallo with a twisty, colourful, Goblin-scored mystery. [more...]
June 19 2024, 06:15
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Roberto, an American drummer in a band recording in Milan, chases a man who has been following him and accidentally kills him. A masked figure takes photographs and begins to torment Roberto, but what is their motive? [more...]
June 16 2024, 10:34
The Cat O’ Nine Tails
A blind ex-journalist overhears a conversation about blackmail outside his apartment. A newspaper reporter investigates a burglary in a nearby laboratory. As people at the lab start to die, the two men join forces to uncover the story. [more...]
June 08 2024, 13:10
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
In Panico, Dario Argento describes himself as being of two halves — the contented person at home, and the person who is compelled to investigate the darkness inside himself through making films. [more...]
June 02 2024, 12:22
Changing
I’m six months into a new job. My father’s house is for sale. My son is living in Australia. My daughter is gearing up for GCSEs next year. My wife and I are looking at each other and thinking, this is the time we’ve been waiting for, and yet neither of us have clear plans. [more...]
May 26 2024, 15:35
Darling buds
Four days off work! My plan was to not have a plan and trust I would do what I needed to do. It’s day two and I’m excited because things are changing — my glute tendons are healing (YES), my meditation habit has bedded in (now I miss it when I can’t do it), I’ve... [more...]
May 14 2024, 19:48
Gathering ideas
The heart of this project is writing new material. I also want a mechanism to let me easily share my work as I go, including selling it (shock horror!), without getting hung up on finding an agent and getting published. [more...]
May 11 2024, 10:45
Cornish horrors
I took my time with Cornish Horrors: Tales from the Land’s End, a collection of short stories I bought in Swansea Waterstones on one of my visits to see my father. Research can quickly become procrastination. [more...]
May 05 2024, 10:03
Impatience
Making art means making a mess. It means tidying up, organising, and discovering something in doing it. There are unexpected emotions. There are doubts and dead ends. There are technical problems. [more...]
April 13 2024, 10:29
Ligeia
Ligeia, by Edgar Allan Poe, is a six-thousand-word hallucinatory tale about an intense marriage that survives beyond death. The narrator is looking back, remembering his wife, Ligeia, who he idolised. [more...]
April 07 2024, 12:03
Physical media
Continuing my interest in how fiction and films work together, I picked up Cornish Horrors: Tales from the Land’s End, part of the British Library’s Tales of the Weird series, a collection I’ve owned for a few years and never read... [more...]
March 17 2024, 12:37
Evening classes
I’ve created a reading list my gut tells me is related to my work-in-progress. I went around the house scanning shelves and pulling out the books that tugged at my attention. [more...]
March 07 2024, 21:11
Losing myself
I finally sorted the two big bags of books I brought back from Dad’s last weekend. He loved Stephen King, and he bought lots of King’s books as first edition UK hardbacks. I don’t currently have shelf space for this many books. [more...]
March 05 2024, 20:18
Writing is simple
I complicate things unnecessarily. Writing is simple. You write and edit until the piece of work feels complete and there is nothing more to do. [more...]
February 20 2024, 20:54
The joy of making things up
It took optimism to enrol on a creative writing MA — I can be a writer! I can be published! — but as I get older, I've also developed a pragmatism, tipping into cynicism, which can easily become procrastination, or even complete avoidance. [more...]
February 17 2024, 11:04
Back to the path
I spent the weekend before my father’s funeral sorting through his books. He had them on shelves in different rooms, but they were also tucked in drawers, stacked at the bottom of wardrobes and piled behind old televisions. [more...]
January 27 2024, 12:39
My father died
Dad died last week. He was eighty-eight. Looking back, it was a miracle we got him home from hospital for one final Christmas. He had a long life, he was loved, and he left peacefully. [more...]
January 13 2024, 16:01
Nostalgia
I’m in Wales at short notice because Dad’s been admitted into hospital. The co-morbidities have gathered and decided to strike. He’s in bad shape. Around visiting times I’m looking for peaceful, distracting activities. [more...]
January 07 2024, 14:28
Fidelity
I’ve deleted my Patreon creator’s account, which was beginning to feel like I was cheating on my website (or the other way around, I’m not sure). Two places for almost the same words. [more...]
December 30 2023, 21:06
Best film discoveries and fiction of 2023
My favourite ten film discoveries (ranked) and ten favourite fiction books (not ranked). (Letterboxd is a hella sexy website. I wish GoodReads made more of an effort.) [more...]