I’m Ray Newman, a writer, editor and content designer based in Bristol.
My crime novel The Grave Digger’s Boy was published in 2019 and my short ghost stories are collected in Municipal Gothic and Intervals of Darkness.
I post on my blog my fairly regularly. Recent posts are below or you can check out the whole back catalogue.
Recent posts
How J-Horror brought ghost stories back from the dead
A run of Japanese films released around the millennium, and bracketed together as ‘J-Horror’, gave new life to the ghost story. In 2026, they’re still exciting. They’re particularly effective because they bring the ghost story up to date with post-war urban settings and a focus on modern technology. They also play with our expectations of…
What is ‘What is folk horror?’
When we ask ‘What is folk horror?’ we’re grappling with a problem of categorisation. We want there to be simple rules and neat boxes. But in the murky world of genre, those do not exist. There are many well-argued attempts to define folk horror, running in length from a single sentence to hundreds of pages…
Please use other path – a pilgrimage
When Henry VII visited Bristol in 1486 was he obliged to DISMOUNT or USE OTHER PATH on his pilgrimage to the holy well of St Anne? He rode into town from Gloucester and was greeted by crowds at the High Cross. He then went onto the Abbey of St Augustine, now the cathedral, where he…
Precast Reinforced Concrete Heart 