I don’t recall if I saw my first gunman in my childhood nightmares or on my childhood streets.
There were plenty in both and they looked very much like each other.

So begins Reggie Chamberlain-King’s introduction to The Black Dreams, a thrilling and compelling collection of specially commissioned stories that explore the emotional geography of growing up and living in Northern Ireland.

The fourteen stories gathered here criss-cross coast, border and city as they map a ‘strange’ territory of in-between states and unstable realities in which understanding is unreliable. Obsessions, death and rebirth, violence, sexuality, retribution and apocalypse are all part of the rich fabric of The Black Dreams.

Bringing together some of Northern Ireland’s finest writers, along with some of the best new talents, The Black Dreams celebrates and extends the rich tradition of the weird, surreal and dream-like in Northern Irish writing. It is also a powerful act of imagining and storytelling – a vibrant, vivid and exhilarating exploration of a world we cannot, or choose not, to see.

Contributors: Jo Baker, Jan Carson, Reggie Chamberlain-King, Aislínn Clarke, Emma Devlin, Moyra Donaldson, Michelle Gallen, Carlo Gébler, John Patrick Higgins, Ian McDonald, Gerard McKeown, Bernie McGill, Ian Sansom,
Sam Thompson

Reggie Chamberlain-King quickly sped past youth and education into decrepit early adulthood, becoming, by cold hard luck, a writer, musician, and broadcaster. He makes frequent appearances on Radio Ulster’s Arts Extra and was, for four years, the cultural attaché on After Midnight with Stuart Bailie. He has written several plays, including The Ballad of Lilliburlero for BBC NI Events, and The Down Chorus, for Wireless Mystery Theatre. His work has appeared on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 and has been broadcast in Germany, Canada and the United States. He is a co-founder, actor, musician and continuity announcer with Wireless Mystery Theatre and author of the cult mystery series The Brittaine & Molloy Inquiry Quarterly. Weird Belfast is his first book.   For more on Reggie Chamberlain-King visit http://thestuffedowl.co.uk/ Or follow him on Twitter @Reggie_C_King Reggie Chamberlain-King quickly sped past youth and education into decrepit early adulthood, becoming, by cold hard luck, a writer, musician, and broadcaster. He makes frequent appearances on Radio Ulster’s Arts Extra and was, for four years, the cultural attaché on After Midnight with Stuart Bailie. He has written several plays, including The Ballad of Lilliburlero for BBC NI Events, and The Down Chorus, for Wireless Mystery Theatre. His work has appeared on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 and has been broadcast in Germany, Canada and the United States. He is a co-founder, actor, musician and continuity announcer with Wireless Mystery Theatre and author of the cult mystery series The Brittaine & Molloy Inquiry Quarterly. Weird Belfast is his first book.   For more on Reggie Chamberlain-King visit http://thestuffedowl.co.uk/ Or follow him on Twitter @Reggie_C_King