In June 2026 Comma Press will be publishing WARNING SIGNS, my first full length volume of new fiction in 26 years.
Comprising 7 'long short' stories crafted especially for this project, Warning Signs was written to thrill, chill, shock and inspire, with bold characters, str
ong settings, a touch of wildness and plenty of daring, reaching a mainstream audience who want to be entertained.
ong settings, a touch of wildness and plenty of daring, reaching a mainstream audience who want to be entertained.
Comma Press editor David Sue hailed the book’s "strong and timely themes” with “expertly plotted story beats, characterisation and world-building [in] the very real though off-kilter world whose slightly distorted, unsettling reality feels so prevalent."
Warning Signs offers readers seven fantastically lurid psychodramas to sink their teeth into. All seven tales of the unexpected are set in contemporary England:
• A distinguished post-Covid NHS grief counsellor who’s obsessed with tales of the paranormal goes on a ghost-hunting reality TV show.
• A homeless teenager finds herself in the clutches of a UFO cult in a picturesque rural tourist village.
• A mild-mannered woman runs a kitsch death-themed museum offering strange rituals in the basement.
• A clickbait content producer goes to a psychic medium to find out her internet stalker's intentions.
• A housemaid for a venerable family suspects there might be something more to them and their ever-faithful servants than meets the eye.
• A businesswoman who developes military surveillance technology finds herself tempted to cross a line
• A refugee in a drug-addled seaside community is befriended by a children's theatre troupe.
I had a blast crafting Warning Signs, working with total focus from autumn 2023 ‘til early 2025, going large then cutting down and polishing carefully to serve only the good stuff: exciting, tangy drama with strong characters and vivid settings. I am delighted slash terrified to return to fiction and would like to invoke similar emotions in anyone who reads it. If I can transport and entertain people for the length of a train journey, I’ll be happy. I haven't exactly been away from public life - quite the opposite, I admit - but in terms of releasing a full length volume of all-new fiction, it's been a minute. Or a quarter of a century.
During my early career years, from the age of 14 onwards, I loved running around town with journalism and broadcasting. That book-deal-at-16 thing was a phenomenal moment and a very 90s opportunity. Certainly, the universe knows I had a fantastic time. However, I never felt that writing literary fiction was quite me, despite working with amazing editors, agents and PRs, making good friends among my contemporaries and being supported by respectful critics and readers.
From 2000 onwards I accepted commissions for short story anthologies only. I'm surprised and pleased that things have come around like this, finding my groove in mainstream fiction with an exciting, slightly bonkers B-cult edge. I intend to continue publishing fiction when opportunities arise and inspiration strikes. You might want to look at my Royal Literary Fund interview here, or my interview with Renaissance One here but basically I didn't like being famous and found the personalised focus uncomfortable. Despite a huge amount of professional friendliness and networking zeal, I am fundamentally private and very choosy about personal friends, so while I'm delighted to bring out Warning Signs I am having to mentally prepare myself for the eighteen months of promotin which will follow.
Warning Signs is my sixth book. It echoes with shock events, extreme emotions and cathartic rituals. Its seven gripping stories include themes of superstition, sacrifice and shared delusions; of ordinary people in the real world desperately wanting to believe in legends, myths and folklore; of social ostracism, exploitation and stigmatisation taken to phantasmagorical ends; of everyday life giving way to heightened environments in which recognisable reality, psychedelia and paranormal archetypes mix together as normal; of fantasy figures and unmet desires made flesh, dolls and effigies as figures of mourning and yearning; and of marginalised individuals fighting for escape, recognition and survival.
It follows my short film series Aurora (2020-2023), first short film An Impossible Poison (2017), my fifth book Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices (2015) and the essay The Future of Serious Art (2020). You can find my overall career stuff and job factoids right here if you must.
Warning Signs offers broad excitement and dark dynamism, a dash of greasepaint and limelight, a little bit of cheese and some hair raising moments in the company of rich and complex characters and sincere protagonists.
The book would be ideal for lovers of early Stephen King, Twin Peaks, Daphne du Maurier, Jane Schoenbrun's films, Jordan Peele, R F Kuang, Anna Biller, Italo Calvino, Valley of the Dolls, Alan Moore, Diana Wynne Jones, The Stepford Wives, The League of Gentlemen, Sinners, Marina Warner, Alan Garner, Susan Hill, Saltburn, John Carpenter, Shirley Jackson, The Wicker Man, Black Mirror, It Follows, Blumhouse's films, Late Night With The Devil, The Last Broadcast, Censor, the BBC’s Ghostwatch, Angela Carter, Edgar Allen Poe, Michael Haneke, Shudder’s films, Irma Vep, Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation, the TV series Atlanta, 2000s Japanese horror movies, The Babadook, M Night Shyamalan, Stranger Things, the first Twilight film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dario Argento and other Italian giallo cinema, Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, exploitation shock schlock and B movies, Ana Lily Amirpour, Possessor, Anne Rice, Hammer Horror and all contemporaries, spin-offs, spoofs, satires and jokey tributes thereof.
I am so happy to confirm that illustrator Ben Jones has been commissioned to create original cover art for Warning Signs and brings his unique style, developed through projects with everyone from The Economist, The New Yorker, the BBC and The New York Times to Politico, Prospect and History Today. Ben illustrated The Folio Society edition of The Clockwork Orange and The Secret Agent as well as creating campaigns for luxury brand Hermès and projects for the Wellbeck Museum of Witchcraft, making him the perfect gothic hipster polymath to collaborate on this landmark publication.
I've already collaborated with Comma Press on three original fiction anthologies in recent years:
• Resist (2020). In the story ‘Occupied Territory’, a warrior woman in Roman-occupied ancient Britain joins Boudica's liberation army and proceeds to slash and burn through the country.
• The Cuckoo Cage (2022). In the story ‘Lady Swing’, a seemingly meek household staff member allegedly descended from witches terrorises a modern day country estate alongside a community of secret rebels and a mythical beast.
• Collision (2023). In the story ‘Afterglow’, ambition-crazed nuclear scientists jockey for fame, funding and Nobel Prizes at CERN, with truly bonkers consequences.
Warning Signs will be promoted as a Comma Press lead title, with press, reviews, interviews and events starting in spring/summer 2026 and continuing throughout 2027.
- I am happy to be contacted directly at bidisha.contact@gmail.com for work purposes only. Please read the legals.*
- My Instagram handle is Bidisha_on_Insta
- My YouTube channel is Bidisha Online
- Ben Jones’s Instagram handle is Ben Jones Illustration
- The text on this page was taken from the press release - please watch this space for details and updates.
*There is no mutual privacy or confidentiality agreement regarding emails, letters or messages sent to me. Messages can be circulated, shared, publicised, published, quoted or cited in legal action unless there is a separate agreement otherwise, in writing, by all senders and recipients. Please observe norms of professional and appropriate behaviour. Short version: no creeps, no gossips, no bullies. Also a nice motto for life.
