David E. Gates

Award-Winning and Prize-Winning Author of Access Denied, The Wretched, The Roots of Evil, The Ghost of Clothes, Omonolidee, First Words and Unzipped: The Mind of a Madman, The Deeper Roots of Evil, UFO, Cinema, Realm of Rhyme along with numerous short stories, poems and articles.

David E. Gates

Exclusive Subscriber Newsletter

About Me

David E. Gates is a prize-winning and award-winning writer who has published a number of books and short-stories. His work has been featured in television, radio and print media.

His first book, Access Denied, a true story based on events from his life, was nominated for the 2017 Readers Choice Awards and selected for Book of the Day by Indie Book Butler in November 2019. His novel, The Wretched, won SILVER in the AuthorsDB 2017 Cover Contest and his latest anthology of short-stories, poems and articles has made the semi-finals of the AuthorsDB 2019 Cover Contest.

His short story, My Mother & The Medium, won The News’ Ghost Story competition in December 2019.

His first horror novel, The Roots of Evil, was voted best to read on the Novel Festival site!

https://novelwritingfestival.com/2017/09/16/best-of-horror-gothic-novels/

David’s poem, The Ode of Phineas Gage, was selected to be featured on http://www.poetrysoup.com.

The Magic of Mushrooms, made runner-up in the Grow Wild poetry competition. Other poems, such as Vape Away, Terminators and Outrunning The Rain, have been featured in The Poetry Festival.

He won the SILVER prize in the AuthorsDB 2016 Cover Contest for The Ghost of Clothes and won best HORROR Novel Logline for 2016 for The Roots of Evil.

He has previously won first prize (Gold) for The Roots of Evil and third prize (Bronze) for Access Denied in the 2015 AuthorsDB Cover Contest, and has made a film about the battlefield memorials in Ypres, Belgium called Ypres – The Battlefield Tours (available at www.shelleyshow.co.uk).

Get EXCLUSIVE content!

Sign up to the exclusive subscriber newsletter and, for just £10 per year, get unpublished short stories/poems, exclusive competitions and advance notification of upcoming publications.

To see the first newsletter, without subscription, click here.

Don’t want to subscribe, but want to support an independent author? Make a donation of any amount to support David E. Gates.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Support an independent author – Make a one-time donation

Support an independent author – Make a monthly donation

Support an independent author – Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£50.00
£5.00
£10.00
£50.00
£5.00
£10.00
£50.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your support is very much appreciated. Thank you.

Your contribution is very much appreciated.

Your contribution is very much appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Shortlisted for the Fresher Writing Prize!

My short story, The Need, has been shortlisted for the Fresher Writing Prize 2020 competition!

It’s as yet unpublished, but you can read some of my other short stories in my anthologies, First Words and Unzipped: The Mind of a Madman which are available at all good online bookstores, including Smashwords. And Amazon.

Unzipped - Large Format3D Cover - Cropped

Janine’s Ghost Stories Interviews David E. Gates

The lovely Janine, of Janine’s Ghost Stories, put out a request for British Horror writers to be interviewed. She talked to yours truly about my life, my horror books and what’s coming next.

You can find the interview here. You can also follow Janine on Twitter – @disneynine

Paperback CoverFourteen

 

 

My Mother & The Medium wins Short Story Competition

My short story, My Mother & The Medium, has won the Christmas ghost story competition in The News (local Portsmouth Newspaper).

It was the story which stopped editor Mark Waldron in his tracks and sent a tingle down his spine..” they said.

The short story originally appeared as part of David E. Gates’ second anthology of short-stories, poetry and articles in Unzipped: The Mind of a Madman which is available from Smashwords and Amazon and all good online bookstores.

20191224_114734624_iOSMy Mother and the Medium - Death CoverUnzipped - Large Format

Access Denied nominated for 2017 Readers Choice Awards

Why do I write?

Several people have asked me why I write and where I get my ideas from. After answering this question on Stage 32, a resource for writers of all disciplines, I put down the following.

 

After reading the first couple of chapters of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, in school, I took the book home and finished it that evening. Since then, I’ve always written.

Whether it be short-stories, poems, film-reviews, interviews with the famous or full novels, I’ve always loved the putting together of words to describe something in a specific way.

I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Clive Barker, Terry Pratchett, James Herbert and many other writers and their responses when I asked them what advice they’d give to an aspiring writer was consistent. “Don’t give up. Keep writing. You will get better and better” they all said.

Clive Barker, and his horror work in particular, was inspiring to me and so I wrote. I was published in film magazines such as Samhain and Starburst along with articles and stories for various fanzines, but it wasn’t until I put into words the telling of a personal tragedy that things really kicked off for me.

Access Denied, the true story of an emotional trauma and the subsequent battle I had with corrupt and despicable organisations, was self-published as my first book. It met with immediate success – to date, it has 100% positive reviews! People who read it told me I had a real talent for writing with many of them telling me that once they started reading it that they couldn’t stop. “I couldn’t put it down.” several have said. I was humbled but ecstatic.

The self-publishing boom enabled me to look at some things I’d been working on, revise and complete them and publish them. I write fiction primarily, loving the short-story form and poems, and the responses to my horror books (The Roots of Evil and The Wretched) has been phenomenal.

It’s a hard slog though. The writing bit is easy. But getting people to buy your books and marketing them is a massive struggle in a world that’s saturated with talent (and non-talent). It’s very difficult to get people to try something new. There seems to be no end of competitions which appear to be nothing but exercises in making someone else money, so I tend to only enter those that are free or cheap.

I have already won several awards but real success (to the point – as Arthur C. Clarke did – where his book sales earned more than his day job so he could give up the day job) eludes me presently.

I clearly have something of worth on those pages. What I write is not to everyone’s taste, but a lot out there really like it. If only they’d leave reviews and tell all their friends, I might make a few more pennies. Despite all this, I soldier on, hoping for that big break, to get my stories in front of the right people, living in anticipation that the word-of-mouth explosion will occur. As Clive, James and Terry suggested, I’ve never given up. I’ve come close but my love of creating stories and visions for people is something I’m passionate about and I’m always drawn back to those ideas, some of which come in dreams. Expanding upon them to create a world and characters which people love and enjoy taking the journey with is very rewarding, even if it’s not financially enriching.

Getting that finished book in my hands, all those months or years of effort coming to fruition, is a feeling like no other. And, one day, I’m sure I’ll be on a train or in a park somewhere and see someone reading one of my books. When that happens, I know I’ll be humbled but ecstatic once more. Something to look forward to.

You can follow my blog at www.davidegates.com or my author page on Facebook @davidegatesauthor where you can find details of all of my books and free short-stories to download or buy.

Thank you.

All Books

Get my blog updates directly to your email!

Get www.davidegates.com blog updates directly to your email! Don’t miss any news regarding my current books, short-stories and upcoming projects ever again!

In the bottom right-hand corner of my blog pages, you’ll see the following button:

Follow

Click on this and enter your email into the box and every time there’s a new blog-post, it’ll be delivered directly to your mailbox!

Sign Up

We promise we won’t share your email with ANYONE and you’ll only get blog updates which are posted no more than once a week.

The Wretched featured in Meon Valley News!

IMG_0033.JPG

Great feature in monthly paper that covers The Meon Valley…

Click here to buy The Wretched on Kindle.

Click here to buy The Wretched on other platforms.

the-wretched

A teenage boy explores the forbidden areas of his home town and gives life to a new evil that stalks him and his friends and family with vengeance in mind. Whilst grappling with the onset of puberty, he must battle the shape-changing menace which haunts his dreams and knows no bounds in its savagery whilst coming to terms with his own metamorphosis. The Wretched. A unique horror story, drawing inspiration from local folklore, set in and around Portsmouth.

the-wretched

“Yes indeed it was a good read that’s for sure. Even had two dreams about it. You wanted to keep reading to find out what was going to happen next.” – Helen Weaire.

“Fantastic read. Once I picked it up, could not put it down. Wanted to see what happened next. Expertly written – an excellent addition to the David E. Gates collection of recent stories. Totally recommend it.” – Amazon customer.

 

Photograph credit (For picture featured in article): Graham Wheatley – © 2017.

AVAILABLE NOW: Audiobook of Access Denied

AVAILABLE NOW: The AUDIOBOOK version of Access Denied.

Audiobook Cover - Cropped

Told in his own words, David E. Gates narrates the story of how he fell in love, had a daughter he adored, and battled against the unbelievable incompetence, bias and injustices of the Child Support Agency and the Family Courts which cost him almost everything.

With 100% positive reviews, David’s story is both moving and tragic. Experience it in glorious audio form with original music by James Holmes.

Buy Access Denied now

%d bloggers like this: