Returned from an amazing SCMS to two pieces of great news!

This year's SCMS conference in Atlanta was, arguably, the best one for me yet. In addition to getting to meet some terrific scholars, I sat in on some brilliant papers (the quality of research into film history is very high at the moment), and participated in a successful panel with my friends and colleagues Austin Fisher, Neil Jackson and Eric Schaefer. The film critic, Mark Kermode, was in the audience for our talks, and had some very kind things to say to us afterwards and on his podcast with Simon Mayo.

Austin and I also did a "meet and greet" session as editors of the Bloomsbury series Global Exploitation Cinemas. In truth, we felt a bit weird about doing this a first, so were delighted when a number of people approached us with very promising book ideas.

Within a few days of arriving back to the UK, I was informed that the Journal of British Cinema and Television had published a very positive review of my first book, Contemporary Britih Horror Cinema. Here is snippet from what the reviewer, Nia Edwards-Behi, had to say about it:

• "In taking an approach that considers the various industrial changes and circumstances which surround the contemporary films in question, Walker’s work stands as an excellent British counterpart to recent academic work on contemporary American horror films by Richard Nowell ((2013)). As a result, Walker’s work makes important inroads into the business of making horror films in a contemporary British context, as well as providing detailed and insightful textual analysis of key texts from the past decade or so of film-making."

Thanks for the kind words, Nia!

At present, Austin and I are finalising the proofs for our new edited book, Grindhouse: Cultural Exchange on 42nd Street, and Beyond, which has received a very nice endorsement from Professor Mark Jancovich (University of East Anglia):

• "The Grindhouse is a fascinating phenomenon but it is too often seen as a wild and eclectic one, something that is praised for being chaotic and anarchic. The current collection goes beyond this celebratory rhetoric to examine the multiple forms and histories that converge in the Grindhouse. It unpicks and unpacks the phenomenon in ways that demonstrate its richness and variety, but also make sense of that richness and variety. Most significantly, it does so without destroying the pleasures of the Grindhouse. On the contrary it manages to question the experience while preserving its sense of fascination. And that is a very rare thing."

Thanks also to Professor Jancovich for his support!

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