The problem with having goals is that they’re constantly changing. When you start off as a writer, your first target tends to be something like “get a short story published somewhere”, and then once that’s out of the way, you move on to “get a short story published somewhere nice.” And when that’s ticked off […]
Any excuse to stick that gorgeous cover up again. Well, it’s publication day today and I am quite unbelievably excited and if the truth were to be told, just a bit emotional too. In fact the paperback snuck out under the cover of darkness on Monday morning, so it’s only really the Kindle version that’s […]
OK, this is where the scary stuff starts. THE TRUTH ABOUT ARCHIE AND PYE was uploaded to NetGalley today. There’s still a week and a bit to go before the official publication next Thursday, but members of NetGalley are now able to request advance copies for reviewing. I haven’t been through this process before, so […]
Well, then. LOVE AND LOSS AND OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF hits the shelves today, which means I am now the author of a poetry collection. I still find this an extraordinary thing to be able to say, so forgive me for sounding a bit excited. Oh, and I don’t think I’ve blogged yet about the extraordinary […]
Well, here’s some news that I’ve been sitting on for some time – since last June in fact. I’m very pleased to announce that, contrary to what you may have been thinking, I have not one but two new books in the pipeline. Regular readers of this blog (yeah, maybe the use of the plural […]
A new flash of mine went up at the excellent Spelk yesterday. Usually these things come from prompts, but this one emerged out of the blue. Can’t quite remember exactly how it emerged, mind. I think it was probably the mysterious cage that set it going and it acquired a life of its own after that. You are […]
Ooh, this is exciting. Some time ago I was asked to contribute a humorous flash to an anthology for Comic Relief. So I offered them my story ‘Embarrassing Dad’. Fortunately, they seemed to like this, so there I am in the table of contents, along with the likes of Bernard MacLaverty, Roddy Doyle and Lydia Davis. I’ll […]
I should have posted about this yesterday, but I didn’t really feel like writing anything because of that thing that happened in the US. I haven’t got anything to add to the millions of words already written on the subject, except to point you in the direction of this post from eight years ago, which is […]
I haven’t had a lot of short fiction published lately (mainly because I haven’t actually written much), so it’s nice to see this one up at EDF. On the face of it, it’s quite an inconsequential little story, but I think the subject – familial solidarity – is one that doesn’t get touched on a lot. […]
Back in April, I wrote a poem. It was (and I appreciate these things are always subjective) intended to be a funny poem. However, I couldn’t work out where to send it, and to cut a long story short, I ended up creating my very own online poetry magazine, specifically aimed at publishing humorous poetry, […]