Record Store Day 2013

Just a quick, now annual, reminder that tomorrow is international Record Store (Shop!) Day. The annual jamboree where the pasty faced and terminally wired consumer of tunes gets his arse out of the house and goes music shopping old school style. Everyone has fun, there are in-store performances by excellent local bands, special releases for […]

Young Man’s Game?

Over on his blog, Keith Brooke has been considering the announcement of the annual Granta Best Young Novelists under 40 and, prompted by a Twitter conversation on the subject, asking: what’s the big deal with 40 anyway? And it’s a decent enough question. Why should all the attention be given to the kind of novelist […]

Making the words into a thing

This novel business is a piece of cake, eh? At Eastercon I had a number of conversations with Ian Whates about how Newcon Press are going to present The Moon King. There’s lots to talk about, and I’m lucky to have a super-enthusiastic publisher who takes the time to consult and explain all this stuff […]

Monthly : March

Reading long Dark Eden by Chris Beckett (Corvus) In SF they tell you that one of the great cliches is the Adam-and-Eve-on-a-new-planet story. You just don’t do it. Ever. Chris Beckett has, however, done exactly that, and Dark Eden is a simple, beautiful triumph of a book. His Adam and Eve are several generations dead, and […]

SWC talk

The excellent Gareth Vile, has kindly plugged my talk on music and writing for the Scottish Writers Centre which takes place at the CCA in Glasgow next Tuesday, 9th April. The talk will encompass short story writing and song writing, the rhythm of prose and writing to music, musical theatre, cabaret, stories about music and […]

Chilled con

That was what they dubbed this year’s Eastercon, on account of the freezing temperatures and residual snow and ice in Bradford. There was nothing the organisers could have done about the weather, or about the fact that the main bar area was right next to the hotel doors which invited in an icy blast every […]

Solaris Rising : favourite short stories

Over on the Solaris Editors’ blog, they’re celebrating the release this week of Solaris Rising 2 by asking the people involved in the anthology to talk about their favourite Science Fiction short stories. Mine went up today.

The annual Eastercon show of hands

And all of a sudden, Easter is just around the corner. Which means the annual beer and gab fest that is Eastercon. I say this every year but if you’re interested in SF and Fantasy Eastercon is a great way to spend a weekend. If you’re a reader of SF and Fantasy books, it’s a […]

Not quite daily bread

Just caught up with the first instalment of the new Paul Hollywood series on BBC2. I’ve been baking my own bread for about six months and, I think, getting steadily better at it. Lunches in the respective offices in our house often comprise homemade soup (courtesy of the bidey-in) and my homemade bread. And they […]

The Late Next Big Thing

Towards the end of last year a meme flurried through the writing community called The Next Big Thing. The point of it was to allow folks to wax a little about their newest project and, by name checking other writers to take part, share the boost a little. Nice idea, and I enjoyed reading about […]