Keepsakes and Hand-me-downs

Over the last few months I’ve been writing a bunch of new short stories. All are loosely in the horror or weird fiction genres, but that’s not the only link between them. Each tale also includes a bequest or inheritance. I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that are passed down through the generations. […]

2022 Roundup

Well, 2022 is almost done. In some ways, I suppose, it’s been a more hopeful year, though at the same time it’s managed to find new challenges to throw our way too. It feels at least like the world is moving again. Likewise, creatively, I feel like this has been a year of scraping off […]

back in black static

Just heard from Andy Cox that my story, The Salted Bones, is going to be in issue 82/83 of Black Static. I’m especially pleased about this because Andy has been kind enough to publish my stories since issue 2 of The Third Alternative (the precursor to Black Static), and this final issue marks his publishing […]

2021 Roundup

Another barmy year, eh? A year of obsessively watching trends and numbers and graphs, of living carefully and hopefully. A year of feeling that life was getting back to normal, until it wasn’t. Another year of losing friends. And of doing the only thing a creative person can do, get the head down and continue […]

New Black Static

The new issue of Black Static – a double issue no less – goes to the printers this week and will be in our hands before we can say ‘scary stories’. I’ve loved this magazine since issue 1 (and it’s predecessor, The Third Alternative) and the debt I owe to editor, Andy Cox for publishing […]

The Year of Living Industriously

After all the exciting business of novels and the like last year, 2015 might look like it was a year of not very much happening, but I doubt I’ve ever had such a productive one. Musically, we got the band back on the road and Markee and Bert managed to get themselves on a US […]

Into The Black

Very, very pleased to announce that I’ve sold a supernatural short story, The Secret Language Of Stamps, to Black Static. One of my undisclosed writing goals for this year was to try and break into their pages, and I’m delighted to have done it so quickly. Black Static is a special magazine for me because its […]

Monthly : February

Reading long Eyepennies by Mike O’Driscoll (TTA Press) Not that long a read, actually (in fact I read this novella pretty much in one sitting). I’m a long standing O’Driscoll fan and having taken out a subscription to TTA’s new novella series, I was gantin’ for this to arrive, and when it did I wasn’t by […]

July Reading

Beginning to catch up on the reading front a little, although I’m still busy with too many other things to make much headway on the novel pile (and, to be frank, August is not looking promising on that front either. Ah, well). Anyway – for a bit of light relief I went with Terry Pratchett’s […]

April -reading

Again, a month’s readings interrupted by other things. Which is not a complaint, just a bit of scene setting. In April I’d intended to go ahead and read the other BSFA nominees that I didn’t managed during March (The Islanders and By Light Alone), but by the time my reading schedule had cleared I wasn’t […]