One who raises demons,” the writer Shirley Jackson once said, “must deal with them.” This post isn’t an exploration of the sublime works of Shirley Jackson, or of her troubled inner life. Still, the above quote neatly sums up one of the main themes of her writing, and also (not incidentally) of a short story I wrote, The Ferry, that my publisher has submitted to the 2026 Shirley Jackson Awards.
New Year I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and I wish you, dear constant reader, a very happy, prosperous and fulfilling 2026. Updating this blog has been on my to-do list throughout December, but Christmas and the press of my day job monopolised my attention and time. It’s been a quiet 2025 on this […]
“No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is… the nativity of our common Adam”. – Charles Lamb, New Year’s Eve I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable Christmas and will have a happy New Year’s Eve tonight. I wanted to squeeze in one more post in 2024; not that my […]
Hello, constant reader! I hope you’re enjoying the late summer weather; it’s been a bit tempestuous weather-wise in the UK, and it feels like our summer skipped a few tracks, but I don’t mind; I have several reasons to look forward to Autumn and the “Ber” months.
Firstly, Happy New Year to you, constant reader! I hope your Christmas and holiday season was restful and joyful, and spent with loved ones. It always feels for me like a physical and mental trudge up a steep hill at the start of a new year, but I know that some brisk walking to shake […]
…no matter what the reader fancies, as long as it’s unsettling, s/he is certain to find something melodiously creepy in Symphony of the Damned. Rebecca Rowland, Horror TREE In my last post, I announced that one of my horror short stories features in a new anthology, Symphony of the Damned. You can still pick up the […]
I signed my first actual, honest-to-god contract for a piece of fiction at the start of the month, for a horror anthology published by Savage Realms Press, called Symphony of The Damned. The book was published a couple of days ago, and I may have to frame that contract! I submitted “Shadows Under Leamouth”, my […]
I haven’t had much to say on here because I haven’t been writing much; the process of writing has been a physical and emotional slog for the last few months, and I found myself picking up other creative outlets. Finding excuses to not write is just that: an excuse.
It’s been eighteen months since I last visited Northern Ireland, and I doubt I’ll be able to get over this summer; as of the time of writing, the GOV.UK site still advises against all but essential travel to NI (or at least I think it does; it may be downright illegal, depending on your source). […]
In my July update I hoped for the best but prepared for the worst, and here we are in another year, in another national UK lockdown, with a very unprecedented Christmas behind us.
If I distilled anything palatable from the bitter brew of 2020, it was to be actively grateful – not in a wishy washy, Pinterest board way, but to frequently and actively list out on a piece of paper all the reasons to be cheerful whenever the new normal threatened to overwhelm. We are safe, we are fortunate that we can work from home, we continue healthy, we have a good broadband and Wi-Fi connection so we can connect to friends and family online, as well as buy most of what we need in the same way. We did manage to get out and about for some hiking trips in between lockdowns (pic above is from a brief trip to the Lake District in September), but I’m now doing my part as a stay-safe couch potato.
I want to kick off with a mention that Reflex Press’s anthology Volume Two, The Real Jazz Baby, has recently won the Best Anthology Award in the 2020 Saboteur Awards. My story Let Me Be Your Fantasy is featured, together with 160 other authors, and I’m very proud to be a small part of an […]
I’ve had asthma since my teens, nearly forty years now. It lurks, ready at the lack of a coat to remind me of how it’s compromised my respiratory system. A mild cold in December mutated into a chest infection that hung around like an oblivious, unwelcome guest for nearly a month. Needless to say, I’m […]
I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable Christmas and New Year break. The tone of this post was set by my New Year’s Eve iTunes playlist (mercifully for my friends and family it’s quite short, unlike my eight-hour gargantuan Christmas version). While singing along to Abba’s “Happy New Year” I realised it’s not […]
Hi constant reader, I’m still here, in case you were wondering; I took a summer/autumn hiatus from all things writing; my creative outlets were limited to completing a drawing course, gardening, and some pre-Christmas knitting. I promised to read more (and more physical books – Kindle on a tablet makes it way too tempting to […]
I’m not going to list out all the famous authors who had to persist through dozens of rejections until their magnum opus was snapped up. And I’m not going to name that Decca manager who rejected the Beatles as a passé guitar group on their way out. I’m not even going to dwell on Stephen […]
It’s been a few months since I’ve posted, even though in the interim I’ve had a couple of flash fiction stories published; my non-writing life got in the way, and family comes first. I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year’s, constant reader; a gift I inadvertently gave myself for 2018 was […]
It’s nearly May, and as well as hopes for warmer (or at least consistent) weather, my thoughts have turned to murder mysteries and crime; May 1st – 7th is Mystery Week on Goodreads, and I’m taking part this year! Goodreads have organised a raft of activities for mystery writers and readers between the 1st and […]
I admit it, I’m currently on a real kick for Horror fiction in general and HP Lovecraft in particular. Maybe it’s the time of year; the evenings draw in, there’s a catch in your breath from the cold air, it’s Halloween season, and your thoughts turn to cosmic horror and undying gods beyond the stars and […]
Today I’ve had a piece of flash fiction published at Ad Hoc Fiction, a Bath Flash Fiction Award project. The title of my story is “The Expedition” – it was published in the 27/4/16 weekly edition, but if you have difficulty locating it in the Flash eBook format, I’ve saved a copy for your perusal here! As with much […]
This is just a quick night post to proudly announce that one of my flash fiction stories has been published by Richard Hearn at Paragraph Planet, a brilliant creative writing site that has published one 75-word story every day since 2008. I’m very pleased to have my story featured as the 27th March entry! Please […]