There’s a supernatural serial killer on the loose… Elliot Cross didn’t believe in monsters. At least, not until his brother died at the hands of something unnatural. Four years later and a string of impossible deaths leave the police baffled. Consumed by a desire to shine a journalistic light on | Read more...
When local science reporter Ruth Anders gets invited to a national press conference for the Kepler project, she knows it’s going to be a memorable experience. But nothing could prepare her the extraordinary events that take place. Attacked by aliens from another world and zapped through time and space by | Read more...
Welcome to the Graveyard—Where the worlds of the living and the dead overlap. North Bristol Writers present a third anthology of 16 enthralling tales. A boy encounters a mysterious groundskeeper; two students unearth an ancient terror; and in the wilds of Africa, a hunter stumbles into danger. Corpses rise, creatures | Read more...
The world of Genodd is a placed filled with mystery. The Eldar races have gone, leaving behind feuding barbarian tribes. Loosely affiliated into clans, they wander a world filled with Monuments – remnants of a time gone by. A place where Magic – if it ever existed – is lost. | Read more...
In 2015 I attended the London Book Fair for the first time (If you’ve never been, go, you’ll learn a hell of a lot about how the book trade works). There I listened to a talk by author C J Lyons that completely changed my perspective. She said: Don’t think | Read more…
One of the most crucial parts of editing is identifying your own habits so you can address them. Repetition, crutch words, over use of adverbs, passive voice etc. This is something I usually address in a final pass — a final polish — after having addressed everything to do with character, | Read more…
I’m currently looking for an artist with a traditional abstract pen and ink style to produce artwork for use on the book cover of Mime, my supernatural thriller novel. The commission is for the artwork only, not the book cover design, as this will be handled by my publisher. Key | Read more…
About two years ago now I started listening to a podcast called Writing Excuses. I’ve been listening more and more regularly. It chimes with me; I can always find ways to relate their advice and reflections to my own work. Recently I’ve become a supporter through Patreon. In particular I | Read more…
For the last two or three years I have been in a kind of progress limbo. Various time and financial commitments have forced me to side line my own personal projects more than I would have liked. 2017 marked a turning point for me. A year of extracting myself from | Read more…
Earlier this year, having been unscrupulously recruited into producing a story for their second anthology “The Dark Half of the Year”, I moved from the tentative fringe to being a fully fledged member of North Bristol Writers. It’s a very dynamic and proactive group; rather than simply focusing on writing | Read more…
A little rant about why I hate going to the hairdresser Four months after my last trip to a hairdresser, I still find myself replaying the memory whenever I wash my hair. It evokes an uncomfortable combination of embarrassment and anger. I regard going to the hairdresser in much the | Read more…
I really wanted to take on a reading challenge this year, to try to add diversity to what I read. I looked at several I found online but none of them quite hit the points I wanted to challenge myself on. So, I decided to compile one of my own. | Read more…
Arrival is sci-fi tale told with an air of intense realism. Alien objects appear around the world and humans are “invited” to check them out and try to figure out what’s going on. The aliens make no hostile moves, but tensions and miscommunication between the nations of Earth escalate nonetheless. | Read more…
A little bit of potted “wisdom” based on my own experience of receiving edits and critiques When confronted with edits, you invariably won’t like what the editor has suggested. They may have changed the meaning, or the tone of a sentence in a way you don’t like. But, don’t get | Read more…
“I can’t die.” Even before I say it I know you’ll never believe me, but it’s true. “I can prove it.” I turn the knife over in my hand and watch your eyes slant towards the door behind me. You know you can’t get past me, which is why you | Read more...
Between the pale green, silver-spined fronds, round stems probe the air with tiny explorers at their tips. It’s pointless. The plant sits on top of a filing cabinet in an executive office on the fifth floor of a concrete box, yet it dangles its babies over the carpet in a | Read more...
The food was at the back of a small, white box. Mushkin put her foot on the smooth surface and tested it. Nothing bad happened. She sniffed and felt with her whiskers. Strange smells mixed with the tempting aroma of wheat but none that she recognised as dangerous. She stretched | Read more...