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...
A TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE NOVELETTE It’s 2012. According to the Mayans the world is about to end… they might be right. When local science reporter Ruth Anders attends a press conference for the Kepler project, she knows it’s going to be a memorable experience but she never expects to be | 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...
On the evolution of stories and a case of unexpected philosophy. Muse There are those who scoff at authors when they claim they have no control over the stories that they tell, that they are a conduit through which stories are told, more like a medium than an engineer. That | Read more…
Giant robots and gargantuan monsters haven’t exactly had a good run over the last couple of decades. Pacific Rim combines both; I didn’t have high hopes, but I was happy to be proven wrong. After its third weekend in the cinemas the film has struggled to break even at the | Read more…
Along with the rest of Britain, I’ve had a bit of a dry spell recently. A blogging dry spell at least. Hopefully the two aren’t linked and it won’t start raining as a result of me posting an update. This is a bit of a general update and “what’s coming | Read more…
Last week I discovered that, after a long history of being free to access, Duotrope.com had moved to a subscription based model. If you’ve never come across Duotrope before it is a searchable database of markets for written work, with added features such as a way to track the submissions | Read more…
Some thoughts on the use of song lyrics and other copyrighted material in fiction or other media. This weekend the subject of quoting song lyrics in works of fiction came up in conversation with another writer. He wanted to know whether he would be allowed to quote lines from a | Read more…
The last two months have been a crazy rush to get Great Escapes, Volume 1 edited and printed, hence the reason this blog has been somewhat neglected. But, the hard work is nearly over; the book is here! There are a few technical niggles to iron out with the eBook | Read more…
Ideas are not something I usually struggle with, but sometimes I like to challenge myself to write something based on a prompt purely because it wasn’t my idea. I’ve found in the past that some of the stories I have created through trying to find a story within a prompt | Read more…
While I’ve come across advice in the writing world that pushes reluctant writers to eventually take the plunge and try submitting their work, it is far outweighed by that desperately trying to instill some sort of reality check. I have never been one to expect I will “get good” at | Read more…
When I review a book I like to think about what I can learn from it. A few weeks ago I reviewed Crimes Against Magic by Steve McHugh, and it got me thinking about the pitfalls of making your hero too powerful. Nate Garrett, centuries old sorcerer assassin is a | Read more…
Crimes Against Magic is the debut novel by Steve McHugh. Set in modern day London but with a host of historical and fantasy characters, the story creates a world in which the ancient and the modern don’t seem so far removed. Magic still exists and there are things that haunt | 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...