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It’s Okay Not to Know

 Writing short fiction is an exercise in not knowing. When I begin any story, I know very little about what will emerge onto the page. I don’t know where my story will go, what it is about, or where it will end. I discover these things while writing the story. When writing a short story,…

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Sharks Patrol These Waters @ Fictive Dream

 It’s taken me a little while to get around to posting this here, but I am thrilled to share the news that my latest short story, ‘Sharks Patrol These Waters’ was published over at Fictive Dream back in April. Here’s the opening: ‘And finally, on the shore, white sand slipping between his toes like time,…

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Leicester Writes Short Story Prize 2021

 There’s less than a month left before the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize 2021 deadline. Regular readers of this blog my remember that my story ‘Dissolution’ won last year’s prize. I am thrilled to say that I am on the judging panel for the prize this year. The prize is looking for new and original…

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WEM Writers’ Conference 2021

 Calling all writers, the Writing East Midlands Writers’ Conference is fast approaching. From the WEM website: ‘The Writers’ Conference is back in April 2021, offering writers all over the country access to leading professionals from the industry across 4 days of inspiration, networking and practical guidance for writers – all online. The 2021 event will…

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Ten favourite sentences (in no particular order)

 A long time ago now, editors at the American Scholar selected the Ten Best Sentences in literature. Their list included prose from James Joyce, Toni Morrison, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway and others. They even included a bonus sentence from Truman Capote. The folks over at Book Riot also joined the party. Reading these lists back…

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foregroundmusic: Hotel Neon

 Been doing a lot of editing of what appears to be coalescing into a collection of weird/eerie/uncanny short stories* which appear to be whacking about in woods haunted by the themes of death, doubles, time and after-lives. As ever, my writing and editing has been sound tracked by a variety of ambient and dronecore pieces,…

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Edge Hill Prize announces all female longlist

 The Edge Hill University Short Story Prize is the only UK based award to recognise excellence in a single authored short story collection. As such it is a tremendously important feature of the writing landscape for anyone who enjoys reading short fiction, as well as anyone engaged in writing short fiction. As someone who sits…

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Don’t panic – reality is just a redraft

 Spent a chunk of this morning wrangling with the themes that define the work of Philip K. Dick. My entry point today was the remarkable lecture he delivered in September 1977 at the 4eme Festival de la Science Fiction in Metz, France: ‘If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others.’…

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Explaining my shelf

 I stumbled across Explain Your Shelf recently. It’s a neat little blog with a simple premise: authors take photos of their bookshelves and write something about their contents. Some great posts up there from great writers, including Nuala O’Connor (back when she was publishing as Nuala Ní Chonchúir) and Alex Cox. Unfortunately, it seems that…

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We’ll see how it goes.

 Posting this has highlighted to me just how long it has been since I posted anything on this blog. Over the last year, I have been nestled deep within my PhD research and, when able to come up for breath, I’ve neglected this blog. More recently, you can add the demands of lockdown to the…

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Walter Benjamin’s Rules for Writing

 I’m a bit of a sucker for writing rules, even though I know that there really are no rules. I suppose what I really like is what they tell me about another writer’s process. This list of thirteen rules from the desk of Walter Benjamin is new to me. Particularly the awareness of a need…

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grey is the colour

 I knew there was a reason my favourite colour is grey, beyond the level of intuitive preference. Apparently, according to this paint company, grey is the colour of cyberspace. What’s more, they have a whole range of networked greys. So yeah, cyberspace, grey is the colour.   (via Bruce Sterling)

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new_novel.doc (OST)

 Put the finishing touches to the latest edit of my novel this morning. Just hit send to my agent and hoping that the changes hit the spot and this baby can start making its way out into the world. For those of you wondering what the novel is all about, here’s a Spotify playlist of…

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foregroundmusic: New Space Music

 Discovered (via the magnificent Warren Ellis) that there was an edition of Brian Eno’s Neroli with an extra track called New Space Music. Neroli has long been a go to piece of writing music for me, so the fact that someone has slapped it on YouTube has made my morning. What this means is, today…

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