Been a bit quiet here on the blog, what with the kids off school for the summer. My writing and blogging time has been squeezed by the inevitable increase in Dad time. Thursday was the kids first day back at school and yesterday I was able to grab a couple of hours between washing, food shopping and the school run (a homedad’s work is never done) to actually work on a short story. The return to school is always a welcome return to normality after the brilliant but exhausting round of activities and trips and general doing stuff that is the summer holiday, and it is the perfect time to discover that the Facebook page and Twitter account for a forthcoming anthology I have a story in has gone live.

Being Dad is an anthology of short fiction about modern fatherhood and features new stories from 15 writer-dads, edited by Dan Coxon. Here’s the full list of amazing authors Dan has managed to wrangle fatherhood stories from: Toby Litt, Nikesh Shukla, Dan Rhodes, Courttia Newland, Nicholas Royle, Dan Powell, Rodge Glass, R.J. Price, Tim Sykes, Lander Hawes, Andrew McDonnell, Iain Robinson, Richard W. Strachan, Richard V. Hirst and Samuel Wright. That’s a mighty list of writing talent to be amongst.

The fab promo image above is made up of images of many of the writers as boys, alongside their dear old dads. In case you’re wondering, this one is me with my Dad:

He died back in 2001, a year before I got married, and while none of my children got the chance to meet their Grandad Dave, we talk about him often. More than anyone else, Dad was the person who gave me the confidence to write as I was growing up. He often told me that I would be published one day and I think he’d have been well proud to see one of my stories in a book with his face on the promo and (possibly) cover art.

If a collection of stories about fatherhood from the pens of some of the best writer-dads out there is up your street, then head over to the Being Dad Facebook page and get liking, follow the book’s Twitter feed here: @BeingDadStories, and keep ’em peeled for more exciting news to come about this project too, which I’ll be sure to share on the blog just as soon as I can.

Until next post, let’s hear it for the dads!