Show Menu

Shortlisted (again) for the Thresholds Prize

 For the fourth year running I have managed to make the Thresholds Feature Writing Competition shortlist. The competition which celebrates the short story form is now in its fifth year and the shortlist is always crammed with some great writing that gives a fresh perspective on short stories and writers both well known and more…

Read more

Judging the East Midlands Book Award 2016

 This year I am thrilled to be one of the judges of the East Midlands Book Award, the prestigious literary prize awarded annually to the best book written by an East Midlands author. From the EMBA website: ‘Every year £1000 is awarded to a writer of fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry or plays. This can include work…

Read more

Being Dad

   For those of you wondering what Being Dad is, here’s the blurb from the Tangent Books Being Dad order page: Fatherhood is in a state of flux. Gone are the simplistic gender roles of yesteryear, the clear divisions between mothers and fathers. More dads than ever before are staying home to be full-time parents…

Read more

Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016

 Well, another year done and what a year. 2015 kicked of with the arrival of the results of my MA Creative Writing  and I was thrilled, after three years of work, to receive a Distinction. In April, around the anniversary of its publication, my debut collection of short stories, Looking Out of Broken Windows, was…

Read more

My Top Books of 2015

 Tomorrow I’ll be posting a full cover gallery of the titles I have read in 2015. In the meantime, thought I’d post a few words about my favourite books from this year’s reading. Assembling the gallery post revealed a trend towards prefering slim books (no more than 200 pages or so) to larger tomes, possibly…

Read more

Bath Short Story Award Anthology 2015.

 Twenty stories – the winning, shortlisted and a selection of the longlisted stories from the 2015 Bath Short Story Award – “A hot, tragic summer in 1980s Belfast. The loss of love echoed through the Shipping Forecast. A woman writes ‘love’ letters for illiterate girls in the Far East. The Kilburnie Kings hit the town.…

Read more

Why you should apply for an RSL Brookleaze Grant

 Awarded by The Royal Society of Literature’s Council, Brookleaze Grants support writers (novelists, playwrights, poets, short story writers) who need time away from their normal lives – to take sabbaticals from their jobs, for example, or to travel abroad for research – to write. A total of £5,000 is available annually, and this may be awarded either…

Read more

Perfect Halloween Reading

 Halloween is almost upon us and the Wales Art Review’s Halloween Special, full of tricks and treats, is the perfect literary accompaniment. From walesartsreview.org: This year we are very proud to publish an exclusive and free collection of short stories from a selection of top writers, including Niall Griffiths, Rebecca F. John, Jo Mazelis and many…

Read more

Beautiful Trees review

 Just over a year ago, I began my review of Nik Perring’s Beautiful Words with the imperative ‘Do not read this book,’ and I meant it. I didn’t want readers to simply quickly flick through the pages of the book. Perring’s dictionary come love story, beautifully illustrated by Miranda Sofroniou, deserved better than that. I…

Read more

Characters and Stories @ Wolds Words 2015

 This time next week I will be leading a writing workshop on character as part of the brilliant Wolds Words 2015. Wolds Words is an annual celebration of reading, writing and performance with events taking place in Louth and the the Lincolnshire Wolds, with events for adults running over October 21st-25th and the children’s and…

Read more

Charles C May on Half-mown Lawn

 Charles C May’s blog, Reading the Short Story, is a must read for anyone interested in the critical study of short fiction. Mr May is an academic who has spent many years reading and writing about short fiction and has published a number of books on the subject, including, most recently, the excellent ‘I Am Your…

Read more

Being Dad Kickstarter final few days

 As I type this, there are only 5 days to go before the Being Dad Kickstarter ends. Pledges currently stand at £2778 which means that there is still just over £700 needed before the deadline of Monday 12th October. It all feels tantalisingly close at this stage so if you have been thinking of pledging and haven’t…

Read more

The End is coming

   From The Fifteen Paintings website: The End is a collaborative project that explores the nature of ‘endings’. Fifteen paintings, depicting ‘the end’, by artist Nicolas Ruston will provoke fifteen short fictions by fifteen writers. Ruston wanted to examine and interrogate the notion of ‘the end’ by exploring how a temporal art form can operate through different…

Read more

Being Dad Kickstarter is go!

 While I was away last week the Being Dad Kickstarter kicked off. I’ve been unable to blog about it until today though, as I returned home from the First Story Young writers’ Festival to find my broadband (and I say broadband but here in rural Lincolnshire it’s more ‘moderately-wideband’) was on the blink. Normal (slow) service…

Read more

First Story Young Writers’ Festival 2015

 This week I was fortunate enough to once again be part of the fabulous First Story Young Writers’ Festival. On Wednesday and Thursday over 800 students gathered in the gorgeous grounds of Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford to take part in workshops and performances led by more than 30 writers from across the UK. I…

Read more

Being Dad

 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…

Read more

First Story Summer Residential 2015

 Regular readers of this blog will know that I am currently a writer-in-residence with the charity First Story. For those of you not familiar with First Story, here’s their intro from the website: First Story changes lives through writing. We believe that writing can transform lives, and that there is dignity and power in every…

Read more