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100 Stories for Haiti – the cover

 Just got back from a week away to find some cool things crammed in my inbox and Google Reader list. In amongst all the e-debris I found the cover for the 100 stories For Haiti collection. I like the idea. Simple and effective, while showcasing the writers. You can pre-order the paperback here. The ebook will be available from smashwords soon.

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Updates

 Further to my earlier news regarding my various recent acceptances, I can tell you that the Six Sentences Love collection is now available from createspace and features 132 pages of micro writing on the subject of love, including one from yours truly. Even better news is the announcement of the release date for 100 Stories for Haiti. The charity collection will see publication on March 4th, with all the royalties going straight to the British Red Cross. My story ‘Impact’ is one of the 100 stories in its pages. I hope you will join me in supporting this worthy project as both a great cause and a great collection of…

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Week of awesome.

 The last week or two have been busy and exciting, particularly on the submission/publication front. Regular readers of this blog will already know that in the last few days I have had work accepted in both 100 Stories for Haiti, the charity anthology that is to be published very soon in both ebook and paperback formats and the Six Sentences Love collection due to arrive in time for Valentine’s day. 100 Stories for Haiti has a revised line-up released over the weekend and as soon as it is available I’ll post links here for those of you wanting to grab a copy. This project is an exciting prospect as it…

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6 Sentence Love

 Just got news that a six sentence version of my story ‘Impact’submitted for the 6 Sentence Love competition has secured a spot in the 6S Love collection due to be released. Check out the writer announcement video, my name appears about 35 seconds in. Looking forward to getting hold of a copy and checking out the other great, concise writing in there.

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Coming soon: 100 Stories for Haiti

 100 Stories for Haiti is a collection of short stories donated by writers that will be released February/March 2010 as an ebook from Smashwords.com, and as a paperback through Unbound Press, with all proceeds going straight to the Red Cross. The collection will feature a new story from Nick Harkaway, author of the best-selling novel The Gone Away World, who also provides the introduction the introduction. The project is the brainchild of Greg McQueen who started the whole thing with a Youtube appeal: I am proud to say that my story ‘Impact’ is to be included in the collection. Here’s hoping the project raises lots of cash for what is…

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A clash of genre – #fridayflash

 What he wanted: for their lovemaking to build like a Wilco track, something from a live recording perhaps. Impossible Germany? The guitars pleaching as they build to a sustained, understated, controlled and powerful climax. Kidsmoke? A bombastic riff sweeping everything up in its path. He fantasised sex soundtracked by energetic, clever guitars, lifting both them on the back of chord progressions somehow both classic and innovative. What she wanted: for him not to think so much, just let the sex happen, block rocking with a Chemical Brothers’ style beat. This incongruity of ideas led to their awkward bedroom fumblings, a clash of genre as much as any incompatibility of personality,…

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The Boy with Two Brains – #fridayflash

 Thomas Darden was eight years old when his father insisted he have a full brain transplant. He would watch him sitting alone reading poetry or sketching ornate landscapes on the patio slabs with chalks and wish for a child that played sport and had friends, just like when Mr Darden himself was young. Once he had convinced Mrs Darden, the couple poured over glossy colour catalogues, unfolding pullouts of ECG scans, tracing fingers over brain maps as consultants told them all about the fresh batches just in. They created a wish list of favourite brains from those on offer, placed their bids and waited for the auctions to end. While…

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Chinese Whisperings: The Red Book – review.

 Chinese Whisperings: The Red Book is a collection of ten interwoven short stories by emerging writers from across the English-speaking world, a conceptual anthology created by Australian writer Jodi Cleghorn and Scottish writer Paul Anderson. This collection, the first in a series of anthologies to be published under the Chinese Whisperings imprint, sees each successive writer taking a minor character from the preceding story and telling their story as the major character in the next. Unlike other anthologies, which might be unified by theme or year of writing, Chinese Whisperings: The Red Book has been created in a sequential fashion, the stories taking place in the same American University town,…

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Proof of Purchase – #fridayflash

 When Harry Phillips finally moved into Green Grove Retirement Community the only thing he took with him, besides a suitcase of old clothes, was a small wooden box with a simple flip clasp. He held it on his lap in the taxi from the home he had shared with Shirley, nesting it in both hands like a chalice. The box, large enough to hold a deck of cards, was placed safely on his bedside table and Harry, tired from the drive, decided to have a lie down. ‘What’s in the box?’ The voice woke Harry. He blinked twice, then opened his eyes. An old woman with bright eyes gazed at…

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micro – #fridayflash

 Something a bit different this week. Clearing out my virtual writing desk over New Year, I came across a handful of micro/hintfiction competition entries I wrote in 2009. Though I did receive a nice email about one of the following micro fictions, none of the following were successful in their respective competitions. I remain quite fond of these little stories so thought, for my first #fridayflash of 2010, I would let them out into the wild. Be gentle, they’re only little. The Other Shoe. He sat with one shoe off and one shoe on, unsure of whether he was coming or going. She refused to help by saying something. On…

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The New Flesh

 My flash fiction story, ‘The Car Park,’ is today’s offering from the excellent The New Flesh, blogazine of the weird. Pop over there and leave a comment if you get the chance. While there, be sure to check out the other sci-fi, horror and bizarro fiction on offer.

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Late New Year.

 As many stay at home parents will understand, the New Year doesn’t really kick off for me until the kids go back to school. That day is tomorrow. If the snow here doesn’t mean the school is closed, which on one hand would be a help as it would mean my good lady wife would have the day off too, while on the other it would delay me having any quality keyboard time by at least another 24 hours. Over the last two weeks I have been squeezing in work on my upcoming TMA (due Friday) where I can and that has been that for writing. The assignment requires the…

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My latest creation.

 Apologies if I have been a bit quiet on the Interweb lately. If I haven’t commented on your #fridayflash story, blogpost, or website lately, sorry about that. I have just received the best of news. Myself and Mrs P. found out a few weeks ago that we are expecting our third child. Baby Powell will be arriving around the middle of June next year. As you can imagine we are both chuffed to bits and busy with organising Christmas for our other two, along with attending scans. Not to mention my taking on even more of the chores due to my wife feeling either exhausted or sick or both exhausted…

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Lazy Sunday

 To kick things off, this made me smile earlier this week: This week’s #fridayflash is full of some great fiction – check out the links over on the full report for 50-odd great pieces of free flash fiction, all from seriously lovely people. Robert McCrum has provided an antidote to all the books of the decade blog posts, looking at the decade a hundred years ago and the books that made it great. I like the idea that some of the books being celebrated in a hundred years time will be the unsung gems of 2000-2009. In my Sunday morning Google Reading the ever excellent ‘May Contain Nuts,’ had me…

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Simple – #fridayflash

 It’s too cold to walk home but the taxis all seem to have their lights off. Carly snuggles into me, her beanied head nudging into the crook of my shoulder, and we stand on the edge of the pavement unsure of what to do. No buses are running and we have no one to call for a lift. ‘I want go home,’ Carly says. I nod my head. We huddle off to the side of the theatre entrance, sheltered from the worst of the wind and out of the way of the patrons filing out. The night sky above the Stratford streets is a clear, HD image. I consider the…

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Upstairs – #fridayflash

 The Conways lived in the flat above around the start of the decade. In those days their screaming regularly wound down the stairwell, a surreal wake up call in the early morning, a fearsome and mournful roaring that punctured the quiet of the evening. Daytime was generally free of their cries with both of them out at work. Those moments, when the flat above was silent, were ones to savour, make much of, and, of course, be thankful for. The sounds would vary day to day in volume, pitch, intensity and intent. Voluminous rage would burst through walls and echo down the stairs to the floors below one day, the…

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NaNoWriMo – Day 30

 It’s the last day of NaNoWriMo and the writing blogosphere today is full of posts about this year’s dash to write 50,000 word. I worked late on Saturday night to break the target and beat it by a mammoth fifteen words. There were moments during the thirty days that I thought the end would never arrive but now it has I kind of miss it already. I can see why folks sign up for this marathon every year. Like a marathon runner, I feel exhausted and elated in equal measure having reached my goal. And ticking in the back of my mind is what I need to do next. Things…

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Is It Art? – #fridayflash

 The room is poorly lit, except for the spotlight beaming down from the gun metal lighting rack bolted to the concrete ceiling. The exhibition space is huge yet the small pool of light from the spot creates a threatening, claustrophobic atmopshere. The chair in the centre is bolted to the floor just like the lighting rack. The effect is austere, utilitarian. The invite only audience barely breathes. The figure strapped to the chair has stopped shaking now. His blood mixes with the body paint to form a muddy brown colour, like earth or shit. The spotlight glares down like God as he breathes his last. The chair has done it’s…

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NaNoWriMo – Day 16

 It’s been a while since I have posted about NaNoWriMo. It’s been a while since I posted much of anything. Suffice to say that with another 1,000 words completed today I will be smack back on target for the 50,000 words. Over the last week or so my characters have done things I didn’t plan for or expect (putting a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat on one such occasion) and I have managed to do more writing than usual with less time than usual due to the need to keep chipping away at the 50,000 strong target. This is my first time doing NaNo and…

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Car Park -#fridayflash

 The car park is a bad mood cast in concrete. Though not old enough for its construction to be lost from living memory, only the car park itself knows how many bodies its concrete foundations entomb and where. It hulks over the city surrounding it, a sleeping monster that might any moment be provoked into brutality. Most who tread the stairwell up the spine of the building are careful not to wake it. Not that many come this way since the council announced its imminent demolition. Rumours of its demise, however, were greatly exaggerated, with a local action group fighting to save the formidable structure. Its concrete bulk, the protruding…

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