Most writers arrive fully-formed, their debut novel hailed as something special and original. That or they're just ignored and left to fend for themselves. The word ‘debut’ carries a special cache around the publishing industry. I started off performing live shows, writing my own stories, hoping to be published one day. Twilight was a huge… Continue reading The Path to Happiness
It was a day I'll never forget because it was when everything went from bad to terrible. The 12th December 2019. I was in Edinburgh with my friend Alex Nye, both of us suffering in the cold, but still excited to be seeing our old friends in the writing community. Our equivalent of an office… Continue reading Christmas Time, Irn-Bru and Wine
After months of delays due to Covid-19, my first novel for adults is finally out. Happiness Is Wasted On Me is a book I wanted to write, but more than that...it's a book I needed to write. Somehow, it just happened. Now it's available to buy and order from bookshops on your high street and… Continue reading My new book is out today!
I can't launch Happiness Is Wasted On Me at a bookshop, sadly, but safety first and all that jazz. At the same time, I don't want to sit on a chair looking at a laptop with a nice background. I'm seeing it too much. It's boring. So... I've decided to do something a bit different… Continue reading The big book launch!
It's happening! Copies of Happiness Is Wasted On Me have been sent out to bloggers and reviewers all over the country. I'm shitting myself that they'll hate it, but I'm also going to be very mature and sensible and not roll around the lino screaming and wailing if no-one likes the adventures of Walter Wedgeworth… Continue reading Not Long Now!
For every book that gets published, there are books that didn't make it. For whatever reason, they just didn't make it. An agent couldn't sell it. A publisher went cold on it. Bad timing. Bad luck. Sometimes the author decides to bin the book. I have four YA novels published and an adult novel soon… Continue reading The books that didn’t make it
Last year I was at a launch of a new book when I had a conversation with a blogger, someone I like quite well. We were chatting about books we read when we were kids. If the early nineties belonged to Point Horror, then the late eighties were owned by Roald Dahl. However, as soon… Continue reading When authors disappoint: a personal story
It was only when I realised I'd forgotten my PIN number for the bank that I realised what was happening. When was the last time I actually went to the bank? The keypad made me stay away, fearing what might happen if I touched it after all those other fingers. I assumed the threat of… Continue reading Lost In Space (A Diary)
Originally serialised in Playboy Magazine (in Japan) between May to October of 1968, Life For Sale wasn’t available to read in The UK for decades. Thankfully Penguin Classics decided to turn Yukio Mishima’s stories into a novel and, with the help of Stephen Dodd’s translation which makes the story accelerate along, this classic by is… Continue reading Life For Sale by Yukio Mishima
Nancy Drew is many things to many people, yet across the decades there have been several consistent elements in her characterisation. For one thing, she's deceptively resourceful. A brilliant brain. A crime busting teen queen. And she owns a wardrobe full of fierce fashions that she's not shy about showcasing. Basically, Nancy Drew likes to… Continue reading Nancy Drew: Sleuth of Style
