Tuesday 28 November 2017

"Parasitic Endeavours"

Only a short film, but I really the atmosphere of this. Parasitic Endeavours (2017).



Thursday 23 November 2017

New flash published at "The Wild Word."


"Nanny Knows Best" has just been published in Issue 22 of The Wild Word magazine, their 'Future' issue.  "Nanny Knows Best" is the first story to appear in my upcoming second collection, State of the Nation, and it was originally conceived as a framing story for it.  (I did a similar thing with the Ugly Stories for Beautiful People, when I used "BobandJane" as a top-and-tail to the entire collection.  I've always liked that device, going way back to when I first read various Bradbury anthologies such as The Illustrated Man, so I was keen to duplicate that, if I could, and I've been lucky enough to manage that twice now).

So anyway, please visit The Wild Word and I hope you enjoy "Nanny Knows Best."

Thursday 9 November 2017

New flash published at Reflex Fiction




A new flash piece has been published by Reflex Fiction. I have since revised it (300 words was a bit limiting and I think I cut a bit too much out of it for it to get there - I actually wanted there to be more doubt about whether she had actually undergone a Kafka-esque bout of unexpected invisibility or whether the story was just a metaphor - sadly, I think that was lost in this published version) but they seemed to like the super-short version, so who am I to argue?



Sunday 5 November 2017

Launch of the "Wired" anthology.




Wired, the anthology that contains "Marks on a Page" and my Worcester Flash Fiction prize shortlisted piece, "MWC ISO IRL" is being launched at the home of the 42 spoken word group, The Swan With Two Nicks, in Worcester next Sunday 12th November.  I, amongst many others, will be reading at least one piece, so come along.  It's normally a pretty good turn out for these launches, so it should be fun.

https://worcslitfest.co.uk/2017/11/05/worcestershire-litfest-fringe-invites-you-to-the-flash-fiction-anthology-launch-2017/

Saturday 4 November 2017

"The Last English Speaker" accepted for publication.

Just had a new story ("The Last English Speaker") accepted by "Trembling With Fear."  More news as I get it!

New Story published at Bizarro Central.



A new flash piece has just been published at Bizarro Central.  This was an odd one in that I wrote the first draft of this some 20+ years ago, when I was going through my Baudelairean Poemes en Prose phase (I managed to avoid going through a Lovecraftian phase, unlike many authors.  But as I say, I did go through a six month period before I really found my voice where I was turning out little Baudelairean sketches which, while the ideas behind them were very much my own, the approach was very cynical and weary a la Baudelaire, and the prose was almost a pastiche of the great flaneur).  I liked the idea but I could never really think of what to do with it until this summer, when I was trying to write a lot of new flash fiction to get the 'ol writing muscles warmed up for a bigger story I wanted to write.

I was quite happy with the way it turned out especially as I was really happy with the voice on this one; distinctly my voice (all elements of Baudelaire gone!) and the actual ending was improved, too.

Anyway, you can find the story over at Bizarro Central.