NEW LEXICONS UPDATE
It's been a mad few weeks...
Read MoreA MENTION IN BEST BRITISH SHORT STORIES
Lovely to see Ambit, who I worked for as a fiction editor until recently, get such a positive mention in the new Best British Short Stories magazine.
Read MoreNEW LEXICONS UPDATE
I haven't updated the website in a while due to various reasons of moving, holidays and other general life changes.
However there have been a few new things worth talking about.
Read MoreSTOKE NEWINGTON LIT FEST 2016
I was chairing the first of the two events celebrating the upcoming release of An Unreliable guide to London, our anthology of untrustworthy, useless and plain made-up London writing from lesser known places and perspectives – the perfect way to explore this most tricky, wonderful, perplexing and frustrating city I myself living in.
Read MoreWHITLIT TALK: THE DEAD HAVE BEEN SEEN ALIVE
I realised that everywhere, however small or boring you may first think it, is brimming with narrative, saturated in history, soaked in folklore and legend. It’s worth exploring and it’s worth writing about. You’ll be surprised what you can find.
Read MoreHASTINGS COLLAGE
Jumble up memory, Hastings, Jack-in-the-Green, May 1/2, 2016
Read MoreNEW LEXICONS UPDATE
April has proved to be a busy month...
Read MoreRAMSEY CAMPBELL: CREATURES OF THE POOL
'They aren't my stories.'
'If they're the city's, that's better still isn't it? It made you and they're part of it just like you.'
RYE HOUSE, RYE MEADS
We climb to the top of the gatehouse, photograph the pillars of twisted brick and look out over this part of England.
Read MoreSPIRITS OF PLACE TALK
‘Perhaps it was his love of the mythical past, King Arthur and his knights, that brought him back. Or perhaps he felt as I did, that real change could only be affected in the place that you most understood: home’
Read MoreMYXOMATOSIS, SUFFOLK & SEBALD
Whilst up here, ever the cliché, I've decided finally to read my copy of The Rings of Saturn. It's suffused with a Germanic doom and meanders, but I find myself loving it. These Suffolk landscapes, clearly, allow the mind to wander and invite a gloomy introspection. Another reason living here might do me in.
Read MoreTERRAIN + PUSH
Another quick update – I have two more stories out this week.
Read MoreNEW LEXICONS UPDATE
A quick update on upcoming publications and events. In April I am appearing in three anthologies.
Read MoreSPIRITS OF PLACE
In less than a month, I'm chuffed to be speaking at the Spirits of Place event in Liverpool, organised by John Reppion.
Read MoreAN UNRELIABLE GUIDE TO LONDON
I'm very happy to say that Influx Press have reached our funding target on Kickstarter for An Unreliable Guide to London, in only four days. You can still pledge though – anything from pre-ordering the book, getting your name in the back as a supporter, to signed novels by the contributors and bargain Influx bundles. Pledge here.
Read MoreTHE DEAD OF BLUEBELL HILL
Look there. At the foot of Kit's Coty rests what I'd call a corn dolly. Straw, perhaps, done up like Little Bo Peep. At her feet rest a few miniature squash. They are just turning, the rot slowly setting in. This sight, so pagan and contemporary, is cheering. Make me smile. The mystery of who put the things there, and why, is one to be savoured. I never want to know the facts.
Read MoreTHE DAMNED
Andrew sips his beer below the pylons, thinking of mad creators as he watches a cormorant skim low over the water. He wishes he understood more and had the patience to read the books he’s earmarked online about the kabbalah, Gnostics, Wiccans and Sufis. Sometimes he marvels at the early monks committing slow suicide on Skellig Michael, the bloody mess made of the backs of Iranian dervishes. It occurs to him all transcendence requires some sort of death, of pain, and he wonders if he could ever truly commit to anything.
Read More2015
The year with Influx Press has taken in: an event and exhibition for Dan Duggan’s Luxury of the Dispossessed at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, events with George F promoting Total Shambles in Bethnal Green’s Common House, the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair, Hydra Books and the Stoke Newington Literary Festival.
Read MoreNEW LEXICONS UPDATE
I haven’t updated New Lexicons in a while, mainly due to the fact that on top of all my other responsibilities I now have a full time job at Unsung Stories as an editorial assistant. This does mean I don’t have to teach bored teenagers their prepositions and proper nouns any longer in a dreary part of Cricklewood. This is a good thing.
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