Crazy Cats Christmas
The Crazy Cats Theatre gave my story ‘Twelve Days of Massachras’ a special mention in their competition for a ‘violent or chaotic’ Christmas story!
Read it here.
Stuff I wrote.
The Crazy Cats Theatre gave my story ‘Twelve Days of Massachras’ a special mention in their competition for a ‘violent or chaotic’ Christmas story!
Read it here.
My collection of short stories ‘A Book of Goodbyes’ has reached the finals of the Eyelands Awards!
Update: I did not win. But they put my picture and bio up (if you scroll down far enough)
My story ‘A Voice Across the Coughing Brine’ has reached the Dillydoun Review long list!
The title is a quote from a Mervyn Peake poem…
A voice across the coughing brine
Has sewn your spirit into mine!
O love it is for me to die
Upon your bosom noisily,
Ah pity me, ah pity me,
What is it all about?
What is it all about?
Here’s an experiment – me reading one of my stories on YouTube…
I’m longlisted in the latest Cranked Anvil competition! (Update: I was eventually shortlisted but not placed)
I’ve also had a slightly puzzling email from the Moth, telling me my entry has not been successful. The only thing about that is, I entered twice, on different dates. Does that mean the other one is still in the running (and which was it?). Probably not, but it’s hard not to over-interpret. (Update: of course neither had progressed). There’s a certain competition that keeps sending me messages that look like rejections at first sight, but turn out to be about some other trivial thing. Ah well.
My poem ’Under and After All’ was longlisted for the Fish poetry prize! This is gratifying and surprising, because I hardly ever write poems. In this case I had a short story that was clearly a bit too strange and avant garde – so I thought, I’ll pare it down, chop up the lines, and call it a poem. If I were to write a poem, it would normally rhyme and stuff. There’s now a terrible temptation to get my old, failed stories out and make them into weird blank verse.
It’s here if you’re interested.
Quarterfinalist in the Screencraft Cinematic Short Story competition! They do select a lot of quarterfinalists (about a quarter of the entrants, in fact), but still…
My story evidently didn’t get anywhere in the Costa Coffee competition. I have just now realised for the first time that I had my characters meet in a Starbucks…
My story ’Ghirlandaio’s Blue Window of Treachery’ reached the top three in the Short Story Workshop Competition. No prize, but I’ll get a page of feedback. You can read the story here.
My story Seeing Himself Out got third place in the latest Cranked Anvil competition! I seem to be doing well lately. You can read the story here.