Tag: Writing

  • DAVID RAIN: A SMALL REMEMBRANCE

    Back at the end of 2010 I interviewed David Rain for the British Science Fiction Association’s Focus (no.54, 2011) – a magazine for writers. David was programme leader for the MA in Creative Writing at Middlesex University, which was at that time unique in having a science fiction thread to its teaching, and I was a […]

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  • “KING ROOK” IN ALBEDO ONE #45

    “KING ROOK” IN ALBEDO ONE #45

    I am chuffed to be able to point you in the direction of the latest issue of Albedo One (no. 45 – available in ebook form from Smashwords and Amazon) which features my story, “King Rook”. The story is one set in Northern Ireland in the mid-eighties and while none of the important stuff in the […]

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  • WHICH CULTURE? ROBERTS VERSUS FRANZEN… SORT OF

    Adam Roberts has written a (typically) interesting blog post about the division between the “Booker culture” that favours formally complex and “clever, clever” writing and the popular arts that have set “the parameters of the Great Human Revolution of 1950-2020”. You need to read his post to get the full force of his argument but, […]

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  • SOLARIS RISING 2 AND ME

    So busy with stuff I hadn’t noticed that the table of contents for Solaris Rising 2 had been announced. I’m chuffed to be in this book alongside a list of very fine writers. I’m only slightly worried that I’m the one whose been stuck in to make everyone else look good. Still, it’s a very […]

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  • DOING SOMETHING STUPID: RESPONDING TO A REVIEW

    Dan Hartland has posted a review of Rocket Science, the anthology edited by Ian Sales, and he has commented on my story “Pathfinders”. [I’ve always loved Elvis Costello’s version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” – please hum along as you read this post.] For instance, Martin McGrath’s “Pathfinders” returns us again to Mars, and […]

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  • ESKRAGH IN DARK FICTION MAGAZINE

    Things have been quiet here for a few weeks and are likely to remain so for a while longer – apologies. However, I’d just like to draw your attention to the appearance of my story “Eskragh” in issue 12 (titled Night Legends) of Dark Fiction Magazine.Thanks to the editors for selecting it and transforming it […]

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  • FROM TURKEY CITY: “BURLY DETECTIVE” SYNDROME

    From issue 58 of Focus the third of my pieces of flash fiction “inspired” by the common writing errors and bad habits catalogued in The Turkey City Lexicon. This time I go toe-to-toe with a “burly detective”: This useful term is taken from SF’s cousin-genre, the detective-pulp. The hack writers of the Mike Shayne series […]

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  • FRIDAY’S WORDS OF WISDOM: THE LONELY VOICE: A STUDY OF THE SHORT STORY BY FRANK O’CONNOR

    I first read some of Frank O’Connor’s short stories (and translated Irish poetry) when I was at school and they made an impression because when I picked up a second hand collection recently, some of the stories came back to me word for word and, I realised, they’d been pickling in my brain for decades. […]

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  • ESKRAGH UNPLUGGED

    So, I did a recording of my story Eskragh for a friend, and then I thought about putting it up here. And then I didn’t. But since this seems to be an unofficial Irish-themed week on the blog and since I haven’t done this sort of thing before – what the hell. This isn’t the […]

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  • SOMETIMES IT REALLY IS ROCKET SCIENCE

    SOMETIMES IT REALLY IS ROCKET SCIENCE

    I have in my clammy little paws my contributor copy of Rocket Science, the new anthology from Mutation Press, edited by the estimable Ian Sales. This fine looking volume of short stories and non-fiction features my tale of a (sort of) Mars mission, “Pathfinders”.

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