Hi Folks, it’s been a while since I had anything much to talk about. As always projects are starting up and falling apart, or progressing slowly. Patience. It’s always all about patience. Well now I finally have some good news:…
Hi Folks, it’s been a while since I had anything much to talk about. As always projects are starting up and falling apart, or progressing slowly. Patience. It’s always all about patience. Well now I finally have some good news:…
Some of you may know, and others may have heard, that the publisher of my fiction, Freight Books, has gone into liquidation. I’m not going to go into the whys and hows here. There are plenty of articles online that…
So four days to go in the year and we’re all panicking every time an artist who has made an impact on our lives starts trending on Twitter. I just woke up to the news about Carrie Fisher. I had…
It’s been a tough week for a number of reasons, some personal, some geopolitical, but some positivity was restored when this review of The Waves Burn Bright by Alistair Braidwood was posted on the Scots Whay Hae website. It previously appeared in print…
The temperature in Japan has dropped suddenly and we’re hanging around the lobby of what looks like a very cold winter, so I was delightfully warmed up by this review of The Waves Burn Bright that appeared on the Nothing in the…
I was delighted this morning to discover a review of The Waves Burn Bright in the latest issue of Gutter (issue 15). I hadn’t had a chance to open my copy since getting back to Japan and had a flick through…
I’ve written another essay on writing for the excellent Nothing in the Rule Book website, this time about planning. It’s one of those topics writers worry about and regularly argue about – should you do any, doesn’t it kill creativity, how much…
I’m back in Japan where thankfully August is over and the temperatures are starting to drop. The ice pillows have been put away for another year and I no longer need to shower every fifteen minutes. This trip home was…
My latest piece for the Japan Times is a review of Akiko Hashimoto’s brilliant sociological study of how defeat in World War 2 has manifested in contemporary Japanese society. Balanced and insightful, it goes behind the easy simplifications normally attributed…
So folks, after the kicking I got in 2014, I’m now back on the Not The Booker shortlist with The Waves Burn Bright and hoping to erase the memory (at least in Google) of that ‘review’. If you enjoyed The…