Just this week I released my third large piece - a novella - LIFE OF MAGGOT through Amazon KDP. Now you'd think, with three large pieces and three short pieces published this way, I'd be a dab hand at this by now. I'm not. You see it's been a couple of years since I published NIGHTJAR and 76 AND THE ODD 93 in quick order, and so to my horror I saw CreateSpace was no more. New software and processes had to be learned. I might have cried a little at this point, enough to fill a

It's been a long time since I wrote my blog. Longer than a long time, a weekly habit that I need to revive and breathe life back in to. A...

I might have mentioned I’m beginning a Masters in Celtic Studies at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. I’m very excited; nervous too given the strange state of my brain and mental health since whenever. It’ll be a challenge, quite different to what it might have been before the breakdowns, but one I hope to enjoy. Already it’s got me doing things. Talking on the phone Sorting out online enrolment and IT access Taking mug shots of myself (for the ID Card you unde

What is Folklore? This is a question I've seen discussed on social media many times. Efforts tend to try to distinguish why it's...

Why Folklore? And why is it important to me? Sounds a simple enough question, only once you start to strip away the obvious you quite quickly get down to things not quite so simple. Nor indeed, nice to face. This is the first time I've written about this, and it starts innocent enough. As a child I loved history, books, stories. Really loved them. I collected all the Ladybird books and read the histories of others over and over again; lived the lives of Alfred the Great, Wi

Over the last few years, whilst struggling with mental health, I've come to realise how important the folklore, history and landscape of Britain are to me. I've learnt how the magick of the Fae and Celts, nature and an ancient past still exist in this green land. It's around every corner. For me it's been a slow discovery, but one that's inspired me to take photos, write, explore my own imagination and, in times of poor mental health, battle madness. It's been productive too

Well this was a strange one for me. At times it dropped to a 2 star, then rose up to a 4 star and then ended overall as a 3 star for me. How to explain? At the beginning there was a bit too much 'tell' and not enough 'show'. This made the book difficult to read for me. It was kind of like being preached to by a preacher who desperately wants to be believed, but who isn't always convincing. But the writing was good, if bloody dark. Then when the 'show' took over it improved im

This year I released my first novel, ‘Nightjar’. It’s a fantasy, with more than a hint of dystopia, set in a feudal future and centred upon a Fae’s need to keep alive an immortal love. I was inspired to write the piece by the Iron Age landscape that surrounds where I live. In Sandy, Bedfordshire, there are hill forts and Roman Roads, low-lying land and an escarpment that rises up over what was once a shallow sea in the very distant past. As with most parts of England, there

The next few weeks my blog will be about the books I've read. Recently, of course. It follows on from my thoughts on reading Jean Teule's 'The Poisoning Angel' last week, and will include the likes of 'Norse Mythology' by Neil Gaiman, 'Folk' by Zoe Gilbert, and some shorts by Daphne Du Maurier. However this week my thoughts are with 'Rusticles' by Rebecca Gransden. I chose to read 'Rusticles' because (like me) Rebecca is a new, up and coming author without the backing and m

I enjoyed one of those wonderful events recently; you know the one, when you pick up a random book in the library and it turns out to be truly amazing. The book in question was 'The Poisoning Angel' by Jean Teulé; a donated book, and the library was in Sandy. It was a risky move on my part; a translated foreign work. Always a worry because they so often don't translate. There have been so many I tried and did not finish. Feeling brave, adventurous at picking it up, I opened t