Is a strange piece, even by my standards. A novella in length, I wrote it as a kind of precursor to NIGHTJAR, to put into context hinted at apocalyptic events that led to the strange feudal future that that novel is set in. I set the piece out as a kind of prayer book or hymnal, divided up by Chapter and Verse. Each chapter is inspired by one or more medieval images, and the dark events we seem to be witnessing in our own time - which include war, famine, sickness and a chang

HUMBLE, RUM, & RAGWORT For Medicinal Salve and Magickal Remedy Our Word is Our Promise Our Promise, A Spell “Come now Ragwort, we might...

Tithe is paid to the Clan upon the Cliff, one tenth the value of all goods as travel east to west, west t’ east, along the high valley....

Deep into Chaos she peers, gazes, wonders; sees there the madness from which dreams are made. Tiniest glimmer of hope as dances wild,...

Trying to find inspiration for a new piece, a beginning that catches me with character or emotion, and my idle thoughts lead me to recalling someone once said, a genius of course, that the road goes ever on. It does of course. On and on. A walk becomes a recollection, recollection a story, story a tale. Tales grow up and grow old, age for good and for bad, become history, myth, legend and folklore. Forever retold, reborn, heard anew. Many are forever forgot. Some hide in shad

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

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

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

Over the last week and two I have released my first novel out into the world. 'Nightjar' is a literary fantasy set in a feudal future,...