Author: admin

The past two and a half years have seen some major upheavals in my life and a glance at my website might suggest I’ve stopped writing. While I haven’t had any new publications in a while, writing is still a major part of my life. The writing itself has become a bit sporadic – I’m not one of those writers who can write whatever the circumstances.

Recognising this, I’ve invested in myself as a writer in other ways. We moved from London to the beautiful North East of England in late 2023 and I’ve been busy finding my ‘people’. Writing communities are the most welcoming of places and I’ve been attending workshops, performing at spoken-word nights, and networking at events like the wonderful Newcastle Writing Conference. Spotting a gap in provision for ‘almost there’ writers, I’ve started a writing group in Newcastle for experienced writers who are honing their craft and/or looking to break into the industry, in whatever way that means for them.

Lastly, I’m now one of the resident judges for the NYC Midnight creative writing competitions, which is a privilege and a pleasure. Winning the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge in 2009 was my first breakthrough in writing and set me off on this wonderful journey into the writing life. At the moment, that writing life looks a bit different, but in striking to nourish that part of my life without actually doing much writing, I’ve found opportunities and paths I might have otherwise missed.

As the winner of the Cornerstones Award for most promising longlisted entry in the 2021 Bath Novel Award, I was awarded a place on the Cornerstones Edit Your Novel the Professional Way course. An eight-month long course, it has been keeping me busy since February and providing me with lots of tools to tackle the next edit of my still-in-progress novel HERE LIES GUIDO PERKINS. I’ve also managed to write and submit some flash fiction stories and am delighted to be included again in the National Flash Fiction Day annual anthology. I will also have a story appearing in the online journal FlashFlood on National Flash Fiction day, which this years falls on 18th June.

Delighted to hear that my entry was one of two Highly Commended by the judges in the prestigious Costa Short Story Award. The top three stories are available to read here – excellent stories all round.

My current novel-in-progress, Here Lies Guido Perkins, was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award 2021. Just 32 titles from more than 2,000 entries were selected for the longlist. In even better news, my manuscript was awarded the Cornerstones Literary Consultancy Prize for the most promising longlisted book. The prize is a place on Cornerstones online course Edit Your Novel the Professional Way (details here) and I look forward to working with them in taking Guido to the next level.

In a scant year for flash writing, I am delighted to have had two pieces selected for publication by National Flash Fiction Day. The Poet was published in the NFFD 2021 anthology, Legerdemain, while Slow Down for Armadillos appeared online in FlashFlood Journal.

I haven’t been writing much short fiction over the past year as I’ve been concentrating on editing and revising my novel-in-progress. But I always take part in National Flash Fiction Day when I can. This year I was delighted to be asked to be one of the judges of the NFFD 2021 Microfiction Competition. With a maximum word count of 100 words, it takes a lot of skill to create a satisfying micro. There were many extremely strong entries and whittling it down to the winners and commended stories was extremely difficult. You can read them here.

The Friday Night Live competition has been a highlight of the Jericho Writers Festival of Writing in York for many years. Attendees are invited to submit the first 500 words of a current project and six are selected to read their extracts to a judging panel of agents, in front of a live and lively after-dinner festival audience. The winner is decided by audience reaction, and judges feedback. As with almost everything else in 2020, the three-day festival in York had to be cancelled, but Jericho Writers pulled out all the stops and put together a magnificent three-month long online festival instead, the Summer Festival of Writing.

The Friday Night Live competition went online too, with two live semi-finals across the summer, and a live gala final, with two literary agent judges and a virtual audience vote to decide the winner by poll. I was delighted to make it through my semi-final heat and to the final. I received some glowing feedback from the judging agents and the audience (via the chat bar!) and the whole event was a great way to round off a tremendous festival. Congratulations go to the overall winner Carys Shannon with her powerful opening to her novel Truth Like Water.

My work-in-progress was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award in June 2020. Thirty-five titles were selected for the long list, out of 1,735 entries. Reader comments on my opening chapters included:

Masterful opening. Took me from chuckle to flinch to hooked in the space of a few lines. Definitely want to spend more time with this unreliable narrator.

and

Engaging style full of observational and deadpan humour. What’s not to like?

Congratulation to all the long and short listers, and to the winner Andrew J King for his intriguing-sounding novel The Arrow Garden.

As part of the celebrations for the publication of Root, Branch, Tree, the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2020, a selection of contributors recorded themselves reading their stories. You can find these readings on YouTube, and see me (with full lockdown hair!) reading my Highly Commended microfiction story Tips for a Successful Whale Watch.

My flash story ‘Overspill’, first published in Ellipsis Zine 2 in 2018, is referenced by Sophie Van Llewyn in her fascinating essay Unusual Structures in Flash Fiction – Part 1. Sophie’s essay forms part of a series of excellent craft essays on short fiction on the TSS (The Short Story) website You can read her essay here.