Billy Ocean knew the Truth, that Love Really Hurts … don’t worry about the “without you” bit, no qualifier is required. And to prove it, the speculative fiction anthology ‘Love Hurts‘ (left click on the title to be taken elsewhere) is now available for purchase and your reading pleasure. Marvel at the fools love makes […]
I’m fluctuating somewhere between ‘well, I must be some sort of author if I’m on an author page‘ and ‘don’t be so needy, Stevens’. I am however looking forward to the book coming out, and to ‘The Boulevardier’ and his bad French seeing the light of day.
Years ago I was helping a junior staff member who was having some difficulties. Ours can be an arduous profession, with long hours, lots of conflict, and difficult policy decisions which have to be defended. She was talking about some of the difficulties she was facing, particularly as a woman of a different background in […]
A little shout out for the NSW Writers’ Centre’s Speculative Fiction Festival (click on the highlighted text to be taken straight to their webpage), being held a the centre in the beautiful grounds of the former mental asylum at Callan Park. I have previously enjoyed many speakers and panels at the Speculative Fiction Festival and […]
Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain. – Georges Braque
Imagine if Dan Brown had the gumption to really whack us with a truly bizarre confection of a conspiracy about the Catholic Church, instead of that wimpy pile he served up. If you are going to show us an imaginary dark world hidden by a conspiracy of the ages, have a real red hot go […]
In her list of year’s best short fiction in her December Clavis Aurea column in Apex magazine, Charlotte Ashley gives an honourable mention to my story, ‘My Life as a Lizard‘. I am grateful to Ms Ashley for her kindness, and for her original review, and of course to the folk at Crossed Genres magazine who […]
It has been at least a year since I quoted this here, so time to do it again: Horace Tott spent an uneventful life in Cheshire always intending to write a large book on English magic, but never quite beginning. And so he died at seventy-four, still imagining he might begin next week, or perhaps […]
Have I mentioned that I cannot stand a cute rejection? It doesn’t make me feel better, and it makes me think I wasn’t taken seriously. I dislike them even more than normal rejection. At least I am used to normal rejection. Cute rejection is worse than chirpy morning people. I think I like rejections that aren’t […]
Far from home, I thought of a friend with whom I used to discuss books and religion, amongst other things. We are not in touch much, and it occurred to me I may only see him once or twice more in this life, if at all. I wrote to him about my family, and added: […]
Nobody is looking 