John Purcell on books

This from the SMH last weekend (the Saturday SMH is the only newspaper I buy anymore, for the occasional nugget like this, but their review section is becoming so dire I may give up on newspapers altogether): “My memory bank is not my brain: its my book collection. I can’t do without it. When I […]

Me me me me me me me me me

I have strong views about many, many things. I do not express them here. But I do speak a little bit about vampire novels and perfectionism and being true to one’s self in writing even if that means you write weird little stories about a man recovering from living in a lizard, or the unknown […]

Baby, cold outside

Dear Reader, the latest edition of BREACH magazine, featuring Australian and New Zealand writers, is available for your reading pleasure. The former group includes yours truly, with my contribution being a weird tale, “Baby, cold outside”. If you are cold outside, what do you want more than anything, baby? I wrote the first draft of […]

Flip a coin

It is quite possible you can learn something from feedback accompanying a rejection. I’m sure someone has. A recent rejection of a story of mine was accompanied by feedback from two of the slush readers for the magazine: “… really strong narrative voice and prose control.  …  it’s all developed and described quite well” and […]

Its a miracle …

You can check out my latest published story, “Miracle cure”, at Liquid Imagination – just click on the link. (Sitting at home just now with my new friend, Gastroenteritis, but I’ll put up with the illness in preference to a miracle cure like this one … stomach, I have cared for you so well all […]

Breach

Very happy that my weird story “Baby, cold outside”, has found a home in Breach magazine, and will appear in Breach #08 in August. More details to follow … … meanwhile, while you are waiting, you can read (or listen to) my latest published story, “The gods of the gaps”, here at Three-lobed Burning Eye […]

I did not win an award

There, that’s a blunt factual title! My story, The Big Reveal, did NOT win the 2017 Australian Shadows Award for short fiction. Congratulations to the winner, Matthew J Morrison for his story The Banksia Boys (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #66). Nonetheless, feel free to click on the link to read my story which appeared in the […]

The Big Reveal

My story “The Big Reveal” is a finalist in the short fiction section of the Australian Shadows Awards. Big thanks to the Australasian Horror Writers Association for the nomination. And big thanks to Fred Coppersmith at Kaleidotrope for publishing the story. I opened an email listing the nominees, thinking wouldn’t it be nice if my […]

The theme is set, and odd it is

Sorry, but this one is a little too odd for us Two days in a row? Are you guys talking to each other about me behind my back? 🙂 Life is short. I am never going to have a career or find celebrity as a writer. Don’t want to. In the little bits of time […]

Eyes are burning

What’s that you say, 3LBE? “The voices from the shadows of the things long extinct loose whispers that a new issue will visit soon.” You don’t say? And I wonder, why is it that I have a special interest in that? Hmm … I hear that the next issue of Three-lobed Burning Eye magazine will […]