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Kickstart Your Writing in 2026 – Beginning Saturday, January 10th! New year, new goals—why not make writing one of them? Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just getting started, sometimes we all need a little push to get back into the groove. If you’re looking for that extra boost to get your creative ideas flowing and your…
I’m really excited to see this lovely anthology become available for sale. This is a collection of short suspense stories which evolved from the lovely work of the writers who took my Comma Press Writing Short Crime Fiction Course in Summer 2024. Six perfect victims are pushed to their limits, but are they all as…
We’ll be selling handmade art at the A4 Studios Christmas Makers Market in Altrincham from November 12-13. This will include my Polaroid emulsion lifts of Manchester and botanical prints made from locally sourced natural plant dies; John will be selling some beautiful gum bichromate prints. We are looking forward to it. Hope to see you…
John and I are very excited to be putting on an exhibition of our art from April 29th – May 29th, 2022 in Barlow Hall, Manchester as part of the 20th Anniversary Chorlton Arts Festival. We’ll be showing our work alongside amazing artists Pia Järvinen and Brenda Hird. Somehow, Barlow Hall – which is hosting…
I’ve been reading and writing a lot of short fiction recently. It helps that I’m teaching an MA course on short stories at the moment, so all the inspiration is right in front of me. I often choose a short story to read over a novel, partly because of the familiar truism that you can…
It had to be done. During the Lockdown, while everyone was busy homeschooling their kid and teaching their cat ballet and writing their Lockdown novel… I was doing the same (substitute dog for cat and close-up magic for ballet). Mine comes at the Lockdown from a slant, mind you. It’s as much about plants, climate…
Since the Lockdown started, we’ve been making the most of our designated outdoors time. Living in Chorlton, we’re very lucky to have access to Kenworthy Woods through the back gate and it’s an amazing time of year, with the trees turning green again and the wild garlic in bloom. I’ve seen a few butterflies around…
My follow-up to The American Girl is a mystery novel about Dark Tourism, a subject I’ve been fascinated in for the last few years. Dark Tourism is defined as “travelling to places associated with death and suffering”, although it’s not invariably as creepy as that sounds. Like any kind of travel, it has its good…
I had a marvellous time taking part in a panel event at the Edinburgh International Science Festival. There were so many interesting things going on, a great deal to see and hear. I was invited to talk on a panel discussing ‘Early Automata, Artificial Intelligence and Frankenstein’. After giving our individual talks, the panellists enjoyed…
It was an honour and an all-round wonderful experience to be asked to judge the Dead Romantic Interviews writing competition for Edge Hill University’s Romantic Lives Conference. There were a lot of terrific entries and it was difficult to choose a winner. You can read the winning entries here. To kick-start the competition, I wrote…