Category Archives: writing

Thought for the day

“Cultures change and the ceaseless churn builds empires just as easily as it razes kingdoms. There is always some part of a culture that is dead, dying or lying dormant in wait for the right person to come along with … Continue reading

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101 #womentoread

Unlikely though it may seem, it’s still not at all uncommon to hear people insisting that there is no issue around the representation of women in F&SF, that a theoretically level playing field means there is no industry bias and … Continue reading

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Wasps and sharks

Blovky sandstone houses and mills made a town down in the valley. I saw the road I’d accidentally taken the night before and the battered park where the living brown river escaped its banks. The flashing lights of JCBs and … Continue reading

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‘A gradual tailing off of talent’? No, not really.

In his Guardian review of the latest issue of Granta, which samples the work of the 2013 line-up of the Best of Young British Novelists, Theo Tait has this to say: Best of Young British Novelists 4 doesn’t, as a whole, inspire … Continue reading

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Winter trees, Newham

And The Who Shop, Barking Road, E6 – how many times a year do you find yourself walking randomly down the road, only to come face to face with a window full of Daleks? We’re both working hard at the … Continue reading

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Year’s Best

Last night we watched Hanna, Joe Wright’s film from 2011. We were keen to see it when it came out but it was one of those we missed – we’ve now caught up with it on DVD. The reviews at … Continue reading

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Nothing more Christmassy than this…

I haven’t read Susan Cooper for years and years – about thirty of them, to be exact – but when I came upon this interview just now it made me want to curl up in an armchair with a mug … Continue reading

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Christmas comes early

Really very happy indeed to announce that my story ‘Sunshine’, originally published in Black Static #29, has been selected by Rich Horton for his Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2013 Edition. The full ToC can be viewed here – with … Continue reading

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Breaking the code

I’ve never much liked the term ‘non-genre SF’ because I feel it runs the danger of deepening an already false divide between science fiction and the literature of the mainstream and thus making the ghetto mentality around SF still more … Continue reading

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Thought for the day

I guess the moral of the story is, give yourself free reign to write or paint or create the weirdest weird-ass shit you can possibly conceive of, and never worry about if it makes sense or is right or correct or … Continue reading

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