Dirt Story

I thought hard about the title for this blog post... did I want to attract the kind of readers I never normally attract??! What is this all about? Well, on my first visit to the excellent Wellcome Collection, a place which bills itself as "a free visitor destination for the incurably curious, exploring the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future", to see their exhibition last year on Skin, I found the artworks and exhibits they had collected were really inspiring to me as a writer.

Then... I was asked by Danny at the Wellcome Collection blog to write a 2-part blog post about fiction inspired by science...

And then... I heard about the new exhibition, 'Dirt' (on til end August) and i thought, What if I write a flash story inspired by the exhibition and offer it to Danny for the blog? To my delight, he agreed. And the result, a short short story called Her Dirt, is now published on the Wellcome Collection blog. A quick taste:

She keeps her dirt, and at first her dirt is enough. But then it isn’t. So she takes to taking.

There is history here. A clean clean child. Or, rather: demands for a clean clean child. A pure-white home, a childhood washing and re-washing. Do you need to hear of distant mothers and of even further-spinning fathers?

You can read the rest here this is the first piece of flash fiction to be on the WC blog - please feel free to leave your comments there and let them know if there should be more!  

On the subject of MORE short stories... the petition against the BBC's planned cuts to short stories on Radio 4 is nearly at 6000 signatures. The fight is not over, please sign if this is something you care about. 

Off to London

I'm off to the Big City today, various bits of business and pleasure - including the launch of Rob Shearman's third short story collection, Everyone's Just So Special! I hope the forecast temperatures don't actually manifest, sweaty London is not my idea of fun.

But I also hope I will have a chance to swing by Foyles, the new home, for August, of the PhotoStories exhibition. Here's me standing by my PhotoStory, We Watched Him on Our Screens, when it was exhibited at Saatchi's.

Rob Shearman also has a PhotoStory in the exhibition, as do Adam Marek, Clare Wigfall and 11 other fantastic writers. (The typographs are available for sale.)

Ok, I'd better go. Bye!

Quick, I have WiFi!

I've been working very very hard and enjoying myself immensely here at Internet-free Hawthornden Castle:

I won't jinx anything by talking about it too much yet, since I have another 10 days to go. I have escaped for the day into the Big City for a little Internet surfing (and, yes, an afternoon film, very decadent). Just wanted to plug a few lovely things I have been involved in over the last few weeks:

The wonderful Jen Campbell interviewed me about... short stories (there's a surprise) over at her blog. She asked some tough questions. A little snippet:

I get a kick from a great short story that is unlike any other reading experience, and I read everything, novels, poetry, non-fiction. But the short story discombobulates me, shakes me, moves me, in only a few pages or less, and it is these short stories I find I carry around with me, like whispering voices, for months, even years. I don't forget a short story I have loved. 

And a few weeks ago I was interviewed over at the excellent Shortfire press about, umm, yes, short stories:

I prefer a 'messy' story that may not be perfect but takes risks to a carefully written and 'safe' story that never strays into dangerous territory – and 'danger' can mean something incredibly small, but something risky nonetheless. I'd rather be slightly confused for lack of information than given far too much information and know exactly what's going on, what's happened and what's going to happen.

I was so honoured to be included in this amazing project, Photo Stories "an experiment in writing, photography, and design" - all the writers involved picked a photo, wrote a 500-word story inspired by that photo, and then a designer combined the photo and the story into a third, brand-new entity, a "typographic print" - and all the typographic prints are being exhibited at the Saatchi gallery in London RIGHT NOW (and no, I haven't seen it, sadly I missed the launch). If you are in London, head down there. But even if you can't, the typographs are for sale, check out the website. You can see the typograph of my story here.

Another few bits of story news - I have several flash stories in a new ebook anthology coming very soon, Peculiar Love Stories, being published by Rosa Mira Books in New Zealand. I have to say, I realised I tend to write a lot of very peculiar love stories! Check out the publisher's blog here.

And the antipodean theme continues - a brand new and very very odd flash story, Disease relics, has just been published in volume 1 of Australian online mag Inky Squib, (scroll to page 4).

OK, time to head back to the castle. I will write more about the experience when I get home at the end of the month. I will leave you with this thought: porridge and creativity, is there a link?

Changing Perspectives - videos inspired by science-inspired fiction

The launch on Friday of Bristol University's Changing Perspectives art/science exhibition at the Grant Bradley Gallery in which I have several art pieces (my first time ever attempting a piece of artwork featuring some of my stories) was great fun! Do try and get down there if you are in Bristol - and check out all the events during this month long celebration of art inspired by science.

If you can't make it, here are two brand newly-commissioned films inspired by two of my short stories - which in turn were inspired by science. Enjoy!


'We are All Made of Protein but Some of us GLow More than Others ' from richard ocallaghan on Vimeo.

Read the short story of the same title that inspired this piece here.


'Like Flowers' from James Murray-White and Steve Mazillius on Vimeo.