Tuesday, May 02, 2017


Today is publication day for my new book, Some Of Us Glow More Than Others, that rather handsome looking devil above, published by the excellent Unthank Books! There are more details about the book here - including links to some of the stories and where you can get your hands on one (or electronic hands). Thanks so much to my wonderful agent, Kate Johnson, without whom this would not be happening. I am dazed and grateful!

I also wanted to thank the amazing, tireless literary magazine editors and small presses who first published many of these stories - they are the lifeblood of the short story community and they give writers both joy and, vitally, the permission to keep on doing this thing we do. So, thank you: Ambit magazine, Bare Fiction, The Binnacle, Butcher's Dog, Catapult, Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, Edgeways anthology (Spread the Word), The Fiction Desk, Five Dials, kill author, Comma Press, The Lonely Crowd, Metazen, National Flash Fiction Day,  Nature Futures, New Flash Fiction Review, New Scientist, Out of Place (Spineless Wonders), Prose Poem Project, Red Room anthology (Unthank), r.kv.r.y., ROOM magazine, Salt Book of New Writing, Schemers Anthology, Synaesthesia magazine, STILL anthology (Negative Press), the Stinging Fly, Stories for Homes anthology, Timber journal, Wales Arts Review, Words with Jam, and World Literature Today.

Over on Twitter, I did a thread with #TenThingsAboutMyBook, and I thought I'd post it here too, in case you're curious:

#TenThingsAboutMyBook 1. The cover's glowing jellyfish refer to the discovery of green fluorescent protein which revolutionised mol biology!

#TenThingsAboutMyBook 2. 'God Glows' was written at Hawthornden Castle - my nun sits looking out over the valley near Rossyln Chapel.

#TenThingsAboutMyBook 3. 'Octopus's Garden' was inspired by a profile of a woman who works as a diver for the Paris city council.

#TenThingsAboutMyBook 4. 'War Games' was begun during an Arvon workshop run by my co-tutor, , on plotting (which I never do!)

#TenThingsAboutMyBook 5. 'And What If All Your Blood Ran Cold' was inspired by a article about a brand new medical procedure.

#TenThingsAboutMyBook 6.'A Shower of Curates' - first published in Red Room - has the first lines from all of the Brontes' novels in it.

#TenThingsAboutMyBook 7. 'Empty But For Darwin' was inspired by a programme about a person whose job is to paint chess pieces.

#TenThingsAboutMyBook 8. 'Experimentation' was the 1st story I wrote while I was writer-in-res in a biochem lab. It's FICTION :)

#TenThingsAboutMyBook' 9. The Plan' was inspired by a article about the pitfalls of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory.

#TenThingsAboutMyBook and finally, 10: I never thought I'd get an agent & I NEVER dreamed I'd have a THIRD short story collection.