I was lucky enough to be invited to facilitate a session at this weekend's Newcastle Noir Literary Crime Festival, held in the Central Library in my old home town of Newcastle. The session was entitled, 'The Men in Black' - due to the fact that the authors interviewed write novels firmly entrenched in the 'real... Continue Reading →
(Originally published on RagTagMagpie) Today marks the anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's movie, Vertigo which premiered in the US on the 9 May 1958 - 62 years ago! Saul Bass is responsible for designing some of the most striking title sequences in film history, including Anatomy of a Murder, West Side Story, Spartacus, Ocean’s 11, as... Continue Reading →
For Zombie Awareness Month we look at some of the prime exponents of zombie art
There are just over eight hours to go before I, an almost 50-year-old man, head down to my local cinema for the five minutes past midnight premiere showing of Avengers Endgame. (That's four minutes of wasted time there, cinema owners: why are you making us wait so long?!?). The cinema is showing it on four... Continue Reading →
A while back I wrote about my planned new publication 'Off Script' I'm pleased to say it's now available at Amazon - currently on Kindle and, if you have it, Kindle Unlimited. The paperback version will be available within the next week or so. After publishing two collections of short stories (Basement Tales and You... Continue Reading →
So Friday 15th March is Red Nose Day. For those who aren't familiar, it's the day every two years where money is raised for charities by Comic Relief. You can read all about it here. This year I've decided to do something active for it - not as active as running a marathon or climbing... Continue Reading →
Over the last eight months or so I've been casually promoting my two collections, You Could Make a Killing and Basement Tales. This site is part of that, albeit in a 'grab bag' of everything else included too. I've decided I'm going to use March as a full-on promotional assault. Why? Well, it would be... Continue Reading →
As part of my forthcoming title, 'Off Script' (available early March) I take a couple of my previously published short stories and present them side by side with a shooting script version of the same material. In both cases, the original stories were written from a first-person perspective. I explain and illustrate alternative approaches that... Continue Reading →
NOTE: the following post is a reprint from RagTagMagpie.com where it first appeared on the night of the 90th Academy Awards. reprinted here as it's Oscar weekend, and I don't really care enough about this year's awards. Looking back, who knew? Black Panther at least got some noms... I was listening to a podcast earlier... Continue Reading →
