A very quick one, image free and hastily written today because I need to get back to writing real stuff... I saw a post earlier today from Georgia Springate, author of Beyond (a book I've previously recommended - and which you should check out), who put down some of the music she listens to while... Continue Reading →
Newcastle Noir 2019: An Interview with Luke McCallin and Paul Hardisty
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 →
Saul Bass: Vertigo- An Appreciation
(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 →
Zombie Awareness Month Part 1: Films and Comics
For Zombie Awareness Month we look at some of the prime exponents of zombie art
Endgame Countdown…
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 →
‘Off Script’ – available now
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 →
Comic Relief: Charity Donations and a Free Read…read on for details.
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 →
March: the Month of Merch.
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 →
Unfilmable Books – and a Competition
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 →