Monday, 7 November 2016

Blog Party!

I'm guesting at a blog party over at http://www.sueshepherdwrites.co.uk/welcome-to-sues-blog-party/ for the next week or so - hop on over to see what's going on and have a virtual cocktail....

Sunday, 6 November 2016

Comfort Zones

We all have comfort zones and they expand and contract at different times in our lives. Way back in the when, I used to thrive on conflict and it was all part of the day job. If we didn’t have at least one letter of complaint each week, the boss would say we weren’t doing our jobs properly, and arresting people for drug-smuggling was never going to be a calm and peaceful day in the office. Those who know me may say I still love an argument and that’s probably true, but in reality I’m way more conservative than I used to be.

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Thursday, 6 October 2016

Crime Pays

What is it with crime? We’re obsessed with it – or the people committing it. I admit I’m probably slightly biased in that I work in law enforcement and so my day job usually concerns crime in one form or another, but at least I have an excuse to be a crime writer! My first crime novel was inspired by the day job; having spent a few years investigating heroin importations, I wanted to look further down the chain at street drugs and how they might affect lives. And so I found my teenage Michael, dumped by his girlfriend in a club on his seventeenth birthday, and I needed to tell his story …

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Saturday, 9 July 2016

But Where Will I Put My Books?

I grew up with books. I remember my dad bringing home a Famous Five book every Friday – I used to be ready and waiting for him to come home from work and I’d have finished the book by the end of the weekend. The newsagent would deliver my comic on a Saturday and I’d lie in bed listening for the clink of the letter box; I’d scurry down and take my comic back to bed to read.

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Friday, 10 June 2016


CrimeFest and Other Conventions

I've blogged in the past about conferences and conventions. I've done a fair few over the years - from the early days of the Southampton (later Winchester) Writers' Conference to the many years of attending and/or running British Fantasy Society conventions. I've been as a 'guest' to Sci-Fi Weekender, and I even once went to a Star Trek convention - purely for research, you understand?

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Sunday, 1 May 2016

Reading Aloud

It’s been an odd year so far. April already and I don’t seem to have achieved anything – writing or otherwise. I’m unsettled due to an impending house move and the creative juices are drying up completely.

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Sunday, 6 March 2016

A New Kind of Book Club

So you really want to join a book club. You ask around and find a few events locally, but they’re not quite right for you – nothing wrong with them, but your ideas don’t quite fit.

Maybe you’ll just stay home and read books instead. But then you think on it a bit more and decide to start your own book club. It helps that you have contacts in the hospitality industry and you know just the right place to host such a thing