Issue six of the terrific Ballista is now out and available from here. Well worth a look if you like a bit of horror/speculative fiction/science fiction/suspense. And my story, Counting Rain, is in it which is good.

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And here's a little pic of the front cover of the photo book for charity I've helped out with. (Apologies for the scruffy desk; it has been a busy few weeks and it has since been tidied.)

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What is this?
To kindle... to light a fire, to grow flames from very little. Kindling... the small, easily-lit bits of wood or paper used to light a fire. To animate, to inflame.

So, calling a new electronic book reader a 'Kindle' implies... what? That a new love of reading will be kindled by this device? The name certainly hints at something new.

And that 'something new' is where I am divided on this matter.

Reading is nothing new. I myself have been doing it for a good number of years and I am given to understand that others before me have discovered meaning in all those funny squiggles.
I am a book lover. I love books. The very sight of books excites me and I become positively giddy inside a library. It isn't just the words; it is the feel of the paper, the binding, the smell, the weight.

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As someone remarked at the the launch, Caroline must have breathed in some of the literary air, but to my mind it was the murkier elements. Her novel, 'Kill-Grief', high-lights eighteenth century gin-addiction



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Let’s get the biggie out of the way first (as it were): I love writing sex. Yes, I admit it. It’s one of the high points of my writing life. Even when I’m not writing about sex, I’m thinking about writing it. It’s part of all my novels, and some of my poems and short stories. Even when no sex takes place.


To my mind this is simply part of being human. We’re all physical and sexual (or at least with the capacity for being sexual) people, and including that aspect of our lives within literature is a celebration of being alive and of being who we are.


Not that you’ll find sex on every single one of the pages of my novels. You won’t. Not by a long way, though I do like to think that my darker writing nonetheless remains erotic in nature. My characters are, after all, physical beings within their world. In fact, one reviewer mentioned the lack of described regular sexual activity in A Dangerous Man (Flame Books, 2007) as a negative point, bearing in mind that my main character has been a part-time prostitute.





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posted some pics of a nice walk my son got me to take

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Laura Van Den Berg, writer and assistant editor of the online journal Memorious, has writen an excellent essay about publishing in literary magazines, The Effort Pays Off, in The Review Review, an online review of literary journals (which is new to me but seems a wonderful resource that I must read more). Her essay spoke to me so much that I feel compelled to quote from it here.

After talking about her despondency at the many rejections she received early on in her writing career, Laura says:

...when I began working for a notable literary magazine as a graduate student, it was still sobering to realize how utterly insignificant the individual submitter is. This is not to say the staff didn’t work hard to treat each submission with the basic level of respect that any reputable journal would, but when editors and readers are dealing with thousands upon thousands of submissions, each writer is, quite literally, just another number. After a few months of employment, I felt incredibly foolish for ever taking a rejection personally. I learned that rejection, as practically any editor will tell you, is rarely personal—because, in all likelihood, the editor simply has no idea who you are. I learned that I was a single fish in a sea of millions, a blip on the screen. I learned that no one cares whether I keep writing or not....

However, this didn't bring her down:


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"It is complete stool-water. It is arse gravy of the worst kind."

Spoken on QI. Genius.

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We live in a world in which we are surrounded by an obsession with size. Size double zero is the new size zero, according to the Americans. And you only need to look on the cover of OK or Hello magazine, or indeed any of the glossies, to see a story about someone's weight. You can have two size ten dresses, bought from different shops, and both may vary widely. Not because the manufacturer has made a mistake, but because size simply varies. And then there's food - you can choose the 'super-size' meal option at many outlets - presumably then, you won't be a double size zero though! At the vast majority of these fast-food eateries, it's not about the quality of the food, but the sheer quantity which appears.

When it comes to books though, you have to ask yourself, does size really matter? When you're in the throes of plotting the storyline or getting down to the nitty gritty of your WIP, what consideration do you give to length? Do you have it all plotted out before you start? Or do you simply leave it in the hands of the literary gods?



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There was a bit of setting up to do, but everything was just about under control by the time guests started to arrive. I intended to do my reading at about half past two, but there were still people flocking in and lots of books to be signed, so it wasn’t until about 3 o’clock that I got a chance to read...

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