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Launching meet

Tuesday night saw the launch of A Private Haunting at the fantastic Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford. More than fifty people came down to hear me read from the novel and ramble on about my writing. I was joined in conversation by Fiona McPherson, Senior Editor on the Oxford English Dictionary, who asked some insightful questions, […] Read More →
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The world needs another book!

Well A Private Haunting is released today. It’s a bit odd to let go of something that you’ve spent two years creating alone at a wee desk. But if you’re gonna write it, you might as well let people READ it, right? So here it is… If you’re after a copy, you can order one now […] Read More →
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Things that never happen

Only on these days. Sky like a lowering lid. A step out the door and the immediate, physical need to step right back in again. But you can’t. These things are not permitted. You must engage, brother. So it’s only on these days, though maybe they’re happening all the time. What are those things you […] Read More →
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Cover image for A Private Haunting

I’ve always liked edgelands. The scrub of empty space where a factory used to be. A murky dawn canal, brambles lilting in the pass of ghost barges. An abandoned quarry in late winter, just a mysterious tower, every window broken, watery sun. Or an abandoned crazy golf course, this being a setting for ‘A Private Haunting’ and now the final cover image. […] Read More →
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Looking up from the omelette

On the periphery the perspectives are more pronounced. Looking in means introspection of a fundamental kind- five drams and Glen Campbell on an ancient jukebox. Looking out means to dream of elsewhere, to exist in a place before you get there. Growing up I grew tired of looking in. I wanted Europe and beyond. I’m […] Read More →
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Transference

Blue bruised morning. Driving sleet, stun of orange above the Wytham Woods skyline. The road has become a single track. Traffic vanished. Ghost Poet on the CD and so many others in my head. Those haunted lines, picking me out again. Swing the wheel. Career across these sodden fields and keep on going. So many winters. […] Read More →
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Mad as the mist and the snow

Somewhere on the west coast of Scotland. Late-December a few years back after an aborted hike. Dropping down in the car towards a loch and there in a swift-closing distance a plane, forty feet above the churning grey water. A Tornado fighter-bomber. The RAF, war gaming in the twisting glens, a strange stand-in for the epic flatness […] Read More →