Blog
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Moby Dick and Me
I’m 175 years late to the party, but here’s my take on Moby Dick Moby Dick by Herman Melville was this month’s read for my book club. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it’s about Captain Ahab and his monomaniacal pursuit of the titular white whale, as told by Ishmael, one of the…
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I love a “100 best [anything] of all time” list
I’m a sucker for a “Greatest [Anything] of All Time” list, even more so when it’s about books. I’m not going to lie, I’ve always been fascinated by compilations of the greatest anything: greatest footballer, greatest military generals, greatest rock bands, and so on. As a kid, I even remember having books that listed the…
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A crash course in marketing for writers
Writer, editor…and sales and marketing team? While the age old advice ‘The best way to promote your book is to write a new one” is still true (so I’m told), nowadays, even traditionally published writers are expected to market, promote and sell their own books. Gone are the days of the publishers doing everything. This…
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Awards Eligibility 2025
The starting gun has been fired for the 2025 awards season, as BSFA members can now nominate their favourite science fiction or fantasy stories published in 2025 for the BSFA Awards long list. I’ve had a pretty exciting year so far and I’m delighted to now be an author with a list of published works…
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Beware of marketing scams
One of the things that surprised me after my story was published in Writers of the Future, was how quickly I was targeted by marketing scams. And, even in the few months I’ve been getting such emails, they are getting increasingly sophisticated. I just wanted to use this blog post to flag this as a…
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How to write a Writers of the Future winning story
Guest blog for the Writers of the Future contest I was asked by the good folks at WOTF if I would write a blog about the inspiration behind my story, “The Stench of Freedom”. I was, of course, more than happy to do so. The WOTF contest gave me one of the highlights of my…
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100 submissions in – time for a data deep dive
I hit “submit” this month on my 100th story submission. I love easy, round numbers, so 100 submissions feels like quite a milestone. And, when pulling this blog post together, I realised it is just over 10 years since my very first submission back in June 2015. This feels like a very appropriate time to…
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How I became a Writers of the Future winner
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again (and then try some more). There are writers out there who get published right away, or who win the Writers of the Future contest with their first submission. I am not one of them. After my daughter was born in 2020, I committed to follow my…
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Dare to believe: five years chasing my writer dream
It’s important to stop every now and then to reflect on what you’ve done in life, and to consider if you’re content with where you’re going. So, what happened to me five years ago this month? What triggered this new writing era in my life? I became a father.
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Hello world!
I must admit, I’m not a natural blogger. That’s perhaps a strange opening line for a blog. But it’s true. It’s not something I ever thought I would do. Then again, I never thought I’d be a winner of the Writers of the Future competition either. So, go figure.