I just heard that John Hughes died of a heart attack on Thursday. I grew up wishing that my teenage years would be like a John Hughes movie, and the few moments that came close were the most wonderful. My friends and I used to recite lines from Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's Day Off and the Breakfast Club to each other. We'd sit in the dirt … [Read more...]
New story on-line now
I have a new story 'Blinks Transport People' on the Notes From The Underground website. It was commissioned for their new Photo Stories series, which is a collaboration with Clare Wigfall. Each of the stories in this series is very short, and inspired by a photo, which appears alongside the story. They'll be published in pairs - my story is in … [Read more...]
Uncanniness in the park
I had a classic uncanny experience today. I took my boys to the park to chuck a boomerang around. The only other people there were four girls who were about 11. They were playing with a baby doll, taking it out of its pram, laying it on the grass, talking to it. They took turns putting the doll onto their laps while they shot down the zip-wire … [Read more...]
Uncanny award winner!
The New Uncanny book from Comma Press has just won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Anthology. The collection contains my story Tamagotchi, alongside stories by Alison MacLeod, AS Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, Ramsey Campbell, Nicholas Royle and Etgar Keret, among others. The awards are given each year for outstanding achievement in the literature … [Read more...]
Peacock at the window
I have a day job as an editor, and I'm lucky enough to work in the middle of a nature reserve. We get all kinds of wildlife around the office, and sometimes in it. A couple of years ago we had a baby grass snake under one of the desks. On sunny days, lizards bask beside the footpaths. On a lunchtime walk, I once saw an adult grass snake swim across … [Read more...]
Anus vanishing at the Broadway Bookshop
I got drenched running from Bethnall Green tube station to the Broadway Bookshop in Hackney, arrived an hour early for the event, and sat dripping into a plate of quinoa and falafel, earwigging a conversation between two guys who wondered whether the waiter was omniscient or omnipresent (I think surly would have been a more appropriate … [Read more...]
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