My short story “Red-Eye” is one of four reprints included in my new collection, SEEDS. The story was my first ever short fiction acceptance and was originally published in the Australian Horror Writers Magazine, Midnight Echo #14 in 2019. This short piece which explains the inspiration behind it was originally published at Sinister Reads. It
A Nice Soothing Horror Story
A very quick update as I go through today’s to-do list: With the whole of Aotearoa, New Zealand plunged once more into a Level 4 lockdown and anxieties rising again, it might seem somewhat counterproductive to write about how consuming horror can help and heal. But that’s just what I’ve been doing. With huge thanks
It Feels “Write”.
This piece about living with chronic pain was first published on The Mighty in 2018, but it seems to have disappeared. As it’s still very relevant, but not something I often tend to discuss at length, it feels right to republish it here, with some minor updates/edits. As always, when writing a personal piece, I
Good Things Come to Those Who Keep Going
The last time I made a blog post was at the start of May, and I will be the first to admit it wasn’t an entirely “good” post. I was feeling glum and overworked and struggling to find ways to prioritise my time. I had even decided I was going to take a step back
Life After Lockdown — A Year On
I turned forty-one last year in the middle of lockdown, alert level 4, and it was one of the best birthdays I’d ever had...
Notebooks
Writing in a new notebook feels like a strange parallel to your life. The first page, of course, will always be the best; the cleanest and neatest, the one with the most promise.
Evolution of an Idea — Craft & Design
Sometimes I get ideas for things from totally random places, other times they come from things I have seen or read or heard. I want to share with you the process of one of my recent ideas – just to show how long it can take from my having the original idea for a piece, until it becomes real.
So You Think You Want To Be A Writer?
A dear friend of mine who has been writing since the 1980s once told me that there are no rules when it comes to writing. "A writer only writes for themselves and does their best to create the books they want to read."
The Battle for the Best Movie Ever Made
I started 2021 with an online feud, one which had been brewing for a while. It began as an innocent and innocuous tweet, as these things often do, as to which movie was the better one: Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) or RoboCop? (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)
Life Journaling
As pretty much everyone else has said in their yearly roundups and reviews, 2020 was, to put it mildly, a bit rubbish. One of the best things I did this year was to start outlining monthly goals and tracking data with a Life Journal.