Things I hate In no particular order: Publications that use their email submission process to send you a rejection on a Sunday – it used to be that one day a week you were safe from those evil ‘not for us’ messages that arrived by post, but now you can receive evidence of your literary […]

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The inadvertent joys of editing When we write in the first glorious heat of creativity, we don’t (or shouldn’t) stop to measure our words. Later we return to our work (if we’re wise) with the cold viewpoint of a bored and jaded reader, and re-evaluate all that hot and sometimes purple prose. But sometimes we […]

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Would you, could you pay a fee? My view of contests is cynical. I enter very few, and only those where I have some strong and clear sense that the contest is properly organised, well run, fair and distributive. By which I mean that I expect to see some kind of accounting process that shows […]

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Thinking about clichés There are two definitions of a cliché: 1 – a trite or overused phrase 2 – an expression so exact that it moves into common language. I’ve been pondering these two in relation to a couple of copyediting jobs I’ve had recently. The doornail is an example of the former. Why is […]

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Make history! Today is One Day in History day. It’s your chance to become part of the fabric of social history, forever. What writer doesn’t want that? All you have to do is visit History Matters and make like Samuel Pepys.

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How much do you want to know …? Today I had cake and conversation with a dear friend who has been the sparking point of many ideas (and arguments) over the years. We disagree on many things, which is one reason our relationship is so rich, and one of the major things on which we […]

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The world is a small place. The publishing world smaller still. SmokeLong Quarterly gave me one of my first publication credits and I’m proud to say something of mine has appeared in their excellent annual every year, although I’ll have to get my finger out for this year, as I haven’t subbed anything yet! Excellence […]

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We need to talk about the bad times … (to steal a line from Lionel Shriver) Because we all get them. Mine started just after I came back from Kendal, when I succumbed to a really nasty cold (which still hasn’t gone, entirely) and arrived home to find a rejection letter from an agent whom […]

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Titles (again) I had an illuminating conversation with a teacher of Creative Writing this weekend. He thinks that the model most writers use when choosing a short story title is that of the popular song. And I think he’s onto something. Looking back over the stories I’ve been reading for various places in the past […]

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