I’m not entirely sure why, but I seem to have had more visitors this month – welcome to all of you. I hope you are keeping well in this strange and very disorientating year. I’ve been working in my new marketing role and juggling creative writing, my literary podcast and family commitments throughout lockdown this year. It’s been a challenge at times (as it has for everyone) and I haven’t written or submitted as many short stories as I did in 2019.
I’ve had one short story, The Cabinet of Curiosities, published this year in a new subscription-only lit mag called Writers Egg Magazine. This short story was also longlisted for the University of Sunderland Short Story in Association with Waterstones Award in 2019.
I’ve also ‘published’ a new short story on my podcast and you can listen to Call Bird here. Generally, the podcast has been going very well. Two of our regular writers, Martin Nathan and Miki Lentin have been shortlisted and longlisted for literary awards (I’ll update on Story Radio with a round-up soon) and the podcast is averaging 160 downloads a month.
Otherwise I am working on some new short story ideas – one based on the theme of harvest and Autumn – and working on a collection of published and unpublished short stories. My first novel is now more or less complete and I have been querying the first three chapters with agents and had a few ideas for a second novel which I plan to start work on soon.
I’m also still writing book reviews for Roman Road London. This has been a great way to learn more about my local area, I’ve written about subjects as diverse as the Kray twins, Victorian boxers, kickboxing champion Ruqsana Begum, artist Doreen Fletcher and the Huguenots…. all my book reviews and journalism go onto my Authory page which is automatically updated so if you don’t find them here, you’ll find them there!