When I was approached by publisher Emons to write the guidebook ‘111 Places In Coventry That You Shouldn’t Miss’, I jumped at the chance – I really wanted to contribute something to the buzz around Coventry’s UK City of Culture status in 2021.

I’m a Coventry kid through and through – I was born at the hospital in Walsgrave, grew up in Tile Hill and went to the Woodlands School in the late 1980s. I loved it there!

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My short story Plane Spotting was published in the Dostoyevsky Wannabe Cities: Birmingham anthology in March.

Dostoyevsky Wannabe is a Manchester-based independent publisher, with simple, eye-catching cover design and uses Amazon’s print-on-demand service. This means only books that are bought are printed, so there’s no need for heavy investment in long print runs that may never sell through. The books are then made available at a very low price (Dostoyevsky Wannabe Cities: Birmingham is just £4). It’s a great platform for exciting new and different literature. Continue reading →

My short story Badwill has been published in an anthology titled Songs for the Elephant Man.

The publisher, Mantle Lane Press, is a small indie venture in Leicestershire with a track record of producing very stylish lit fiction books. Continue reading →

I love to read good short stories and relish the struggle of writing them too. I know when a story I read is good, but not when it comes to my own short stories. I know when I’ve missed the mark but I don’t often know why.

So I went on a short story writing course, to learn the rules if there are any. And it turns out, there are quite a few.

The course was run by CD Rose (a writer I rate – check out the wildly playful Who’s Who When Everyone is Someone Else) for indie publisher Comma Press. And it led eventually to my story What Do You Really Think Of Me, Really? being published in a nicely put together digital story collection titled Forecast. Continue reading →

2018 began with great news – one of my short stories was published in the excellent Under the Radar magazine.

Under the Radar is the bi-annual mag from Nine Arches Press, the Rugby-based regional publishing powerhouse that’s making great waves in poetry circles right now. Continue reading →

One of the major highlights of my 2017 was a commission from the West Midlands Readers’ Network (WMRN), which led to publication and performance during the October Birmingham Literature Festival 2017.

Each year the WMRN pairs regional writers with reading groups, to work together to produce a story. And behind it all is the support of Writing West Midlands, the regional agency for literature development. Continue reading →

There’s a big difference between reading a story you’ve written and performing it. I’ve learned this the hard way these last 12 months by taking part in a number of spoken word events, including telling true stories live.

From my experiences as an audience member at countless author readings, writers are often guilty of reading head down, and fail to modulate their voice or make any eye contact with their audience.

I’ve watched lots of authors read at various festivals down the years. One author and one reading stands out – a performance by Will Self. Continue reading →

I spent Sunday afternoon at an end-of-season Mee Club party at the Herbert in Coventry.

Those who’d taken part in the once-a-month ‘true stories, told live’ events, or in the workshops set up to help first-time story tellers bash and chisel their ideas into shape, were invited to come along and perform new stories in front of a friendly crowd, or cast an eye back over their experiences. Continue reading →

April is the cruellest month said TS Eliot, and it’s arguably one of the most famous lines of modern poetry.

Not for me, Tom, April has been the coolest month – it’s made me more optimistic about my fiction writing than I’ve felt for several years.

Two great things happened.

First, I was selected for Room 204 by Writing West Midlands, which is the region’s literature development agency: it’s a year-long programme to support talented, emerging writers in the region to develop their work and their career opportunities. Continue reading →

Since the Desert Island Discs archive was digitised, making recordings of around 1500 castaways interviewed since 1942 available for download, I’ve been steadily making my way through the pick of them.

The interview format is timeless and still smart to this day: the music often prompts an emotion or a recollection that a short interview would otherwise struggle to do.

What’s more, there are hundreds with interviewees I admire, and from time to time the interviews are genuinely illuminating, peppered with insight and warmth, a whole biography writ small.

I love the different interviewer styles too: Posh Roy Plomley with his shambolic shortfall in research; urbane and wise Parky; go-for-the-jugular Sue Lawley; and slick Kirsty Young.

The 12 interviews with writers that I’ve chosen here are the best, most touching, most revealing, most surprising and thought provoking of those I’ve heard to date. Continue reading →