Here it is - #82 of NOT ONE OF US ft my story "Exstasis," plus @asakiyume.bsky.social, @jordanrhirsch.bsky.social, @gwynnega.bsky.social, @writerjencrow.bsky.social, Gretchen Tessmer, Rachel Cordasco, David Closs & Ed Ahern. legacyliteraryservices.com/not-one-of-us

A good start to the writing year. My story “If on a lonesome road a traveller’ will be broadcast Thursday 2nd Jan on BBC Upload - on BBC local radio in Oxford, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire and Solent - at 6-8pm on 95.2FM, on Digital, BBC Sounds and
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... #writingcommunity

By the blazing fire some of our best stories are told. #oxford #writingcommunity

At the Museum of the Future in Dubai, an imaginary DNA archive.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.

(Christabel by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Oh to be able to generate this kind of atmosphere in a story.

Show me a picture in your phone that has your energy; not a selfie.

Really delighted that my short story 'Of Death in Battle' will be published shortly by the excellent @innerworlds.bsky.social magazine. Inspired partly by Old English poetry, partly by D&D nostalgia, partly by Time Team...

Photo by Sara Gacic on Unsplash

This story, The Hunting of the Masu'wa, is a (fond) pastiche of the M. R. James style of ghost story. Longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award 2019 it was then published in Ghosts and Scholars, the M. R. James newsletter, issue 41.

Gardening/horror is a wrongly-overlooked subgenre. Change my mind.

thequietreader.com/magazine/blo...

The excellent Oxford Writing Circle published this story, Rook, in its anthology Departures and Arrivals. www.waterstones.com/book/departu...

Oxford is a city with a highly transient population and this was my attempt at capturing some of that.

Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash

The story 'Follower' is a very creepy riff on a common horror theme, the pursuer who won't be shaken off. Published on Horla.

Photo: Taofeek Obafemi-Babatunde on Unsplash

A rare, pure ghost story for me; though I love reading them I rarely write them. Dead End was highly commended in the Manchester Fiction Prize 2019 and then published on the now defunct Horla.

Why do we wander, where can we turn?
Under the moon where the dark flames burn.
Why do we wander, who shows the way?
Come to the wood on the eve of May.

"Sold" - a folk-horror tale, of a sacrifice made in return for, well, give it a read: published in Schlock webzine or via my website.

A favourite of mine: The Librarian. Placed 3rd at the 2019 ChipLitFest short story competition judged by Nicholas Royle, it's a weird fiction tale of books left unopened.

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič – @specialdaddy on Unsplash

Two travellers on a lonely road - this story, Hurry Up Please, It's Time, was published by Horla in 2020. Horla has now folded as far as I can make out. The image was sourced by Horla from Flickr flic.kr/p/29Jtu3v.

There's something about a dark road on a dark landscape that gives me liminal feels.

The Wrathful Sky - a five-act short story that captures the alienation of the long-distance traveller - was published by Storgy in 2019; rights have now reverted to me so get in touch...
Photo by KAL VISUALS on Unsplash

The first short story I had published once returning to writing in 2018. Annunciation, in the printed anthology Oxford’s Haunted by Oxford Writing Circle. The news brought by angels is not always welcome.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
www.amazon.co.uk/Oxfords-Haun...