Have you ever noticed how, whenever a drama features a small child’s drawing that has to play some part in carrying the story forward, you can tell that a child didn’t do it? It’s almost always the case. Like those terrible overdubbing jobs where grown women provide children’s voices and we’re not supposed to notice.…

A while ago I was interviewed for a study on writer working methods and the possible role of GenAI in the profession. The study promised anonymity, but that’s not an issue for me. These were some of my answers. Do you work in a group or alone? I always worked alone until one of my…

New 30,000 word novella set for November publication, now available for preorder from Subterranean in a signed and numbered edition limited to 1,000 copies. If it follows ComparatIve Anatomy in being carried by Blackwell’s and Amazon then UK buyers should be able to avoid the addition of those swingeing US shipping costs. Cover art by…

This post from January 2008 was rather buried when everything moved to this new site in 2022, but with the Manchester Festival hitting its 34th year (strewth!) in October it’s a story worth keeping alive. One of the most heroic spectacles I ever witnessed on a public stage was that of Stephen Laws conducting an…

With the website relaunch of 2022 my blog material dating back to 2007 was rather set adrift in cyberspace, still hosted on Blogger’s servers but not tethered to any marquee. But unlike certain politicians I’ve no urge to erase the past, embarrassing though it may sometimes prove; the old stuff can still be found here,…

Here’s an oddity, and a lesson in why you should never entirely trust the internet for information. An Empire Online News and Biography entry for director Iain Softley reads, “Softley also has been developing an adaptation of Stephen Gallagher’s novel The Boat House for Dimension Films, set in the English Lake District. He previously attempted…

Walking into her apartment, both of them laughing at something he’d said, the man made a mock bow for her to precede him, his eyes already seeing the room, darting around it, looking for something to kill her with.” So begins Tony Kenrick’s Neon Tough, a novel published in ’88 and set against the backdrop…

Back in 2006 renowned/esteemed/iconic artist Chris Moore wrote an article on the increasing use of digital tools in the craft of illustration. We’d collaborated on the text of Journeyman, his quality showcase album from art publisher Paper Tiger, and he asked me to cast an editorial eye over the piece before he sent it in.…

Continuing the adaptation memo from Part One, this second part is the ‘what I’d do with it’ section. I teamed with producer Archie Tait and I imagine we pitched it to the usual suspects, of whom there were a very small number back then… maybe half a dozen people or fewer with actual commissioning power,…

I see that Patrick Barlow’s energetic stage adaptation of The 39 Steps is about to begin a national tour, in a production directed by Maria Aitken (whom I met once at the Hay festival; I was on a panel with her husband Patrick McGrath and was happy to be introduced). The original Criterion Theatre production…