A couple of weeks ago I had a catch-up lunch with someone I worked with a few years back. She was a script editor then and she’s an executive producer now, but it wasn’t a pitching opportunity, more of a comrades’ get-together. (I was going to say ‘old comrades’, but, you know, that would make…

We were driving from Phoenix to Tuscon when the car passed over the body of a flattened skunk. This was a long, straight Arizona road and it cut across the desert like an arrow. We didn’t know it was a skunk at the time, but we found that out soon enough. There was a few…

“Any advice for getting a script read by some influential people?” A question asked of me recently that’s impossible to answer in just a few words. But here’s the digest version.   My experience is that “influence” is mostly a public illusion of power, and it’s no subsitute for the actual ability to get stuff made,…

On this, your birthday.

Over on the Top Suspense blog we’re trying out a form of online craft discussion in which a bunch of us tag-team the post over a number of days. Here’s my contribution; hop over and check it out in the context of the others’ thoughts and comments. My take on suspense is a pretty straightforward…

I’ve just released four of my backlist titles as ebooks for the Kindle, with other platforms to follow when I can get around to putting the work in. Formatting for a professional-looking result isn’t the doddle that some would have you believe; up-converting a Word file with Amazon’s own online tool gives a result that…

I just heard on the radio that Dennis Hopper died at his Venice home this morning, of complications relating to prostate cancer. Not too long ago, I was working on a project where the producer was pursuing him for a major role. To be honest, the part and the actor weren’t a fit, and Hopper…

Here’s a glimpse of Bryan Talbot’s new project:

I just read this on the website for Keswick’s newly-opened attraction, The Bond Museum. It’s a sister museum to The Cars of the Stars, Peter Nelson’s collection of movie action vehicles. “The jetpack in our museum was assembled for the major Paris Bond exhibition and using some of the original bits from the late Bert…

I met British SF great John Brunner in his later years – liked him, but could understand his reputation for a certain spikiness and hauteur. He’d come up to Preston to address our local SF group and when the pub closed we all went back to Bryan Talbot’s house, where John was staying. I was…