This month, I’ve pretty much taken over the writing magazines in the UK, in a marketing whirlwind prior to the release of Paint this town Red. Yesterday, it was Writers’ News, today it’s Writing Magazine, which carries one of my letters, praising Nick Button’s fantastic cover design for the novel. Here’s the proof, dudes:
I’ve been interviewed by Megan Rattliff on the excellent blog-site The Reading List today. The interview covers all the usual stuff about why I write, tips for wannabe writers and also has a lot about Paint this town Red, including an exclusive take on the seeds for the novel – a teenage episode which chilled my blood up in the hills surrounding New(ton) Mills.
You can read the full interview here.
AJ Kirby’s political satire features again in this month’s Home Defence UK update, which features ‘Diddy’ Dave Cameron on the charm-offensive in Liverpool…
You can read the piece here.
And remember to check out the rest of HDUK too…
I’ve been extensively interviewed today on the Morgen Bailey Writing Blog, and you can read the full interview online here. There’s lots to get your teeth into here, including some great stuff about the forthcoming release of Paint this town Red, and some retrospectives on Bully, Perfect World, and The Magpie Trap. My thanks to Morgen for a brilliantly researched interview and some probing questions which demanded more than my usual “yes”/ “no” answers.
There’s a really interesting Q and A with author Marilyn Baron (with a great mention of my work) posted online today. You can read the full thing here.
Marilyn is the co-author of my February Book of the Month, The Edger, and she truly has some interesting stuff to say. Check it out…
This weekend, I’ll mostly be painting that town Red. Amsterdam, in case you were wondering. Watch this space for a travel piece coming soon. If I can remember any of it. Never been to The Dam before. Always presumed I’d be going on a stag-do or something like that, so have hung fire until now before releasing the AJ Kirby beast on the Dutch. Never fear. I’m taking a handful of PAINT THIS TOWN RED promotional postcards so they won’t miss out on the release of the novel…
My review of Stories, the anthology of short fiction from around the world edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, has been published in February’s The Short Review. You can read the full review here.
And here’s a brief extract: “Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio are men on a mission. They’re self-appointed caped crusaders full of desperate zeal to save the story from the evil clutches of those who seek to constrain it within genre boundaries and instead “ignite a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional storytelling.” Sarrantonio, the self-confessed “Master Of” the anthology; Gaiman the black leather jacketed, gravelly-voiced Batman figure, generally a lone hero but here, to save the world, for one time only, appearing with a comrade.
Stories, their 2011 collection of short fiction, is their secret weapon. Only, it ain’t exactly unassuming. It couldn’t steal into a quiet store overnight and quietly start rearranging the shelves in order that those “categories which existed only to guide people around bookshops” no longer count, no longer “dictate the kind of stories that were being written” (from Gaiman’s introduction.) No, it comes rippling with muscle (and a little body fat too, this is one weighty volume, over five hundred pages.)”
Or something. My collection of crime fictions, The Art of Ventriloquism, will be coming out very soon. The collection, which will be published by Solstice Publishing. You can visit the dedicated website for the book here or visit the Solstice coming soon page here. As you can tell, despite the gears of my creativity grinding to a halt, the start of the apocalyptic year of 2012 has gone with something of a bang.
If I had to name a favourite season it would be winter. Or maybe summer. I love extremes. But the recent cold snap which has hit Europe has had a few knock-on effects for me as a writer. It can’t be a coincidence that the snow and ice have fallen at exactly the same time as my creativity levels have hit an all time low.
I’ve been editing the forthcoming novella, The Haunting of Annie Nicol, putting the final touches on some plot points and adding some shading here and there and making quite a lot more of one of the minor characters. In its current incarnation it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written, but I know I can make it better. So does my publisher, and so I’ve gone back again…
…And suddenly I’ve come careering to a halt, stumbled and staggered arse over tit and come to a grinding halt. I’ve now written six different openings. I’ve torn my hair out about one particular piece of dialogue to such an extent that I feel the bite of cold on a bald patch now.
Maybe it’s because I’m full of sniffles and snuffles or because I’ve spent a lot of time considering boring logistical stuff like how I can move my car from where I’ve had to abandon it at the bottom of our road, but whatever it is, my creativity’s gone to shit, ladies and gentlemen. 
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just working in other ways. Here’s the horror snowman I built at the weekend. He has mad eyes, doesn’t he?
And he’s also wearing a hard-hat for some reason.
And his buttons are made out of pool balls.
paintthistownred 