Reading

Taking some time out to do some serious reading (as opposed to jocular reading which is not to be encouraged). My To-Read Pile includes such works as Temeraire by Naomi Novik, Un Lun Dun by China Mieville, Shadows and Other Tales by Tony Richards, Lisey's Story by Stephen King and many more. But first on my list are two collections which I'm zipping through now: Allyson Bird's Bull Running for Girls and Twentieth-Century Ghosts by Joe Hill. Both are collections of similar length and in similar genres, so it should be interesting to see in what ways the "girls" may differ from the "boys", as it were, in terms of style. After I've completed those two I'm jumping straight into Joe Hill's much-acclaimed debut novel Heart-Shaped Box. So, as you can see, much great fiction to devour over the coming few weeks/months. I begin the fifth year of my Open University course on Saturday, Advanced Creative Writing, so I will seriously have to manage my time better than I have been doing recently if I'm going to fit in all this reading for pleasure.

One new story publication to announce: the latest issue of Estronomicon contains my story "A World Without Men". The PDF download is here: Screaming Dreams (Just click on the Estronomicon eZine link in the sidebar and then click on 2008 issues). I hope you have time to check out this great zine; it contains fiction by such writers as Peter Tennant, Gary McMahon, Garry Charles, Hugh MacDonald, Allyson Bird and many others.

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