Shores of Night

So, the button has been pressed and the Kindle versions of the two books have been sent off to be fully processed and finally see 'print'. After that I'm going to get the paperback, print on demand, versions done so you can get them in dead tree versions. My friend Emma created a wonderful pair of covers for me (and she's going to have a steady flow of work from me now - as long as I'm self publishing she'll be my cover artist), and you can see that below. This is the cover for Forest Brides , a sort of Swords and Sorcery collection that focuses on the women dwelling in a huge forest, and the ways that they're free to grow and be who they want to be instead of being constrained by the rules of their society. I wrote this because I wanted to explore the various roles of women in myth, be that as mothers, monsters, witches, scapegoats, or psychopomps. I haven't quite finished with the area and there'll be a couple more books, at the very least, b...

Watching the events of the past couple of weeks has felt very strange. The  Extinction Rebellion  demonstrations have been heartfelt and passionate, and in a sense it's been great to see them. But... You knew that was coming, didn't you? Especially the ellipsis. I have a bit of a problem with any sort of demonstration, because I don't believe they actually achieve anything. I've seen too many good causes crash against the shore only to be stranded by the tide, achieving nothing because of the state's intransigence. A million people marched against the Iraq War, a similar number marched against Brexit, and nothing changed. Putting it bluntly, it seems to me that demonstrating is a futile exercise, one that may make the participants feel good about themselves but generally speaking has about as much affect in the real world as a fart in an empty lift. Putting my cards on the table, I agree with what Extinction Rebellion represent, and their aims (though...

I don't really know where to start with this, to be honest. The short version of what I want to post is that I've decided to self publish my work for a while, in order to build a market for my books and get it out there, hopefully earning some money in the process. That feels like an awfully mercenary thing to write, but sadly money is necessary to live, and I think my work is good enough to be paid for (you may disagree). So, I've decided to publish two large pieces, Forest Brides and A Strange and Sudden Fury in the near future. One, Forest Brides, is a book of short stories all about a magical group of women who dwell in a bonafide old forest and who share the energy of that place. The world thinks they're dead, and so they can come and go as they please and be whoever they want, free of the constraints that might be placed on them otherwise. Their world is a Bronze Age one, with large empires and tribes. I've tried hard to keep the stories foc...