No, they haven't been locked up (yet!) My two hapless Undertakers have their latest collection of stories, Grave Expectations, available FREE for one day only (Thursday, 21st January, 2021) and, as many people on ABCtales have been kind enough to read their stories and comment on them, I thought you might appreciate a 'heads up' as our transatlantic cousins insist on saying :-) Even when it's not free, it's just the ridiculous price of 99p but,...

"Publishing is a business, not a charity." went Kenneth (not his real name) on a phone call recently. Through lockdown 2020, I completed my latest novel. And I decided after six years of independent publishing to try my hand at pitching it via the conventional route. Carefully selecting the agents who handle this genre (crime), I began to follow the submissions process and track each submission on a spreadsheet. The first thing that became...

Craig Robertson publishes a novel every year, and the setting is Glasgow. Full of places I know and people that speak and think like me, it’s therefore much easier for me to like his work. Random , his debut novel, established him as a writer worth following. This is the second of his novels I’ve read and, like its predecessor, it’s a page turner. The setup is simple. There’s a bad guy out there. The Glasgow equivalent of John Worboys, the ‘...

Captain America. 'But the price of freedom is high, it always has been. And it’s one I’m willing to pay. And if I’m the only one, so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.' I was scared the moron’s moron would, inadvertently, take us into the Third World War (delayed). I’ve got a roof over my head, enough to eat, and quite like being alive. As Malcolm X said before he was murdered ‘the chickens have come home to roost’. The 45 th American...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08xc504/a-teacher-series-1-episode-1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08xc59p/a-teacher-series-1-episode-2 We all know about the meet-cute, when the main characters collide, and we know they’ll later have a romance. In Norah Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally , for example, Sally Albright (Meg Ryan’s character) is sitting waiting in a beaten-up Beatle car filled with junk to give a lift to Harry Burns (...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08zhgmb/traces-series-1-episode-1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08zhgs6/traces-series-1-episode-2 ‘You’re unbelievably beautiful, you are.’ Daniel (Martin Compston) tells Emma Hedges (Molly Windsor). It must be dispiriting for a young actor thinking if any series is set in Scotland, I must have a chance, but only if Martin Compston is busy and doesn’t want the part. She’s got baggage. He’s got...

Don’t wait for God to put his hand on your shoulder—unless you’re the Virgin Mary—that’s not going to happen any time soon. Start writing now. All you need is you. Yes, I procrastinate, which sounds like masturbate, or maybe only to my sick mind. Do something you enjoy with yourself without the need for paper hankies. Having a sick mind is an advantage, because you’re going to have to tell lots of lies. That’s what fiction is, without having to...

1/1/2021, 12:02am...I sit on my porch watching the fireworks bursting in the night sky over the rooftops of celebratory neighbors, reflecting on those drizzling, dazzling colors of isolated celebrations and it takes me back in time. All the New Year day celebrations I've partied through with bright eyes filled with the promise of a new year, celebrating that hope with friends and family...and yes, that look back is very clear to me…as turning...

Good morning from a lockdown Dublin. I'd like to wish everyone here a safe and happy 2021. I was going through some old notebooks and files last year during the idle months of April Level 5. As a writer, I tend to hoard; I have spaces jammed with half-filled notebooks, random idea pages, and newspaper and magazine clippings, so with all the unexpected free time, I decided to purge a lot of old or unused material and get it out of the house. I...

Happy New Year! It feels a bit like tempting fate, but I'm determined to be optimistic.