Fiction

Invocation (2013) is either six novels or three novels or one novel. It is kind of a paranormal romance. Kind of.

A short story, 'It's OK To Say If You Went Back In Time And Killed Baby Hitler', is in Big Echo.

A novelette, 'In Arms,' is in Gross Ideas.

A short story, 'Please Don't Let Go', is in Fireside (and you can listen!).

A short story, 'Oh God, the Dogs!' is in Juana y La Cibernética. 

A short story, 'Seven Non-Abolitions' in Phase Change.

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I have just about finished another novel, I Have Seen You In Forever, which is looking for a publisher. It is stunningly good but even more stunningly evil. Some excerpts from I Have Seen You In Forever have appeared in various places:

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This is a true story about a terrible coincidence. It's the kind of coincidence that just makes the universe look mean, and it happened to a woman called Narnia. 
The short version is, Narnia sent Roland the Pig to go kick cancer's butt. But Roland the Pig bumped his head and saw stars. 
Here's the long.
Continue reading this extract in The Long+Short.


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I take the stairs in under twenty minutes. 
I am going to the top-floor-but-one, where the philosopher lives. On the very top floor lives someone very spesh. Top Floor is a game designer and boy does she design them games. Her velveteen verbosity, her plush prolixity, is wallpapering those stairwell walls up and down, declaring her designs, and begging and wheedling and tantalizing and imploring and tickling all the other tenants to please, please, please drop by for a playtest sesh. 
Every time I take a breather, I read some summonses from nursling games: Journey to the End of Pi, this one’s called.

The next ludic newborn asks: Can You Kill The Comet?
Continue reading this extract in Big Echo.

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Things have gone from bad to worse because now I’m definitely awake. 
Today my bed boasts three exits – left, right, and foot – but all lead to the same world. Out there, it is winter-dark in Tower Hamlets, London, I am twelve years old, and I am dead at heart. Some day I’ll discover secret exit #4, leading deeper into bed. Maybe today. There comes a soft knock, probably my bedroom door, but maybe it’s the secret “bedworld door.” So I just lie there.  
I use whimsy to protect myself. A wise old app once told me this. 
Now there comes a scrape and a rustle. My entire support network, Farah Campbell, gets into the bed. “Tesco car-park seventeen minutes,” says Farah. 
We lie side-by-side staring at the ceiling. I inhale winter / dreads wax / smoky fragrance. Snowmelt crumples off her hoodie cuff.
Continue reading this extract in Twelve Tomorrows 2016

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Also some books that I always call poetry like Hax and Xena and Pressure in Cheshire are blatantly fiction 9 times out of 10.

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Here's that very long novel, or possibly several novels:


Critical Documents, 2013. Free.

"Three months before her eighteenth birthday, Myfanwy Morris is sucked into the affairs of a mystical secret agency, Chancelhouse, as it tries to reinvent itself for the 21st century. All is not what it seems, and danger lies all around — and within ..." A YAA, nerf funicular, perianal romance Menippean Saltire. (I should probably point out that some people hate this and don't even want to read past the first few pages. So).

Paperback: Amazon (c.£7)
eBook: CC PDF (free) |  CC Kindle file (free) | Amazon (c.£2)

"beautifully pitched" - Colin Herd
"mint" - Verity Spiders
"alarming lucidity" - Alison Croggon
"surprising pleasures" - Pop Bob
"nails on a chalkboard" - Listening
"Neil Gaiman on crack" - Peter Loftus
"it zips, it froths" - Kate Onyett
"awesome-sauce" - Robert Kiely
"magnifique" - nick-e melville
"my book of the year" - Richard Tyrone Jones

Invocation on Goodreads

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Collaboration:

Short fiction with Samantha Walton, as Lorqi Blink / Lorqi Blinx etc.:


"Notes Toward the Party as a Dead Form" (2010) in Cambridge Literary Review.


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Current projects:

And I'm also maybe sort of working on something called Special Horses for Special Forces, or maybe Poets vs. Crystals, which is a prequel to I Have Seen You In Forever.

Earlier writing: 

Some poetry: Harvey Joseph & Lindsay James, Sea Adventures, or, Pond LifeRunamok Press, 2012. Pretty sure there are still copies available of that. Other stuff.

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