Very happy to say my story ‘Birthday’ has now been published by Fictive Dream.

Delighted to announce that Fictive Dream has accepted a new short story of mine and will publish it in late September.

As well as writing, I’m also a freelance copy-editor and proofreader and am now opening these services up to fiction writers who might need help with their short stories or novels.

I’m delighted to announce that my short story ‘Leather’ has been selected for Best British Short Stories 2021.

I have returned to the subject of rejection for The Literary Consultancy’s blog this month – thinking about how as writers we can start to try and see this in a more positive light.

I previously mentioned on here that my short story ‘Maybe the Birds’ was shortlisted in the inaugural Short Fiction International Short Story Prize Wild Writing Prize – unfortunately I didn’t win but it’s all good. I’m really happy my work was shortlisted and that my story appeared to resonate with the competition readers, so thank you Short Fiction. It was lovely for my work to be recognised in this way, especially after years of struggling to write new stories.

I just realised I completely forgot to mention on here that I had an essay published in a book called What Doesn’t Kill You: Fifteen Stories of Survival, from Unbound. The book features a range of essays from the likes of Rory Bremner, Julian Baggini, Cathy Rentzenbrink and many others about issues ranging from depression and eating disorders to alcholism and OCD.

I’m delighted that a new story of mine has been shortlisted for Short Fiction’s Wild Writing Prize. I’ve struggled for years to write stories I was happy with but this one felt like it had potential, and so I’m really happy it’s been recognised in this way in the competition.

In December 2018, I interviewed novelist and short story writer Tessa Hadley over email for the journal Short Fiction in Theory & Practice. The interview followed her win in the 2018 Edge Hill Prize for her collection Bad Dreams.

I was delighted to learn that my essay ‘The Wood That Starts The Fire’ – about Raymond Carver’s short story ‘Kindling’ – made the longlist of the Thresholds Feature Writing Competition this year. I think this is possibly the first essay I’ve ever written so it was very nice for it to be chosen. It’s also the first time I’ve referred to my issues with anxiety and panic publicly – something which I’ve been uncertain about doing before, perhaps because it feels so personal.

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