And why I’m making it free to read Tl;dr I’m starting a serial fiction project on Substack – here’s the link. My last novel — my first novel — came out in 2018. I started writing it in 2015 and delivered it to my publishers in 2017. People liked it…

Mixtape 117: Life used to be so hard My son was seven weeks early. If you’ve ever met his dad you’ll know that being ahead of schedule wasn’t a paternal inheritance. Like his last name, perhaps he also got his timekeeping from his mother. He was due August 13th and…

Mixtape #104, feat. Andrew W.K., KISS, Meat Loaf, and more… This is a reissue of my weekly Mixtape newsletter. This edition was sent out to subscribers on February 4th, 2018. Side A 1. Music Is Worth Living For by Andrew W.K. 2. Mighty Wings by Cheap Trick 3. Jump by Van Halen 4…

“In dreams until my death, I will wonder on.” Who knows what took Chris Cornell, in the end. What voice or vision proved too much. I’m not going to sit here and try to name his demons. At 52, Cornell had been in three of the biggest bands of the…

Come for the murder, stay for the story. Reminisce with me. It’s October, 2014, the world is not entirely ablaze, and if you own ears and an internet you’re either listening to the Serial podcast or are about to spend much of the next year wilfully ignoring people telling you…

The art of the score. The best soundtrack to most novels is just the pleasing rustle of pages turning. But in the streaming age it’s not unheard of for authors to share a playlist to accompany their books. If nothing else it’s a fun bonus for the avid fan, and…

Adventures in publishing, crowdfunding, and getting dressed. UPDATE: My debut novel, Johnny Ruin, met its funding target in just 9 days, and as of March 22, 2018, is available in all good bookshops. You can buy it here, or read about why I crowdfunded it below: The Wednesday after Blue Monday — Blue Wednesday, if you will — I was having a typically somber pity party on the couch when my email pinged. My agent. “You’ve been offered a deal for your novel. In Germany.”