The Folded Man – my Manchester-set novel about a drug-addled mermaid called Brian – has been long/short/some-kind-of-listed for the eighth Dundee International Book Prize for debut novelists.

I’m not going to put any eggs in a basket because I broke them all a while ago, but it’s still and will always be the loveliest feeling to know that someone, somewhere, has read your novel and really liked it. Never mind liked it enough to put it up for a major prize.

You can read an extract of The Folded Man along with extracts from eleven other long/shortlistees by downloading the completely free eBook from Amazon here. On the condition that if you think mine is crap, you flipping well keep it to yourself.

More information here.

I’ve something in a real-life book from Metazen’s sister publisher Housefire. It’s a themed anthology called Nouns of Assemblage which collects sixty-three tiny stories written around collective nouns. I went with ‘army of caterpillars’. Who knows what my mother will make of mine but it’s definitely a story about a man eating the Eiffel Tower.

A lot of my characters eat things they shouldn’t.

So far it’s only available from Amazon.com but then those big fat planes make the Atlantic seem so small.

Metazen published a weeny story I wrote. It’s called The Omelette, and it isn’t about mashed eggs.