Category: Writing

This Easter I’m jetting out to Seattle for Norwescon 40 and the 2017 Philip K Dick Award ceremony. I’m looking forward to meeting the other nominees, to exploring the city, and to catching up with the Angry Robot crew across the pond. This will be my first US convention, and while I have some expectations (world-class cosplay, people asking me to repeat…

Today was going to be an odd day for plenty of reasons. This morning’s news that Graft is nominated for the 2017 Philip K. Dick Award has made it all the weirder. To say this means a lot is a ridiculous understatement. Dick’s work (particularly his short stories) has been hugely influential on my stuff, so to have my…

I realise after the fact that I’ve been hibernating for a while. As I threatened during my chat with the wonderful Anne Charnock at Mancunicon last March, we left that London and returned to the north at the end of May, and have now moved into a little house on the edge of the Peak…

Last Friday I was lucky enough to catch a preview of artist Yu-Chen Wang’s new work for The Imitation Game at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry and Manchester Art Gallery. I’ve already waffled on about my involvement with the project – but even after a good few weeks writing and editing fiction with Yu-Chen and museum curator Sarah Baines, it…

After a mild print hiccup delayed the UK print run, Graft is now officially launched in all Angry Robot territories. I think I’m allowed to breathe again. Ebook, US, UK. And a nice rug. Not pictured: an estranged audiobook. As part of our publicity assault drive, I had a short essay published on SF Signal that delves into…

Most writers would probably agree that an impending release causes a strange mix of excitement and anxiety. So it feels ace that with only a few weeks until Graft is published, some reviews and mentions are starting to pop up around the internets. In its review, Publishers Weekly says Graft ‘captures the dark underbelly of Manchester in visceral prose’, and that…

I’ve been dying to share the remarkable cover for Graft, designed by World Fantasy Award-winning artist John Coulthart, since I saw it a fortnight or so ago. Except it isn’t actually one cover, but three. The Angry Robot team liked three of John’s colourways so much that they’re using one for each edition. So, the UK edition…

Our son Albert was born in the early hours of last Friday. My memories of the actual birth are basically too surreal to relate in any meaningful way, but the cliches list themselves: terror, elation, (over)protectiveness, and a sense everything was being reshuffled at a cellular level. Albie wasn’t too well for his first few hours…