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Creative writing Events

Writer on the road: Events in 2026

Do you want to meet a real-life author, blinking in the daylight as they escape the garret where they’re scribbling away between cups of tea and too many biscuits? Come to one of these events in 2026 to buy my books, get them signed or just say hello. The best thing about these events is […]

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Blood Point Creative writing

Blood Point is in print from today

The print edition of Blood Point is now available in paperback and hardback for all you print-loving horror readers. Blood Point: An Irish Escape becomes a Midsummer Night’s terror A haunting tale of grief, love and the monstrous cost of second chances, Blood Point is the second of my Nightmare Vacations stories. With a heart-stopping […]

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Blood Point Horror

The cone and the gibbet: Blood Point’s cover story

Blood Point is on the way to the printers, so it’s time to reveal how that dramatic cover emerged from my story of an Irish Nightmare Vacation. And what’s going on with that pine cone? Spoiler alert: gibbets and pine cones? Hmmm… You’ll have to read the full story to find out, but there are […]

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Creative writing Science Fiction Short fiction Space

Mars Needs Babies

Mars Needs Babies is my response to the challenge of writing a future shaped by Elon Musk. If you’d like a new piece of short fiction delivered to your email every month, please subscribe to my newsletter. Gwynne concentrates on breathing gently as she secures the suit seals. They’ve never been worn in and you can’t […]

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Folklore

Oíche Shamhna shona duit

Samhain — or Halloween — is the best known of the ancient Irish fire festivals that mark the changes of the seasons. I delved into the origins of Samhain (pronounced “Sowen”) for a previous post on Halloween: the meme that reinfected Ireland. This year, I have no more noble goal than to share a picture […]

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Blood River Creative writing Horror Nightmare Vacations

Blood River’s new cover shows why you need a professional designer

Blood River, my first Nightmare Vacations story, has a new cover to celebrate its second birthday and the imminent arrival of its sibling: Blood Point. With this new cover, Blood River is available in hardcover for the first time and includes a preview of my new story. Although Blood Point is not a sequel, both […]

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Blood Point Folklore

Lughnasadh: the first harvest

August 1st marked the festival of Lughnasadh (loo-nasser if your mouth mangles those Irish phonemes). It’s the beginning of harvest season and a key date in Blood Point, my Irish Nightmare Vacations novel. Named after the pagan god Lugh, it’s another of those Irish festivals that sits between a solstice and an equinox. The big […]

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Creative writing writing tools

How to create Word-friendly headings in Scrivener compile

Scrivener is my go-to writing tool for just about everything1 but it has a weakness: compiling Word documents with built-in headings that make them easy to navigate. Here’s how to solve that problem. I don’t often write about Scrivener because there’s a community of people who really know their way around it, not least the […]

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Folklore

Light a fire for Litha

June 23 marks Litha, the ancient midsummer’s eve celebration and the night when horror rises in my new novel, Blood Point. The quiet Irish village of Kinnity hides a dark history, from the brutal killing of a young woman in ancient Ireland to the mad 19th-century landlord building a pyramid tomb. When widower Josh and […]

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AI Creative writing writing tools

You do not own your AI-generated writing

If you want to publish or submit AI-generated writing, you need to know this: you don’t own that work. No one knows who owns that work. You had an idea and created the prompt that lead to the work, but in the world of intellectual property, ideas are worth nothing. Expression is everything. That’s why […]