• girl lounging on green sofa with book

    Send me your short stories! I’m now open to anthology submissions

    I’m delighted to announce that I’m now open to short story submissions for the anthology, Modern Decadent. You can find all the info and guidelines on the submission page. I look forward to reading your work!


  • Introducing a new anthology, Modern Decadent

    I’m really pleased to announce that I’m editing the forthcoming anthology, Modern Decadent, for Wild Hunt Books. It has only been announced today, but I’m already feeling that 2027 can’t come soon enough! The anthology will comprise ca. 10 stories that embrace the spirit of the art and literature of the Decadent movement. I’ll be…


  • How to format your novel manuscript so an editor actually reads it!

    This post originally appeared on the Wild Hunt Books blog. You wouldn’t expect it, but more often than not, I receive manuscripts that are so strangely formatted that they are just about unreadable. And if that’s the case with yours, it’s a disservice to all the hard work and passion you’ve put into your book.…


  • a women sitting on a bed and throwing books around her

    Do I really need to start my novel ‘in action’?

    In short, yes. But I think there is a confusion about what this means for a writer. This is a shorthand that editors, tutors, critics and book coaches use but I’ve started to realise that’s there a misunderstanding here. Writers are frustrated that they must start their books in a skyscraper scaling action sequence a…


  • Book Review: Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

    ‘It is early fall, the cold is beginning to descend, and in three months everyone in this house will be dead.‘ There are rare moments when I think a book was written specifically for me. That the author sat down and thought, ‘Yes, it’s time to write something for Ariell today.’ I felt this completely…