The record
Writing short stories is perhaps my first and best love, but pride of place upon my bookshelves still goes to my two major works for Pitch.
2019
Pitch Publishing
Thirty years in the making, from the day I contacted Knighton at Old Trafford hoping he would let me ghostwrite his attempt to buy the club, to the deal with Pitch. It is the never-before-told inside story of that doomed purchase — the axis between Knighton the financial firebrand and Alex Ferguson the football rebel, the blueprint the United board went on to use, and the ugly power of Britain's red-top press.
The book reveals
2022
Pitch Publishing
Celtic told through the men who wore the number nine.
Read The Immortals and you will discover
April 1990
Drabble II — Double Century (Beccon Publications)
Edited by Rob Meades & David B Wake
My first published story, and I found myself in illustrious company: Aldiss, Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Larry Niven, Roger Zelazny — a veritable Who's Who of late twentieth century science fiction and fantasy. A drabble, by the way, is a story of exactly one hundred words.
December 1990
Dementia 13 #5
Edited and published by Pam Creais
Less stellar but no less interesting company, in the samizdat magazine Dementia 13.
July 2012
Solaris Rising 1.5 (Solaris)
Edited by Ian Whates
I had been writing nothing but poetry for ages but, encouraged by Eric Brown, I returned to fiction in the horror, SF and fantasy genres. There was an amazing gathering of talent in Cambridgeshire then — Chris Beckett, Eric Brown, Una McCormack, Ian Watson, Ian Whates — and we met monthly in the Pickerel on Magdalene Street.
2016
Stepping Out (Norwich Writers)
Editor: Kathy Joy
Third prize in the 2015 Olga Sinclair Short Story Competition, with entries from all around the world. My short fiction had entered the mainstream, though with fantastic elements still flowing as undercurrents.
2017
Strangers (Olga Sinclair Open Short Story Competition 2017)
Editor: Kathy Joy · Judge: Ralph Jackman
Second prize, and third place in the Norwich Writers' Members Shield.
2018
Markets (Olga Sinclair Open Short Story Competition 2018)
Editor: Kathy Joy · Judges: Alison Bruce and Lynsey White
A return to the mysterious and fantastic within a realistic setting. It won the Members Shield.
2020
News: Winning Stories from the 2020 Olga Sinclair Prize
Editors: Kathy Joy and Iain Andrews · Judges: Kieron Pim and Amanda Addison
A political satire about a character called Johnson who struggled with his relationship with the truth. Given its contentious nature — and that not all judges of literary competitions are socialists — I was relieved to be highly commended, and published once again.
2021
Lost: Winning Stories from the Olga Sinclair Prize
Editor: Iain Andrews · Judge: Dr Stephen Carver
Maze won third prize; Lost As All These Stones was highly commended and shortlisted. I have around seventy short stories in need of revisiting and rewriting.
2021
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Mango Publishing, USA)
Editor: Maxim Jakubowski
My Holmes, to the eternal bewilderment of Watson, has been reincarnated in the twenty first century, and is on the trail of a missing Tibetan spiritual master.
View book pageThe Norwich Writers anthologies are available from Amazon or direct from Iain Andrews, chair of the group. The Maxim Jakubowski anthologies are also on Amazon.