fiction

Here are a few of my published stories which you can access online:

Things I Have Learnt About Jason Donovan   (Fairlight Books)

The Route   (Matchbook Lit Mag) 

Things Which Are Not True   (The Guardian) 

We are in Whitby  (Litro Online) 



I've also had work published in the following anthologies:

Magic Oxygen Literary Prize 2015
Willesden Herald Short Story Prize 2011
The Bridport Prize 2009


And in these magazines:

Writer's Forum
The Orphan Leaf Review
Brand Literary Magazine


And long-listings / mentions here:

CARVE Magazine
Mslexia Magazine
Aesthetica Short Story Prize
The Bath Short Story Prize
BARE Fiction 2018 (this completion is currently in the process of being judged)



Extracts

From Things Which Are Not True, a Guardian Summer Read:

When Coral announces: “I'm just going on holiday for a lark, really," no one reacts. A word like 'lark' is wasted on her colleagues. She heard it last week on a TV home makeover show, and Coral wrote it in her notebook under the heading Words To Say. In the column 'Example' she wrote, 'I'm just doing it for a lark, really' with 'Casual, nonchalant' in the 'Delivery' section. That word 'nonchalant' has an entry all of its own earlier in the book. It also appeared on the list Things To Be In 2007.

Coral has sung 'Summer Holiday' A LOT throughout the morning, just to make sure everyone knows she’s going away. When she came back from Llandudno in November they hadn't even realised she'd been gone. This is different though. She’s also hummed ‘Viva Espania’ in the photocopy queue.

Plus she's taken her luggage to work, saying that she has to go straight to the airport at 5 o'clock. But really she's not flying until tomorrow morning, so her backpack is full of tinned food wrapped in towels to soften the edges. She didn't want to actually pack because she's making an event of it tonight with a bottle of wine and a week's worth of Coronation Street episodes. It made Friday, Monday and last night quite difficult to fill but Coral knew she'd be glad of it later.

To read the rest of this story, go here.


      
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From In a seaside cafe, Bridport Prize finalist:

I look out to sea and imagine what it must have been like to really see it; not just the news footage.  That wall of something that shouldn't make a wall of anything.  Mum rang and I said – don't worry, it could never happen here, something to do with plates.  There must have been little cafes like this one: so on-the-edge.  Maybe there was an equivalent of me, waiting.
things Amy knows:
the coffee is making the old people twitch
she is the youngest manager in the whole chain
it was the sea that made her take the job
and it was the broken heart
when you reach a certain age, it matters what kind of chair you sit on
the locals don't like the refurb and they blame her a bit
nobody ever puts the newspapers back in the rack
the print on the wall is of a giant coffee bean which doesn't look like a coffee bean

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From After The Cat, finalist in GKBC Crime Story Prize:

He hands me a piece of paper. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘your new name.’ 

I tell him I like it, and he smiles, relieved, like it’s that easy. He doesn’t know there is a third person in the room, and you have just been given a surname. 

He wants me to look at the name and imagine who I could be. He is young, a few years younger than me. Has he noted the age difference, counted the years, and thought about what they mean? 

He asks how I would feel if he called me the new name for the rest of our session. I want to tell him to relax, that this is a formality, and outside a couple of guards are laughing at him. That he is late in the day. 

‘It’s fine,’ I say.

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