Hello, and short fiction

Hello, wide world. 

I'll be using this page as a way of collecting my ideas and connecting with like-minded writerly people. It's an exciting new venture, and this first post coincides with the first stages of editing my debut novel- provisionally titled The Marionette and shortlisted for Pan Macmillan's Write Now Prize- in collaboration with my agent, the fabulous Molly Ker Hawn. More information about The Marionette can be found on its dedicated page using the tabs at the top of the screen. 

In the meantime, I'd like to direct you to a piece of short fiction I wrote for my stable-mate Simon P. Clark's blog (which you can find here). Simon is a US-based British-bred writer whose debut novel, EREN, will be published in 2014 by Constable & Robinson; he is followable on Twitter (@sipclark) and in person. His jolly good wheeze was to celebrate Hallowe'en by getting a load of writers to produce a short story of 1031 words- the date of Hallowe'en in the US. 

My piece, titled '1,031', can be found here. I hope you read and enjoy it. If you like it, thanks- I'm quite pleased with it. If you don't, forgive me- I wrote this whilst teaching and edited it immediately after major orthopaedic surgery...