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A lot of people ask me why I am the way I am, so, after many years of holding back, I thought it was time to come clean. The truth is, it all dates back to the day in summer 1994 in the Nottingham branch of Virgin Megastore when the
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The Pain Of Knowing You Can't Go Back
Subscribe now This is a piece I wrote eighteen months ago, when I had relatively few readers on Substack. It’s about a building I still feel privileged to have spent time inside. I wanted to repost it for more of you to read, as I’m currently thinking a
Ghost hunters in Somerset’s Quantock Hills have reported that the spectre of Jane Walford, who was murdered by her husband John in 1789, can often be seen at the site of her demise, known as ‘Dead Woman’s Ditch’, swearing violently at people. “FUCK OFF,” Jane will usually shout
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The difficult truths I'm learning right now about my choice to publish books in an uncompromising and independent way
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Subscribe now Melbury Beacon isn’t quite the highest place in Dorset, but, at 263 metres above sea level, it’s one of the big boys and, much like the man I walked to it with a couple of autumns ago, probably has no trouble seeing when it stands at
This post is free but if you’d like to support my work, I’m offering 25% off all full annual subscriptions until Monday at 7pm UK time. Having got a few little jobs out of the way (the most exhausting novel I’ve ever written, posting 3000 books to
This week I’m offering 25% off all full annual subscriptions to this page. This will unlock access to my full archive of writing, along with all future paid posts.. * One thing on my mind recently has been the huge number of hardbacks of my books Villager and Notebook which
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Even before I moved from Devon to the Peak District, I could already feel my accent rushing back, doing a happy jig in my larynx at the knowledge that it might soon be free again. I have no doubt that if I’d decided to stay in the Peak long
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I’ve had Covid for the last fortnight. “It’s only like flu or a really bad cold nowadays” I’ve been told but something I have noticed about flu or a really bad cold is that, while they can be known to root around and locate your physical and
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My mum and dad’s cat Bridget (pictured above, more recently) has always been a bit of a wanderer. Never was her nomadic spirit more evident than in summer 2020, when (partly due to her clashes with George) she’d vanish for weeks on end. While she was away my
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Subscribe now “Put your arms out and you’ll take off and fly right up over the sea,” said the old man who passed me on the lane yesterday as I walked towards the old Coffin Path and the cottage with the dead baby in the garden. The wind was