INTRO

I like writing to the 50something of you who subscribe to this newsletter. It feels like a little club, like all 50something of us are huddled up in the very large corner of a pub. Hello, Secret Friends. It’s October.

September was approximately one million years long, and it slightly broke me. I worked so hard I pretty much collapsed; turns out that when your modus operandi is burning the candle at both ends, and then you start burning it in the middle too, your candle goes all melty and falls apart. But, I'm upright again and ready for an October that should be… well, not quite so relentless, at least. Busy in more enjoyable ways.

THE NEWS

Fantasycon is in Glasgow, on the 9th-11th of October. I'll be there! You can find me on a panel on Saturday, chairing a panel on Sunday, and roaming the halls with no responsibilities the rest of the weekend. If you’re going, let me know, and also come and say hi at some point during the weekend!

Here’s where you can find me:

Saturday, 9AM, Panel Room 2: “The Many Forms of Rejection” (panelist)

• “Rejection doesn't just come from agents and publishers. Writers face self-rejection, poor reviews, poor sales. Convention numbers dwindle, events are cancelled for low ticket sales. How do our panellists navigate dealing with the many forms of rejection?”

Sunday, 3PM, Panel Room 1: “Beyond Bread and Hard Cheese” (moderator)

• “How to Make Your World Mouthwatering: Food is what makes our worlds go round. Let's talk tantalising tasties!”

Both of these should be very fun panels; I’m excited to get stuck into talking business and food with interesting people.

ALSO I will be on a panel at Thought Bubble in November! Come and find me and several other troublemakers on Love Stories in Panels: Romance Comics Today! It will be fine and normal and not at all chaotic. More on this next month.

WHAT AM I WRITING?

I finished draft 6 of Project V! It has a working title now! I've swapped manuscripts with a friend so now I can't tinker with it until they've done reading it! I am not at all nervous about this!

Currently, I'm making myself take a week off serious writing work and focusing on recharging a little. That's not stopping me from itching to work on the next thing, though…

WHAT AM I READING?

I’ve been very much enjoying keeping a book of short stories in the kitchen, so I can just pick it up and read a story while the coffee brews or the dinner cooks. I’ve read a couple of collections like this, and it’s a nice way to pick at stories one at a time and let them properly breathe.

In September, I made my way through Eliza Clark’s She’s Always Hungry and Amal El-Mohtar’s Seasons of Glass and Iron, in addition to the… rather too many novels and non-fiction works I chewed through this month. I think I’m averaging about two books a week at the moment. Again, I am fine and normal about trying not to write for a week.

I'm also reading a friend's manuscript and giving notes! I love doing this. I really love reading a story that isn't quite fully formed, and seeing what it wants to grow up to be, and loving a book that isn't quite real yet but almost exists. It's like meeting someone's child and seeing that, when it grows up, it's going to be an interesting adult.

WHAT AM I WATCHING?

This month, I have been to see Hope, one of the Most Movies Ever.

Hope is a joyous, hilarious, gory romp of a Korean monster movie, full of great performances, great jokes, great action, and CGI monsters that look like they've escaped from a PS3 game cutscene.

It is also almost three hours long.

Hope is an hour of tense, effective horror comedy, and then an hour of ropey but overlong monster action, and then half an hour of genuinely great climactic action, and then instead of landing the plane at the end it uses the last five minutes to fully turn the plane around and fire it into space in one of the most baffling twists I've ever seen. Hope is either a masterpiece or a disaster and I don't even know if I enjoyed it, but I sure as hell respect it. If you want to see a director take some truly ludicrous swings for three hours, Hope delivers in a way that no other film could ever dream of. Is this a recommendation? I don't know.

WHAT AM I LISTENING TO?

This month, I have mostly been listening to Kalandra. Here you go, have a treat.

MY LINKS

Preorder Scream! Halloween Special 2026

Buy The Restaurant at the Edge of the World (UK)

Buy Off Menu (US)

Hire me to edit your project

My bookshop.org reading lists

FRIENDS MAKING THINGS

Friend of the show Darren Vogt has been working on his comic Graphic Designer on a Pirate Ship for ages, and it's about to come to kickstarter! Follow the campaign below, and get in on this one. Darren is one of the funniest cartoonists I know, and every part of this story he's shown me over the years has been solid gold.

“What’s the point of having a degree in Graphic Design if you can't get a job after college? Preston Clancy is about to give up on the arts when he finds an odd flyer - a pirate crew is looking for its newest recruit, and what they’re looking for is a little off-brand.”

OUTRO

It's been a hard month. Again. But, we persist, we finish projects, and we push forward. I feel like I can see more of a possible path forward now, and I'm trying more things.

Stay strong out there. Go outside and look at the sea. As soon as I have a free weekend I'm going to disappear off into the hills. Perhaps I will never be seen again.

• Ollie, Edinburgh, October 2026

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