Free & cheap degenerate literature, inquire within
Christ, you post 1400 words of your masc special forces protagonist taking the strap and suddenly everyone's a fucking coward. Anyway, I've just finished the...
The rage of Funko('s IP trolling bot)
Over the weekend, itch.io (an indie games marketplace, and also one of the sites where I host my books) was taken offline by its domain registrar in response...
The Thick of It was a documentary
The UK government has decided to stop issuing physical residence permits to immigrants (like me) and start using "e-visas" instead. The practical upshot of...
It's capital all the way down
One of the latest developments in the world of fanfiction is a debate over "archive-locking": making one's fanfics only visible to registered users of the...
I hated Twitter before it was cool
My RSS reader this week contains no less than three stories about how Bluesky is the rightful successor to Twitter and will, furthermore, save the internet....
Just Alberta things
A friend of mine sent me this screencap from a livestream of the Until Dawn remake: Until Dawn takes place in the Canadian Rockies, and Edmonton would be one...
The endangered lit brick
A friend of mine is currently having his novel shopped around by an agent, and what he's been hearing back is that the Big Five publishers almost exclusively...
New book (and last gasp of the Spooky Sale)
The thing about publishing as frequently as I do is that you eventually run out of ways to say "I've written a new thing, please check it out." Anyway: I've...
New preorder and some horny opera
I think I'm done with Booksprout, the service I've been using to provide free advance copies to book reviewers. The service itself is fine, and the reviews...
I return from the frozen north
So I'm back in the UK now, after three weeks visiting in Canada — specifically Edmonton, a city I am now woefully maladapted to living in. People here in...
A dispatch from abroad
I'm on vacation back home in Canada, following 30 hours of transatlantic travel ending at 1:00 AM. If you ever need to completely reset your sleep schedule,...
Meme fraud
Committing a crime is easy. Committing a crime and getting away with it — that's hard. One of the big stories on the internet last week was the Chase bank...
Read my degenerate literature
I've got a new(ish) story out this week, which means I must once again calculate how much of my personal dignity to sacrifice in the name of selling books. I...
This is my brick
I finally got around to uploading an avatar for this newsletter. It's a photo of the brick I keep on my desk at work: It is perhaps worth noting that the...
On breaking into imaginary buildings
Still working on the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story, which involves an art gallery heist. The thing about writing crime fiction is that you are...
Stargazing in Tynemouth
I went to the beach with some friends last Friday night in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower. Unfortunately I live in a country...
I have immediately failed at TikTok
My mum has been asking me about ways to promote my dad's work online, and TikTok came up as a possibility. So I decided to sign up for a TikTok account and...
ACAB apparently includes horses
Thanks to the shortest and least effective real estate deal in the world, I recently moved to the town of North Shields. It's out on the coast — roughly 20...
Y2K24
Usually when I write about absurd technological fuckups, I'm exaggerating; the point is to show what happens when you push current tech policy and practice...
I only lie to you sometimes
My dad reads my writing. Well, some of it. He can handle the gay stuff okay, but the parts of my work which involve graphic werewolf maulings are a bit much...
"Why, it's New Book Day, sir!"
I've got a book out today, which means it's time to make myself utterly insufferable on those few social media platforms I actively use. Fortunately I have a...
My back hurts but I have so much pizza
I helped a friend move this weekend, which is one of those social rituals that has remained oddly unchanged throughout my lifetime. So much of what we once...
It's preorder time again
I've moved into the new flat, which lacked a stopper for the kitchen sink. So I had to go buy one. Do you know how hard it is to just walk into a store and...
Material possessions were a mistake
I'm moving this week, for the dumbest possible reasons. At the end of April, my landlord informed me he'd sold the building and that I had two months to move...
Just some links today
I'm heads-down on getting the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story finished, so I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to the newsletter this week. This...
Too old for the hype machine
My general outlook on the state of popular media is: it's too many. I can't keep up. Every movie I see advertised on the side of a bus is something I've...
Free stuff and a book update
The first draft of the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story is done and already sitting at over 17 000 words, which means the final draft will likely be...
Corporate warfare via journalism
There are things I write about in this newsletter specifically because my dad reads it, and would find those things interesting. This week, it's Hunterbrook...
Okay, I'm back
Took a week off the usual newsletter schedule to deal with, y'know. And also to figure out what the fuck is going on with my taxes. I won't bore you by...
This one's a bummer
My cat died this week. There's a banality to grief that art rarely captures. You can lie on the floor sobbing your heart out, but eventually you have to get...
Too hot for Gumroad
Gumroad — one of the services I use to sell my books — has instituted a new content policy on their platform, banning "media that is created for the primary...
Motivate deez nuts
I write 200 words a day. Sometimes more, but rarely less. I call this my "daily half-Pratchett." Terry Pratchett wrote his first novel while he was working a...
My stuff's on sale again
After some very kind reviews for "The Scent of Blood," I've found myself sketching out a few more Saintstown stories. Saintstown isn't intended to be a...
Poor impulse control and government paperwork don't mix
I've spent much of this week filling out visa renewal forms, which involves answering questions like, "Have you ever committed an act of terrorism?" and,...
I think I broke Spotify
It's no secret that Spotify is bad for music and bad for artists. Nobody should use it, except me, because the way I use Spotify is both utterly deranged and...
Bing, show me Anime Orson Welles
Plotting work continues on the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story. I also finally got around to watching The Killer; I read the comic last year, which had a...
And Now For Something Slightly Different
I'm trying a new format for these, so they're more like an actual newsletter (rather than a series of ads). At the moment I'm doing research and plotting for...
New Novelette: "Jay Moriarty Ruins Everybody's Childhood"
After famous author Anya Clay incites a hate crime that hits close to home, hacker Jay Moriarty is hell-bent on revenge. To get it he'll need the help of...
Preorder: "Jay Moriarty Ruins Everybody's Childhood"
My third story in The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, titled "Jay Moriarty Ruins Everybody's Childhood," comes out on January 30! It's now up for preorder on...
Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight You
The latest episode of I Will Fight You is about the Hallmark Christmas Movie industrial complex and features a guest appearance from Jodie Troutman. I also...
End of Year Book Sale
Smashwords is having its annual End of Year Sale. When I enrolled my books in the sale, Smashwords provided some swipe copy for me to drop into this...
New Medium Post: "Nothing Is ‘Normal’ About Irene Adler"
I've been on Medium for about six months now, quietly uploading most of my backlist. Last week the Medium publication Counter Arts published my newest...
New Novelette: "Sebastian Moran Gets Mauled by a Tiger"
Revenge brings black-hat hacker Jay Moriarty and former SAS operator Sebastian Moran together once again, with an egomaniacal real estate developer in their...
New on Ko-fi: "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act," Chapter 5
The final chapter of "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act" is now available over on Ko-fi. If you're not already one of my Ko-fi supporters, you...
New on Ko-fi: "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act," Chapter 1
I've begun serializing "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act" over on Ko-fi. Chapter 1 is up now, and free for anyone to read. Subsequent chapters...
New Novelette: "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act"
So, you know how Sherlock Holmes is now fully in the public domain? My new novelette, "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act," is a modern-day...
Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight You
The latest episode of I Will Fight You is about The Mask of Zorro, a type of movie that was already endangered in 1998 and isn't really made anymore. It...
New Short Story: "Lockout"
My new short story, "Lockout," is about reclaiming bodily autonomy through hardware modding. When Jackie first met her next-door neighbor, she had no inkling...
"The Devil Who Loves Me" Available Now!
The Devil Who Loves Me is out today! It's the second anthology by startup indie publisher GrendelPress and features my story "Move Fast and Break Things."...
Interview with GrendelPress
GrendelPress interviewed me to promote their anthology The Devil Who Loves Me, which features my story "Move Fast and Break Things." You can read the...