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...
