Well, October 31st has been and gone, during which something very earnest and important in the UK political landscape should have apparently happened but did not, BUT, something of a great deal more importance in the UK literary scene very much DID happen. Indeed, not even a mad squadron of a thousand flaming hogs could have prevented it from doing so.

I refer, of course, to Chris Fieden's To Hull & Back competition anthology for humorous short fiction.

Again I was asked to be on the judging panel, and ever, putting the shortlist of 20 into any semblance of order was super, super tough. The team got there in the end though, and it with congratulations we welcome Alan MacGlas, with his story "Casandra's Week", as this year's overall winner.

Here's the link for Chris's page where you can choose how and where to buy this year's collection, including the first time in print of one of my own early stories, "Poverty Gap", first published by the sport fiction website Strange Bounce.

The series of "Challenged" anthologies have now reached their 9th, no less... this one, the second "Sensorially Challenged" collection, is a collection of 100 stories by 100 authors, after they were encouraged to be as florid and as purple as possible in their prose.

Pretty rule-breaking stuff, huh? But that, as ever, is the idea.

​All proceeds are donated to The National Literacy Trust. Click through here to Chris Fielden's site, for details of where to buy in either paperback, or for your Kindle.

Incredibly...

Incredulously...

But very appreciatively, we say...

We now have a fourth volume of 100 stories, by 100 writers, each one no more than 100 words - and stuffed, stuffed I tell you, with adverbs. Not only that, we're well on the way to a fifth book already.

Like volumes 1-3, this one is also in aid of First Story. So why not continue to thumb your nose at these so-called writing "rules", buy a book (or two, or more), submit to the challenge, and support this fantastic literary charity.

Please click here for details of how to buy our latest volume, and here to submit to the next volume.

Also, to coincide with the launch of Sensorially Challenged volume 2 (out in a couple of months), we're having another book launch party! This one will be held on Tuesday 13th August at Leftbank, 128 Cheltenham Road, Bristol, BS6 5RW, UK from 6:30pm - part of the regular spoken word event "Talking Tales", run by Chris's writing group Stokes Croft Writers. For users of Facebook, here's the event.

See you there, I hope!

It's "It's Hulloween", so that must mean only one thing...

(OK, two things, but for the purposes of this entry, one.)

It's the publication of Chris Fielden's annual "To Hull and Back" anthology!

Now in its fifth year, "To Hull and Back" remains one of the only opportunities to reward, and specifically publish, comedy short fiction - certainly in the UK, if not the world. Once again, I was fortunate to be on the judging panel, where the standard (to coin a cliché), really does seem to increase year on year.

Special front-cover congratulations this year goes to the overall winner, John Holland, with his poignantly funny story "Lips". The other nineteen shortlisted stories are well worth a read too...

Take a look at Chris's page for the various links on Amazon, to buy as a paperbook book, Kindle file, or PDF.