Slavery

Added on 15 January 2017

When Pytheas travelled around Britain in the Iron Age, he probably hitched along on trading vessels, which would have been carrying slaves as well as metals, jewelry and other valuable commodities. No doubt his views about slavery, as a citizen of a Greek colony, would have been radically different ...

Is rape a cultural construct?

Added on 06 January 2017

One reason I find novel writing so compelling is because I have to get myself inside people with different world views. All my novels have people from different cultures bumping into each other. The dramatic action is fuelled by the resulting misunderstanding or discord. In The Last Bear the three ...

'Craic' is a winner

Added on 28 December 2016

I'm delighted that one of my poems, 'Craic', has been commended by Jo Bell in the Buzzwords Poetry Competition. To celebrate, in my final poetry podcast of the year (I'm doing a podcast each month, if I can), I read it along with a few other poems that have done well in competitions ...