Joanne Harris at Fairford Festival
So to help out my local Festival, I’ve had a hand in arranging for award-winning author Joanne Harris to make a personal appearance. If you’re going to be in the Cotswolds this summer, why not pop in? She’ll be appearing on Saturday, 8th June at 4pm as part of the Fairford Festival and I’ll be interviewing her. You can see all the details and get tickets here.
I’m a Speaker at Develop: Brighton
Courtesy of Game Republic, I’m going to be on a panel at the Develop: Brighton gaming conference, which runs from 9th-11th July, though when my panel is still hasn’t been announced.
The panel is called Tips and Insights on Narrative Design from Leading Writers.
“Award-winning writers Rhianna Pratchett, Charles Cecil (Revolution, Broken Sword), Paul Cornell (Doctor Who, Marvel) and Judi Alston (Dreaming Methods) share their experiences, insights, learnings and tips for creating high quality narrative games with Dr Jackie Mulligan (Game Republic). The panelists will explore how to make narrative games on a budget, techniques to explore character, using new technology like AI and VR to enhance storytelling in games and trends in narrative design in particular stories being interpreted across multiple media. The session will also include a Q&A.”
I’m delighted to be part of such an excellent line-up.
Doctor Who: Goth Opera
It’s just been announced that my podcast partner Lizbeth Myles, already one of Big Finish’s most acclaimed writers, is going to be adapting for into audio drama for them my Doctor Who novel Goth Opera!
This Fifth Doctor vampire adventure with Nyssa and Tegan guest stars Richard Armitage, Natalie Gumede and Micah Balfour, and will be out in July!
You can read all about it here at Sci-Fi Bulletin and pre-order at Big Finish’s site here.
(This lovely final cover art by Sean Longmore.)
I’m a Hugo Awards Finalist!
The graphic novel by myself, artist Valeria Burzo and colour artist Jordie Bellaire, The Witches of World War 2, is a Finalist in the Best Graphic Story or Comic category in this year’s Hugo Awards!
The Awards will be given out at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow (August 8th-12th), and I’ll be at the ceremony. So wish me luck!
Those of you who are members of the convention, and thus able to vote, will find the complete digital version of the graphic novel in their Voter Packets, courtesy of our kind publishers, TKO.
Thanks again to everyone who nominated us!
The Complete(d) Saucer Country is in Stores in September!
The Syzygy/Image edition of The Complete(d) Saucer Country, which has an entirely different design from the Zoop crowdfunded edition, will be in comic and book stores in September, and is now available for pre-order from Amazon! (Amazon release date: September 3rd.)
We’re Going Back to Thought Bubble!
Lizbeth Myles and I will once more be running at table at the great Thought Bubble comics convention in Harrogate on 16th-17th November! I’m looking forward to meeting once again so many lovely comics fans.
The Death of Wolverine
As announced here on ICv2, on 27th November Marvel will be releasing an omnibus edition of the Death of Wolverine storyline, featuring not only the miniseries of that name, but also my entire run on the comic. I’m very pleased that all this material will now be available in one volume.
There are going to be two covers, this regular one from Alex Ross…
And this direct market exclusive version from Joe Quesada.
It’s available to pre-order on Amazon, and at all good bookstores and comic shops.
Witches of Lychford: Fantasy Cricket (only one episode left!)
Paid subscribers to this Newsletter have for the last year been getting a second and final new Lychford novella in serial form. And this coming Thursday is the last ever episode!
If you subscribe now, you get to read all of the previous episodes, that is the whole last novella, Night of the Gnomes plus the Christmas Special Don’t Forget to Catch Me, as well as all of the current novella Fantasy Cricket.
After the serial is over I’ll be switching off the paid option, so if you want to read all the installments, sign up now, and then make sure to stop paying me when you’ve done so.
I’m In a New Anthology!
I’m one of many authors who’ll have stories in Jendia Gammon’s forthcoming cross-genre anthology, which she’s funding on Ko-fi! Check it out here!
My Ko-fi and eBay Stores
I’ve re-stocked my Ko-fi store, where you can buy my books and comics, signed and personalised, and now I’ve set up shipping to a range of international destinations.
Similarly, I’ve now re-stocked my ebay store, full of Bronze Age Marvel comics at bargain prices.
Hammer House of Podcast
Hammer House of Podcast, in which myself and Lizbeth Myles watch the Hammer horror movies in UK release order, is out on the 13th of every month, with our May episode being about The Resident. These modern Hammers will take us until the end of the year, and then we’ll be announcing our sequel podcast!
You can get these episodes free wherever you normally get your podcasts, as well as on our site, but if you sign up to our Patreon, for any sum of money from £1/$1, you get an extra episode every month too, on the 27th, in which we watch Patron requested movies and films from other horror studios of the same era.
Liz and I really disagreed about this one.
Find my Books at Bookshop.Org and Help Out Indie Booksellers!
Bookshop.org is a collective selling tool that sets up a marketplace for all indie bookstores in the UK, functioning exactly like Amazon, except you’re supporting your local bookshop. You can find a selection of my books here, and I get a little cut of the proceeds too if you order from here!
My Linktree
You can now find all my social media links, my website/blog and links to where you can buy my books, in one place here, thanks to Linktree!
My Week
So last Sunday was a very tough day. Sundays are always when me and my son Thomas get to hang out. We always go to the Arboretum, then get a few required items of food at Tesco, then for his weekly McDonalds lunch, in a very strict order of events that involves numerous specific moments, even down to things we always say, all of which he finds very autistically comforting. And I’m very much up for providing him with that respite. The day began wonderfully, with the two of us working together on his latest jigsaw, and we headed off at the time we always do. However, in the last few weeks, Thomas, who needs us to be home for Dog Squad on CBeebies at 11.50am, has been getting more and more agitated about the possibility of various roadworks slowing us down. (He hates having to be backwards, even if it makes sense to do so, to the extent that he complains if one has to back out of a parking place for a moment to adjust the angle of parking.) There’s work going on at a roundabout beside Tesco which means one has to drive down to another roundabout and then back. It’s a diversion of two minutes, but it drives Thomas to yelling.
Anyway, this time we had a very pleasant walk through the Arboretum, during which Tom said ‘Daddy, we can take the short cut, back that way,’ and pointed, as he does, as if the direction he’s talking about is right there in front of us. I took that to mean that he’d accepted the roundabout thing, and was dealing with it, as he often does, by announcing it as his idea. (I hope this post might allow some insight into how complicated and demanding the language and culture of an autistic child can be.) But then, on the way to Tesco, he suddenly started yelling and pointing, wanting me to urgently turn off into the town rather than go through the roundabout system. He’d meant he’d thought there was a short cut there. I, realising that there was no shortcut that wouldn’t add a very long time to the journey, kept going, which led to only the usual level of moaning and sulking around Tesco. But when we got back home he threw himself on the sofa and slammed doors, and was generally much more angry than usual as he went into his ‘alone time’ that afternoon. (He’s decided to always spend a few hours on Sunday afternoon on his own watching TV and playing, which seems to be a very healthy option to deal with the demands of school on Monday. I hasten to add that he can decide to opt for company at any point!) Things got really bad that evening, when it was time for his bath. He finally did go and take that bath, but not before the worst meltdown ever, which got him to the point of trying to smash up his railway layout with his engines. We’re talking about hours of screaming and smashing. That was the first time he’d ever been driven to property damage like that. The bathroom was also left a bit of a wreck. He went to bed still angry, even, again something Caroline and I had never before experienced.
He was fine the next day, of course. (Nanny Louise told me that she’d once driven him off in the direction he’d indicated as a shortcut from a completely different set of roadworks, and that had only been out of necessity, because it made the journey a lot longer.)
I, however, wasn’t fine. During the meltdown, I’d failed to keep my composure, raised my voice on several occasions, joined in as if this was a row between equals (the biggest Don’t in parenting, one that all parents, I think, give in to from time to time) and, churned up by him trying to break toys he loves, by his willingness to do something that would hurt himself because he knew that to do that would hurt his parents most, I grabbed an engine too, and raised my hand as if to throw it.
I know I would never have thrown it at him, or even at the ground, but yeah, I’d gone there. And I hated it. I still hate it. I apologised to Thomas on that Monday morning, told him I would never throw anything at him, and said sorry if I scared him. ‘Sorry if I scared you,’ he echoed back, and we high-fived. How much of that was real on his part and how much just him saying the expected thing, I’ll never know. I very much have to fix my temper so I never look like I’m going to throw something ever again. Such guilt. You have no idea.
I spent Monday in one of the deepest lows I’ve ever experienced. I guess I’ve been angry at everyone and everything for the longest time, for weeks now, and at that point I’d got to snapping at every little thing, as well as feeling enormously self-hating. I’d started to feel, I realised, every burden that Thomas has to bear, and every burden he puts on Caroline and I and Nanny Louise, at about ten times the usual level.
This, I’m sure, is because of Thomas being about to transition to senior school, about my own memories of that being hell. It’s also, right now, because last week was a schedule-disrupting week of exams, and this week was schedule-disrupting Activity Week, when Tom’s class go on school trips every day. This is not his idea of fun. The anxiousness has hung in the air of the house, getting to everyone.
And then, on the Tuesday of Activity Week, his teachers noticed that he’d been car sick on the last trip, and, I suspect, asked him if he wasn’t feeling well, or if he didn’t want to go on the coach, to which he of course gave the answer expected of him. Which meant I had to go back into school and pick him up for a day at home instead. Of course he was absolutely fine, laughing and running about, as soon as we got home. I was once again angry, though not at him, that he missed out on a day that would challenge and, I’m sure, entertain him. The school went by the book, didn’t factor in his autism and asked him a leading question- after all this bloody time! They’ve usually been amazing, so it was quite the shock for them to drop the ball with half a term to go.
But that Tuesday actually gave me and him space to relax. Alone time and jigsaws together. And I managed to find an even keel by Wednesday, especially after cricket nets and a few pints of therapy with my team mates. Things are quite a lot better.
But still, I’m now really anxious about next Sunday. Thomas reacts badly if we leave early, won’t let us drop anything from the agenda, and insists we’re home for 11.50am. That gives us a margin of error of about 20 minutes, which, if the McDonalds drivethrough is backed up, can get very close indeed. Add with me having to negotiate that non-existent shortcut, and with the bath in the evening, it’s going to be a very stressful day, when it’s meant to be a relaxing one.
Some of you will be thinking that we’re raising a spoiled child here, that you’re reading about the kid in The Twilight Zone who can tell his fearful parents what to do. But, believe me, that’s not the case. What we’re all attempting to do is to provide an atmosphere at home that allows Thomas to be challenged by his encounters with the outside world, especially school. He gets to relax here so he can do what’s asked of him out and take scary steps forward out there. He’s been set clear boundaries. He doesn’t get to opt out of baths. But if something’s not naughty or negative, he’s allowed to do it. And that means the creation of complex repeating patterns like Sunday at the Arboretum, which can get pummelling if they go wrong. It’s hard to explain to someone who, at the age of eleven, still can’t follow most rational processes. I’m not about to take us off into a shortcut that doesn’t work, whatever the consequences.
It all got better later in the week. Thomas had a good day out on the Thursday, only coming home in the evening after climbing, exploring caves and having a barbecue outside. He came home happy and sleepy. Later today it’s our first encounter with a teacher from Thomas’ new school, as she sits in on the regular meeting about his progress. So that might be a moment of great hope for me. I’ll let you know how Sunday goes. I have some hopes that me and him might be able to navigate those obstacles, in every sense of the word.
To Be Continued
I will try to make My Week more fun next week. I really hope it is, anyway.
And I hope I see you all again then.
I really hope you have more fun next week too! Sounds like you're an amazing dad though