Other Writing

Becoming a British citizen and accidentally looking like a complete fascist.

Other Writing

Short Stories

Did you know I wrote an absolutely FREE Chaos Walking prequel short story about Viola that you can download right now? It's called “The New World” and you can get it here, totally free.

I also wrote the short story “Different for Boys” for Losing It, a YA anthology about losing your virginity (yep, that's what I said). Lots of cool writers in it, too, like Melvin Burgess, Keith Gray and Anne Fine.

And I've recently contributed a non-YA short story called “Let Me Entertain You” to the BookSlam Annual Volume 1, available for download as well. It's rude and funny and sad, this one, I hope.

Writing Tips

I get asked for Writing Tips a lot, and I wrote an exhaustively lengthy set of them when I was Writer-In-Residence at Booktrust. They're here, and cover everything from starting out to getting ready to publish. Hope they're of some use.

Journalism

'Martina Navratilova'
My Hero column on Martina, Guardian, 1 July 2011

'Top 10 "Unsuitable" Books for Teenagers'
Article for the Guardian, 8 April 2011, proved surprisingly popular, this one.

'There's more than one measure of success as a writer'

Guardian blog on what the internet's done for writing, 11 March 2009

'On being branded a public health hazard by the Daily Mail'

Guardian blog on just that, 30 December 2008

'We two boys, together clinging'

Commentary on pieces for civil partnership ceremonies, Guardian, 24 June 2006

'Do judge a book by its cover'

Commentary on book design, Guardian, 2 December 2006

Podcasts

I've recorded a couple podcasts over the last year. One talking about A Monster Calls and another with Ali Smith talking about 2011 in fiction. Listen and hear me um and ah.

Recent Reviews of Good Books

Colson Whitehead's 'Zone One'

Chris Adrian's 'The Great Night'

Aidan Chambers' 'The Kissing Game'

Johanna Skibsrud's 'The Sentimentalists'

Nicole Krauss's 'The Great House'

Kenneth Oppel's 'Half Brother'

Jason Wallace's 'Out of Shadows'

Russell Hoban's 'Angelica Lost and Found'

Scarlett Thomas's 'Our Tragic Universe'

Paul Murray's 'Skippy Dies'

Christopher Brookmyre's 'Pandaemonium'

Maggie Gee's 'My Driver'

Nicolas Dickner's 'Nikolski'

Neil Gaiman's 'The Graveyard Book'

Kate Atkinson's 'When Will There Be Good News?'

Terry Pratchett's 'Making Money'

Tom Perrotta's 'The Abstinence Teacher'

Lynne Tillman's 'American Genius, A Comedy'

Jonathan Coe's 'The Rain Before It Falls'

Nicola Barker's 'Darkmans'

Ann Patchett's 'Run'

Peter Carey's 'Theft'

Gary Shteyngart's 'Absurdistan'

Richard Powers' 'The Echo Maker'