matthew cook

So here we are again

2012-01-19T08:08:00.000-08:00

Well I thought it was probably time to get this show back on the road. I've taken a long break for a number of reasons, some of them traumatic and some of them pretty brilliant. Either way I have some exciting projects back under way, and a blog that needs stoking. I spent some hard-gifted Christmas money on books this week including Bears of England and Ten Sorry Tales both by Mick Jackson, and The Bird King and Tales from Outer Suburbia both by Shaun Tan. The Shaun Tan ones I ordered from my local Didsbury bookshop too, as per my New Year's resolution. I am half way through and chuffed to bits with both. I've also updated the fiction section here so you can read the entire version of my children's poem The Bookworm. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

More news will appear once something happens.
Toodle-oo.

The Thirteen Deaths of Cooey the Pigeon

2011-11-03T04:22:00.000-07:00

Just seen this from Planet Whodunnknit - The Thirteen Deaths of Cooey the Pigeon, each one a gory knitted crime scene. Love it! You can follow @cooeythepigeon on twitter

John Kenn is a genius

2011-06-07T03:23:00.000-07:00

I posted some illustrations by Post-it note monster creator recluse John/Don Kenn amongst my last batch, before seeing his website. And finding out how many people had already been posting about him for years. And before realising that he keeps himself very much to himself, on the internet, despite a vast back catalogue of terrific work. I found one interview with John, in which he talks about Stephen King and HP Lovecraft as influences, and though I'm slow to join the crowd of people who've already applauded him digitally, I think every one of his pieces is absolutely awesome. And he should be given the nobel peace prize and a knighthood. And a lifetime achievement award. And a lifetime supply of black pens and post-it notes. And some other stuff. Plus he has twins and makes kids TV in Denmark. Awesome.

All his work can be found here:
http://johnkenn.blogspot.com/

Some great illustrations

2011-05-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

Working on my new book with the legendary Louis Roskosch has made me all excited about illustration. Here are some of my favourite recent finds, predominantly from ffffound.com but do check out the work of David Roberts who I’ve been a fan of without knowing who he is for a long while. Just finishing The Boy Who Kicked Pigs by Tom Baker and David’s work on that really holds it together and stabilizes quite a fragmented world.

The Painful Agitations of Dunby F Lee: Part 1

2011-04-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

Dunby was not a child in the traditional sense of the word.

For a start he never had a mother, in the traditional sense of the word. The woman who gave birth to him was a chain-smoking teenager named Heather Hoover. She was the youngest daughter in a wealthy Scottish family of free-thinkers who were famous locally for doing little that was not stylish, reckless or extraordinary, and usually all three at once. When Dunby was just 3 months old it was decided unanimously that her sister Elouise was a far more suitable mother, and certainly looked better doing it, more elegant and maternal than the awkward and bad-tempered Heather. After two days of transitional breast-feeding to see that Dunby took to the new arrangement, they switched. And that was that.

Dunby’s father, Maxime, the household’s 23 year old Haitian gardener, was not consulted and kept a silent distance. He was understandably horrified and confused, but his financial dependence on the Hoovers was absolute, and he had evolved a somewhat laissez faire attitude to most things they did, however strange or distressing. Heather had only spoken to him once, on the night of Dunby’s conception. Between his poor grasp of English, and her thick accent, delivered through shallow whiskey-scented breaths that butted at his face like angered moths, he understood virtually nothing. Before Dunby could walk his would-be mother travelled to China to teach English, where she died of cholera within the month.

In this way Dunby began.

Excuses excuses

2011-04-13T04:34:00.000-07:00

I've not blogged here for a really long time and both of you that read stuff I put here have emailed me to say you're none too impressed. Which is fair enough.

I know it's a lame excuse, but my special secret project with Louis Roskosch is still taking ages, and also I was reading Infinite Jest which is awfully long, plus I got a new bike which needed some attention and had to book a hotel for this wedding we're going to and it all got on top of me.

Plus, I nearly forgot, we've finally chosen the submissions shortlist for Structo 6, so watch out for news on that here. That took ages too.

Here's a tiny little taste of the secret project, still too secret to talk about in any detail...

I'm working on some more flash fiction and stuff to blog about soon. I'm reading Don't Smell the Floss by Matty Byloos very slowly too and will write something about it sometime in 2013 probably.

Some people say Etch-a-Sketch is a dead medium

2011-03-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

They're wrong.

This serial documentary of a man's life is by friend and artist Molly Cockcroft, and each piece is created live while the model poses for her each day at work. Steve: A Life in Etches will be tragically cut short when she leaves later this month and I for one will be deeply saddened on all counts.

Kubrick discusses purpose in life

2011-02-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

Louis Roskosch is a talented guy

2011-02-01T06:31:00.000-08:00

I'm just saying...

See more of Louis' work here. Find out about our exciting secret project together by tweeting me with the secret code #specialsecretlouisproject.

New flash fiction by me at Small Doggies Magazine

2011-01-24T04:06:00.000-08:00

Big thanks to Matty Byloos / Small Doggies who have just published my flash piece Sex Goddess online. It's a thrill to be attached to Small Doggies, and coincides with an upcoming review of Matty's book Don't Smell The Floss some time soon so it's like one big happy family. It appears that only Dog themed publishers like my work, which is good to find out early on. Knowing and becoming comfortable with your limitations can save a lot of wasted energy on fruitless ambition.

Here's an excerpt if you're too lazy or afraid to click on the link:

"to flatter his potato torso"

Look out for my new Short Story 'Labrador! Labrador?' out next month in Horse and Hound.

In other news, Structo Magazine has begun to accept submissions for issue 6 through submishmash and I will be on the editorial staff once again, which is exciting.

At the risk of sounding like another gassy monologuist...

2011-01-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

I love the Paris Review Art of Fiction interviews, almost as much as I love the New Yorker podcast, and the John Updike interview (#43) is no less fascinating. According to the introduction, John Updike resisted the early attempts to interview him, struggling to find a format for the process that would stop him becoming, even for a moment, that which he greatly feared - "one more gassy monologuist". This was in 1967, and he could not possibly have dreamed how many monologuists would be pumping gas into the digital void by 2011.

I think the fact that a writer who produced so much (20+ novels, 12+ short story collections, poetry, art and literary criticism, children's books) was so resistant to waffle and the sound of their own voice, even when well established, says a great deal.

Here's a snippet:

"I think it good for an author, baffled by obtuse reviews of himself, to discover what a recalcitrant art reviewing is, how hard it is to keep the plot straight in summary, let alone to sort out one's honest responses. But reviewing should not become a habit. It encourages a writer to think of himself as a pundit, of fiction as a collective enterprise and species of expertise, and of the imagination as a cerebral and social activity—all pernicious illusions."

Check out the full interview here

They said I was lazy

2011-01-12T08:13:00.000-08:00

They said I was stupid. They said I was boring. They said I was a hypocrite. They said I should be euthanised and banned from the internet and have my blogging privileges revoked.

I told them I'm not lazy. Nor am I stupid. I had bad flu over Christmas and not much to say, that's why I didn't blog anything. Plus, actually, I'm reading Infinite Jest and it's really long. Plus, also, I had a flash fiction story accepted by an online journal which will be out this week. So shove off.

They said Oh.

I bought Noah Cicero's The Human War too

2010-12-10T04:49:00.000-08:00

And photographed it using a stylised filter app on my bathroom windowsill. Now what does that tell you about me? Who cares. I think it's going to be good.

A photo of what I am currently reading (and what it tells you about me)

2010-12-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

My copy of Thom Jones' The Pugilist at Rest arrived today. I am quite excited about it, as you can probably tell from the photograph. But my legs crossed defensively, and over-protective almost prudish hand position, indicate that perhaps I'm frightened of starting it. Light corduroy trousers are intrinsically passive-aggressive. At the top of the photo you can see the remains of my lunch. Squashed green leaves show an effort to be healthy (though why did I not finish them?) and a superfluity of crumbs hint at my dependence on the comfort of bread, a Freudian anxiety that has links to the bland pine desk.

Next week: sexual forecasting as read into my childhood photographs.

My review of Orange Juice is online now at Pank

2010-11-24T11:55:00.000-08:00

So I wrote another review for the legendary Pank Magazine. I can't believe they're still letting me do them. It's for Timothy Willis Sanders' book of short stories Orange Juice put out by Awesome Machine Press, part of Publishing Genius.

Good luck to Adam at Publishing Genius and to Timothy, it's great and deserves to do well. With hindsight, I forgot to say anything about the cover art. Not my cup of tea. But the words, the words are really good.

You can read my review here. It's my longest yet, so you might want to take a break half way through. Perhaps do some stretching, watch a little TV or make a call. But please don't get distracted. The end is the most important part. I really can't stress that enough.

My Subversia review is online at Pank

2010-11-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

So I wrote a review of DR Haney's very excellent Subversia, and you can read it now on the Pank blog.

Here is an excerpt:

Banned for Life, Haney’s ten-years-in-the-making novel about a musician/filmmaker hunting a vanished punk-frontman, comes up often. So regularly does it contextualise anecdotes and feelings, it’s like a character of its own. But you never feel like Haney is overdoing it; he just seems proud. This is offset by an equally rough, though much less rewarding time writing ‘Friday 13^th Part VII’. And for someone who has endured life both as an actor and screenwriter, and been smashed up by a car, there’s very little cynicism. His enthusiasm for people, creativity and the whole world, is bottomless.

Structo 5 is alive

2010-11-15T01:23:00.001-08:00

Everybody's favourite newsprint literary journal Structo Magazine have just released their brand new 5th issue, for which I gave my twopence worth as an editorial assistant.

Not only has it been filled to bursting with a hefty amount of poetry and short stories, it also features an article with Ian Banks and this lovely cover illustration by Rachel E Morris. Well done to Euan for crafting another read, and a lovely product well worth investing in. And thank you for letting me be involved.

Please buy from the Structo site right here, follow Structo on twitter and tell your friends to do the same.

My review of Monkeybicycle #7 for PANK is online

2010-09-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

And you can read it here.

Notes on my family #2

2010-09-28T03:14:00.001-07:00

My elder brother Gary and I used to share a bunk-bed. He had the top, I had the bottom. This was established after much fighting and experimentation, and we finally learned to be happy. The bed was made from plain wood, pine or some such, and creaked like a sail boat each time either of us moved the slightest bit. In his sleep he gulped breaths of air, like a hungry man eating. Sometimes I dreamed of the slats breaking and his body crashing down on top of me.

When the weather was warm, our bed would ooze sap from the long cracks that ran down it. Bulbous, golden ejaculations that fascinated and appalled us. It was too magical a thing to suddenly emerge in so ordinary a place, it didn't seem right. We told our father, but he angrily denied it was happening at all, as if we had insulted his craftsmanship. But he had only bought it in a cardboard box from a chain-store, and bolted it together. Without much thought at all.

Gary and I were not equals - no brothers are - until he was 11, and his teeth began to fall out one by one. He tried to blame my mother’s cooking, but we all knew lackadaisical brushing was to blame. He got bored so easily, first one hand becoming distracted, and then the other. I once watched him play the piano for a full half hour just sucking on the bristles. His new teeth were expensive and we had to holiday at our grandparent’s house that year. From then on we were equals, and nothing was the same again.

I began feigning sleep around the house, to spy on him more easily. I discovered that he had a habit of scratching deep inside his ears with whatever was to hand. I often saw swirls of ballpoint pen around his ear hole, disappearing into the darkness inside. Rashly, I pointed this out to him and his best-friend Avon one day when we were walking home from Church. In silence, Gary put me on the ground and tried to shove a pen into my ear. He would have done it too if Avon hadn't kicked him in the balls.

When we got home I requested my own room. My mother agreed right away. She had noticed me sleeping in the daytime and thought I had a fatigue problem. I was given my father's office, and my own bed made of curved metal pipes. Smooth and silent.

Months later, I accidentally saw Gary through the bathroom door, scratching deep inside his ear with the hooked end of a coat hanger. He made a high-pitched noise that I felt behind my eyes. I did my best not to notice.

He has a daughter now. I tend to forget her name.

Not a review of Richard Yates by Tao Lin

2010-09-25T06:08:00.001-07:00

These are some thoughts on Richard Yates by Tao Lin, not a review.

Richard Yates, like Tao Lin, is mysterious. Despite laying bare huge, intimate parts of his life, I still find reading him like trying to crack a simple but elusive code. In trying to be open, rhetoric-free and honest, Richard Yates is still a very considered work, filled with chance, right down to the quasi-arbitrary title. So it’s hard enough to separate fact from fiction, plain-speaking Gmail from literary rhetoric, let alone crack the Tao Lin code. Oh well. I think that's part of the point, it's certainly part of its charm, if you're into that kind of thing.

 Richard Yates has no chapter breaks (it does have an index, interestingly) and reads pretty much like one long conversation between the main characters Dakota Fanning and Haley Joel Osment (for a full breakdown of the reasoning behind the character's names, the autobiographical nature, etc etc check out Tao Lin's site for many proper reviews). Reading it feels like eavesdropping for a really long time on strangers. Being privy to everything, intimacy is inevitable even if you don’t like or understand them.

DF and HJO talk in a very specific, detached and flat way. It’s so relentless I found my thought process towards the book coming to reflect that of the characters. 'I am confused by this, I think. That makes me uncomfortable, probably. I don't know.' 

Conversations are often unapologetically mundane and stuttered, but can be funny for exactly those reasons:

He asked if there were more things she had lied about. She said she had to think. She said she was still thinking. After about 2 minutes she said she was still thinking.

They create terms for certain types of people - ‘cheese beasts’ and ‘party girls’ - which I also found funny. But the definition of a ‘party girl’ is one of the most revealing details in the book to me, a

term they had for people who did not speak in a quiet monotone and were not severely detached.'

The fact that this is most other people in the world indicates just how isolated they both feel and make themselves. They have a philosophy of language, of social interaction and values, sex and art built upon HJO’s faith in absolute honesty at the exclusion of all else. The whole book feels kind of like an analysis of it’s successes and ultimate failure. The philosophy, though not necessarily the relationship.

At the end, when HJO and DF’s mother are for the first time not in conflict, but united in trying to cope with DF’s increasingly erratic behaviour, the conversation and style seems to shift into a more straightforward mode. It’s here that the implied ‘honesty’ in their relationship is all-but abandoned, as the scale of DF’s lying is apparent. We leave the bubble of DF and HJO and their language, entering the final, beautifully-pitched sequence that severs the story, and perhaps the relationship, in a way that seems to distil all the mounting ordinariness and emotion up to that point.

Just as HJO demands total honesty from the relationship, Tao Lin has written an apparently honest book, with personal experiences laid bare. But these conversations, and the novel, have been crafted, asking questions of the nature of that honesty. From attempted transparency in their relationship comes spectacular deception. Perhaps because relationships should never be 100% honest, you cannot be one person and mystery maintains interest. Perhaps it’s because character frailty and obsession will always infect your values, whatever they are, no matter how aggressively you enforce them. Perhaps the more aggressively you enforce them.

When HJO uncovers DF's eating disorder and challenges her failure to adhere to the rules they agreed upon, DF’s line perfectly illuminates her problems, their relationship, and the whole book.

I wanted to change and stop throwing up but was afraid to say it because it sounded like a movie.

For her, honesty felt dishonest. The argument ends with a brutal ultimatum from HJO -

Either change or kill yourself. I'm going to sleep.

In response DF, just says she agrees.

I got a sense of peace at the end of the book, a reluctant harmony that felt like this unique and effortfully unconventional relationship melting into all the other relationships that struggle to find a shared state of mind that is strong enough to survive living in the world.

I didn’t know if I would enjoy this book (so many other people haven’t) and in many ways I didn’t. But I found it touching, as intriguing as I hoped, and deserving of much more scrutiny than most things I’ve read recently, and than many reviews have given it credit for. More specifically, unlike Ani Smith I do think I will read it again. It's too mysterious not to.

Miranda and George

2010-09-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to the hitherto too-quiet-to-bother-with Miranda July and George Saunders conversation from Hammer Museum. The good news is that, once you've bumped the volume up, it's fantastic (I used Soundbooth to lift the mp3 it was that quiet). I'm only 30 mins into the 2 hour conversation, but it's already full of gems and insights into their writing process. Specifically, they discuss at length how much they need to know about a story before they begin writing it (the answer, not much).

The bad news is it's kind of old, but that doesn't matter. Hard not to like these guys, as they're both amazing on their own, but in conversation you get a whole different angle on each. I hope you like.

In other news, my review of Monkeybicycle Number 7 for Pank is finished and should be up soon.

S'up?

2010-09-11T04:27:00.000-07:00

I'll tell you wassup. As well as finishing a couple of new stories, I've been working on some interesting stuff for other folks. I am currently reading Richard Yates by Tao Lin for a review-of-sorts blog post here very soon. I am also editorial assistanting for the latest edition of Structo, and doing a review for the lovely folks at Pank via reviews editor Kirsty Logan. Busy busy busy...

The best short stories I never read

2010-09-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

A while ago I blogged elsewhere about the New Yorker's excellent short story podcast. I even went to the trouble of having the superb Molly Cockcroft redesign the New Yorker logo for it. So there's now not a single podcast I haven't listened to, the best ones I've hammered 2 or 3 times especially Adams by George Saunders. In fact, I've exhausted them and can't seem to fill that void in my life.

This post is an excuse to reuse the brilliant tweak'd logo (please feel free to use it New Yorker mag, but please don't sue me) and to say again the New Yorker fiction podcasts are freaking amazing so go to iTunes and listen to them all right now.

I am on the Cool Dog Hall of Fame

2010-09-07T04:54:00.000-07:00

I have submitted a few things to a few journals recently, and until they get accepted you can enjoy my photo and hastily written biog at the Cool Dog Publications hall of fame. If you want to read an excerpt from the prize-winning story Invisibility Ray, you can do so here.

Other Hall-of-Famers include a druid, an American and an ex-policeman.

Alternatively, email me your mobile number and I will personally serialise the whole story by texting you the story in fragments over the course of a month.

OR call me and I'll read the story to you in a celebrity accent of your choice.

OR tweet me and I'll DM you an exclusive 140 characters from a brand new story.

Today I have been mostly reading...

2010-09-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

During My Nervous Breakdown I Want To Have a Biographer Present by Brandon Scott Gorrell

Nature:
Debut poetry collection

Publisher:
Muumuu House

Favourite title:
a 53 million year-old fossilized spider that was recently discovered frozen in amber and taken x-rays of and had its insides displayed on a massive internet database with other creatures that were fossilized and had x-rays taken of them and had their insides displayed on a massive internet database

Favourite line:
A soul lives inside a person's embarrassment of their behaviour

Will make you feel:
Perpetual existential concern of an unspecified colour for several days

Available from:
Writer himself

I am fame

2010-08-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

I got an email last week from the lovely folks at cool dog publications saying that, as a winner of one of their short story contests (with my short story Invisibility Ray), I will be appearing in the new Hall of Fame on their brand new site. I haven't seen the designs yet but my bio is all written and emailed back along with a headshot. As part of my new found fame I plan to appear in a limited number of promotional hallways to publicise this news. If you would like to request a hallway for me to visit, feel free to post the request and name of hallway below. Or you can always email me.

NOTES ON MY FAMILY #1

2010-08-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

My father always had holes in his pockets and nobody knew why except me. My mother used to think it was down to the cheap trousers he bought from the market. She scolded him like a child, but always darned them anyway. She was wrong as it turned out.

I first noticed something was up when I was 6. Giving him a surprise leg hug, I felt a sharpness press into my cheek. I was offended, and slipped my hand into his pocket to see what it was, but he caught my wrist and slid it skillfully out again. Then he tipped me upside down, and blew a raspberry of punishment on my bare stomach. He said I was trying to pickpocket his coins. But there were no coins in there, I would have felt them.

When I was 8 he took me and my brothers swimming. I had gone back into the changing rooms, supposedly to go to the toilet. This time I was pickpocketing his trousers for coins. I reached into his pocket, the inside thick with my mother' stitches. I found no money, just a small, brown nail. I watched my father often after that. I could see him picking at the threads with the nail under the fabric. It was something only I knew about. I didn’t mind. The next time we went swimming I found it and made a mark with blue crayon. I looked for it again some months later and the blue mark was still there. It was the same nail. They were not the same trousers.

When I was 12, and we were on holiday, and my father fell over on slick grass, and pierced the fat muscle in his leg with something sharp, hidden in the grass so he said, we all had to go to the hospital together. As he was being stitched up, my mother gave him a look that meant she did still think about what it would be like not married to him, even though she had promised not to. I didn’t say anything about the nail even though I’d known about it all along, and had imagined all these things happening before they actually did.

When I was 35 and my brother Jack found me going through the pockets of our dead father's sad suit in the hospital room wardrobe, and I cried because I found only holes and no blue tipped nail, it was not an easy thing to explain.

Boy meets girl

2010-07-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

They met in a restaurant at the nicer end of town, though it wasn't all that nice. He was already smiling when she caught his eye and went to join him at the small, round table.
"Lovely to see you, Marcy" he said with a wink that seemed in slow motion.
"Charmed" she said, sliding her chair under in several awkward jerks. She had never said charmed before as a greeting in her life. He ran his palms across the white tablecloth. She saw the backs of his hands were brown and hairy. Big and brown and hairy. She noticed the tablecloth was smooth around him, to a point - between there and her it became increasingly less happy. Her cutlery lurched on a frozen, cotton sea. He chuckled.
"What?" she said.
"Nothing" he replied. She waited for the explanation. None came. He leaned forward. She leaned forward. She suddenly became very conscious of her coat. She hadn't taken it off yet. She was warm. She was roasting hot. How awful. She had said nothing of interest and she was going to die. She slid her shoes off under the table.
"I promised myself I wouldn't rape you," he said. She felt cold again.
"You don't mean that," she said.
"No. Of course not. My friend Alex bet me I wouldn't say that to you straight off. Now he owes me money."
"You didn't say it straight off, you said 'lovely to see you' straight off."
"It still counts" he said and looked hurt. He picked at the tablecloth a little.
"Not really" she said. "You don't deserve his money. He deserves yours."
"That's total bullshit" he said sitting back. His face seemed more his own now, it was not as attractive as his smile had made it seem.
"If he asks me, I'll tell him the truth." she said.
"Thanks" he said sarcastically. "Maybe I should rape you". He was pouting now, like a little boy with problems.
"Maybe you should" she said, feeling bad. Nobody spoke. She looked at her cutlery. It was shiny. The knife looked sharp. She wondered if it would stick into something if she threw it like a ninja or circus performer. She wondered how far it would stick into him. To the hilt, perhaps. It didn't have a hilt. She thought about the word 'hilt'. She bit into a breadstick.
"I didn't bring very much money," he said.
"Oh," she said, sliding her shoes back on.

The Burden

2010-01-22T04:43:00.001-08:00

This short was written for a 300 word flash fiction competition that it didn't win. It's been a long while since my last post, but I've not been sitting around.

The Burden
It all happened because Patrick left his less-expensive camera at my house. All I wanted to do was give it back.

I arrived at our rendezvous early, keen to relinquish my irritating responsibility (even 'less-expensive' was still expensive to me). I smoked a cigarette and tried not to think about it. But, growing bored and mischievous, I sought distraction and ascended the car-park roof to catch the approaching sunset.

Mesmerized, I watched it: hot and bloody and important. Then I noticed the girl.

Young, poised. Head tilted back as if to give the dying rays easier passage up her nostrils. A tattoo - winding flower stems - ran up her sleeve somewhere interesting. I approached silently, never thinking she wouldn't be happy to see a strange man so high up. So close to the edge.

Hi, I imagined her saying to me.

Hello, I would reply. We are siblings of the sunset, we would acknowledge telepathically. The only ones who understand.

Then I saw she had removed her moccasin shoes. She turned to face me, and I realised what she was doing. She wasn't a child of the sunset, she was a very unhappy woman who had no right to be so unhappy and so beautiful at the same time.

Dumb, childlike, she smiled a soft hello-goodbye. Dumb, childlike, I photographed her smile.

Then she jumped.

_

I met Patrick and his daughters, returning the camera without words. I went home and climbed into bed, frighteningly alive.

How dare you, I dreamed. Damn and fuck you for violating me with such private matters.

I woke late to many messages, all Patrick.

A beautiful shot. Incredible. But. Isn't that the girl? From the papers. Responsibility to the family. My decision.

I smoked a cigarette and tried not to think about it.

Cooldog. Short story. First prize.

2009-06-02T04:08:00.000-07:00

This week I found out that my short story 'Invisibility Ray' won first prize in the latest Cooldog Publications competition. As well as a cool £100 I will be published in their next E-mag and enter their online Hall of Fame, with the story receiving automatic entry into their annual comp. Want to read an amazing excerpt from the brilliant prize-winning Invisibility Ray? 'Fraid not. You'll have to buy the E-mag - http://www.cooldog.co.uk/emag/.

Thomas meets Grandpa for the first time and knows it

2009-04-27T03:55:00.000-07:00

Thomas met Grandpa, mother's side, for the first time today.
He lives abroad, in a hut apparently. A remote, mysterious man.

They tell him Grandpa's a poet.
Quite famous, quite dangerous in the things that he says.

The old man takes his place, looks at the wall,
His corduroy clothes have a familiar smell.
All gathered bustle, then vacate,
Letting nature take its course.

A timeless silence. Thomas gawps, he thinks, he speaks.

"Where do your ideas come from?"

The old man turns:

"They tumble from my nostrils like tiles of rotten clay."
"The shrink out from my dry pores, aching all the way."
"They breed inside my marrow, they slide screaming from my throat."
"They render me inert. They hurt, oh Thomas, how they hurt."
"These words."

"And they will come for you my boy."
"Yes they will come for you."

Hot brained and lucid, Thomas is left alone.

The Bear Pit

2009-04-07T01:02:00.000-07:00

I am starting to regret explaining to Gareth and Diane about the bear pit. Now every time we go to the park, all they want to do is stand with their faces against the railings, and lose themselves in the horrors that I described.

They both hate and fear the place, but are powerless to extricate themselves from its spell.

Nobody knows the sorrow I have seen

2009-03-05T01:01:00.000-08:00

The Janitor

2009-02-11T09:09:00.001-08:00

The janitor is obese
But his tool belt is very desirable
To me
Will it fit me? I think not
But still
I could borrow it
From his crepuscular office
And hang it
And worship it
Somewhere high up
On one of my best walls
And hope he is not in the habit
Of sneaking into my apartment
To look for things to borrow
For himself
While I'm at work
Defenceless

what your furniture is saying when it talks to you at night, Michaela

2009-02-11T06:55:00.000-08:00

At night, when you lay in bed, awake and alone, listening to your furniture creak, wondering the answer to all kinds of strange questions, such as 'why does my furniture creak?' remember these words, Michaela.

Your furniture creaks because it is breathing, expanding and contracting, lung-like, as your apartment warms and cools. So you are not alone, really. Every breath is a message whispered just for you. When you come home from work and turn on the heating and place your warm body on the couch and doze off while watching Breakfast at Tiffany's again and your furniture creaks at 2am, it is breathing in, a whisper that says 'hello, Michaela, welcome home'.

And when you leave in the morning for another 13 hour day and your furniture creaks at 10am with no-one there to hear, it is breathing out, whispering 'where are you Michaela? come home soon'.

And when you go on holiday to your Grandmother's old house, it sleeps breathlessly; without pulse, full of longing. Dreaming of you.

The Butterfly Effect

2009-02-09T03:30:00.000-08:00

It can be comforting to remember occasionally that even the most exquisite butterfly has two disgusting antennae sticking out of its face.

A Fictional Story Inspired by a Photograph of the 1978 Microsoft Research Team

2009-02-06T15:21:00.000-08:00

For me, it's only when you take a photograph, step back outside of things, outside of time, to try and catch it, that you see things as they really are. And so it was on that day, as I prepared the camera and the backdrop, something I did every year, called them all in and arranged them as I wanted on the various chairs (plastic and peeling, on loan from the canteen). My family. I always kept them there far longer than necessary, often with an ad libbed excuse based on technical malfunction or changing light levels. The truth was that I needed to see them there, in position. Only through the viewfinder, through several layers of polished lenses could I truly see them as they were. Could I know for certain it was still them, despite everything that had happened. Not with my naked eyes, nor on the final printed photograph, could I get the same visceral closeness, that stripped away the clothes and the hair and give me the reassurance I needed. After the usual complaints and joking the room fell silent and they took their places, peaceful, placid. Hunched over the slender tripod, I was taken suddenly with how few women were left. A parade of beards surrounded gentle Anna, and cousin Isabelle, crumpled and tired from her research, her face so fleshy without glasses. Three deaths in as many months, and still no closer to understanding why. Unexpected tears welled in the small viewfinder portal. But I didn't need to see to know it looked right. I could have taken that photo blindfolded.

Alexander, top right, near the door, ready to dash off to his chimpanzees the moment I said we were done. Next to him, Brother Rudy, the arbitrator. Always in the middle of arguments and group portraits alike. To his right, wordless and expressionless, would be Nicholas-the-strange, driving everyone crazy with his touching and fidgeting. Husky voiced Larry, and Kurt, always in red, would perch below him, constantly engrossed in some conspiratorial discussion of some kind. (When Helen was still here, she once found them thick as thieves in the kitchen nook and was terrified some disaster had occurred until she realised they were talking about a newspaper crossword.) Frail Albert (high) and soft-voiced Patrick (brooding and thoughtful) would always take up the centre middle/right, freeing Papa to sit with the women at the front. And there, bottom left, would be William. Always tucked away, like an afterthought it felt when looking at the old photos in the Archive. But the pictures lied. Nobody knew, no-one could ever have suspected the plans Papa had for William. The secrets he would tell him at our expense. The power he eventually would hold.

Now I am the only female left, and William is gone and our work is still not even close to being complete. These years I take the photograph on a timer, before hurrying into place to join Papa and the rest of the family. My family.

If I Know My Wife

2009-02-06T02:25:00.000-08:00

Today I began having an affair. I possess neither the inclination, nor the financial resources, for authentic infidelity, but my fake affair is posing a rather pleasant distraction. It has allowed me to assert myself for the first time in some years, and I like having a project on the go. I deposit occasional subtle clues for my suspicious wife to discover, a breadcrumb trail of brassieres and obliquely written love-notes; poorly hidden, leading nowhere. It is a necessary counter-measure to her constant snooping, which - proving fruitless - was distressing us both.

Though it remains unspoken, she definitely seems happier now my disloyal virility is confirmed. She has stopped denying herself small luxuries at least. I am unsure how to resolve the fantasy, and in fact have been toying with the idea of a grand unveiling, for when the whole thing becomes unmanageable. If I know my wife, she shall still love me, perhaps all the better for it. In the end.

I have named my imagined mistress Tina. She has small, playful hands.

Cry for Help

2009-02-06T02:12:00.000-08:00

Our poster of the Eiffel Tower committed suicide today. While the comedians among the office have attributed it to the bad atmosphere left after a spate of recent redundancies, the realists correctly point out that, with the amount of stress it was under, it was inevitable really.

From the less-than-ideal blu-tac nodules pressed with inadequate strength against dimpled breeze-block, to the constantly wafting door to the right, the environmental and the biological conspired, its grip slipped, and it fell. For three months it had us fooled. Everything seemed fine.

Now it lies limp and crumpled behind the photocopier, a distasteful affront to the uncomplicated escapism we crave. In search of some light relief I found a website that said at least three hundred and fifty human beings have killed themselves by jumping off the real Eiffel Tower. I asked Sandra if she thought perhaps this had been on the poster's mind. She said she didn't want to think about those sort of things.

Disappointed and grieving, nobody looks.

Perhaps eventually an outsider will have faith where we cannot and revive our Parisian dreams.

I can't just sit around either

2009-02-05T05:17:00.001-08:00

In 1982, an American truck driver named Larry Walters tied a bunch of weather balloons to his garden chair and flew to an altitude of 16,000 feet (3 miles). Throwing air traffic control into panic mode, Larry was arrested upon landing and fined but became a national hero, and a motivational speaker, before shooting himself in the heart at the age of 44 in the Angeles National Forest. In an interview following his flight, when he eventually floated back down to earth, Larry was asked why he had undertaken the project. Larry replied “A man can’t just sit around.”

I can't just sit around either.