‘First, the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man.’ Old Irish Saying The 17 th March marked eight years since I stopped drinking. Sobriety, dear reader, is very important to me. I quit alcohol for good in 2017 after 20 years of heavy drinking. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was an alcoholic, but I certainly relied on booze at the end of the week and at weekends (sometimes even during the week). I used alcohol to unwind and wash away the dreary working days in

“The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood, he was one of them.” Old Proverb Two years ago today, my debut speculative fiction novel, New Gillion Street , was published by Fly on the Wall Press. As we watch with horror the madness unfolding in Minnesota right now, my little old book has been on my mind a lot. I wrote the story in 2018 while I lived in Houston, Texas.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings And so, dear reader, at the dawn of 2026, we begin again, anew, afresh, and march ever onward, with a spring in our step and a gleam in our eye. After an exceedingly dubious end to 2025, when the publication of The Peculiar Journey of Cecil Tabiner was heartbreakingly ca