A young man browsing a Christmas market offers a gift to an observing stranger. Before lockdown, my work launched a winter community project supporting the homeless, and I felt really proud to be a part of something so important and meaningful. The project prompted me to create a zine titled ‘Holly, Ivy & Red Berries’, …
When I discovered the beautiful floral artwork of Alisa Burke, I was thrilled when I found out that she also ran online art classes (and better yet, they were on sale). I snapped up a pass to the Flower Power course, and have been working my way through ever since. So far, I am halfway …
I must have been living under a rock, because all these years of reading Japanese literature had failed to unearth the work of Junji Ito. Ito is well reknowned for his horror stories, and the fact he illustrates his own work too. I wonder if part of the success of his writing is having the …
ZOO is a translated collection of short horror stories by Japanese writer Otsuichi. The stories range in length from half a dozen chapters to just a couple of pages, but they all have one thing in common: they all challenged my preconceptions of the horror genre. There is a brilliant quote in the afterword by …
That’s a wrap! Realmathon is over, and I’ve had a blast. I set myself some ambitious goals at the beginning of the month, hoping to tackle 6 books in particular for this reading challenge. I managed to read 3 from that original list, and a 4th (Cursed Bunny) that I started at the end of …
On a sticky Wetherspoon table, (the location of all good roleplay experiences, I find), my friend took Dialect out of her bag and introduced me to her latest indie roleplay investment. Dialect is a game about language. The players find themselves in an isolated setting, and must develop new words to describe their life and …
A while ago I came across a fantastic game for writers called Elegy for a Dead World. It plays like a scrolling platform game, but there is no fighting or obstacles to face. Instead, in each world, players are given the opportunity to write stories about their landscape – the sights, the smells, the sounds …
A few years ago, I ran an online book club with two friends, and had the delight of sending author Rebbeca Raisin some questions about her cosy romantic read, The Little Bookshop on the Seine. Though the project wrapped up a long time ago now, I really wanted to archive the interview, as I still recommend …
At the beginning of the year, I set myself what I considered to be a very ambitious challenge: I would read 70 books in 2023. Three months in, and finishing my 36th book, I am reminded about my family’s blessing (or curse), which enables us to single-mindedly steamroll towards our priorities once we’ve decided on …
In my teens I loved nothing more than picking up a Point Horror from the school library, devouring them in bed late on a school night. Earlier than that still, I loved the Goosebumps series, and I couldn’t tell you how many times my brother and I rewatched the taped episodes we had for VCR. …
