I’ve just finished working on my new book – which will be my first since 2018’s Elsewhere & Otherwise.

After five years of not writing anything, five years of doubting if I ever would again, it’s been quite a journey. One of the great things about writing – and especially with a short story collection such as this – is that you’re having a clear-out of your brain: of a lifetime of ideas, scenes, themes, and even real-life experiences.

But one of the things I’d either forgotten or completely underestimated is how, once you wake your imagination up, it just won’t leave you alone. It throws up ideas, deeper layers of meaning, solutions, connections, entire sentences and paragraphs, at the most inconvenient of times – usually when I’m trying to switch off and sleep.

Anyway, the book is now complete (barring some minor editorial touches), though I won’t fool myself that my mind is at rest.

More details – title, cover, publication date etc. – will follow early in the New Year, along with some special offers and extras for pre-orders.

But right now my birthday approaches and I’m jetting off across the Atlantic to begin a lengthy and sprawling trip around New York, New Jersey, and all six states of New England.

Have a great autumn, everyone, and I’ll catch up with you soon.