Haymaking’s been going on recently and, in a field near us, the small bales you can see in the photo (top left) were being carted. Unfortunately for the nostalgia-value, it was all done in batches of 8 with a grab on front of the tractor, but still, it took me back to haymaking when I […]

This photo (with thanks to Dylan Moore) shows Holy Trinity church in Newcastle Emlyn. Though the church isn’t actually mentioned in None So Blind, it does have a link to the Rebecca Riots. There’s a memorial in the churchyard to a Trooper John Kearns whose epitaph runs like this: ‘He fell not in the battle […]

‘I loved your book,’ somebody said to me the other day. ‘It’d make a great TV series!’ And it would. Because, to be honest, pretty much any crime novel would. It’s no coincidence that many of the best-loved TV crime dramas are novel adaptations. The trouble is, as I point out to people, that historical […]

  Write what you know. That’s the advice quoted at writers ad nauseam. But I’ve never been very good at taking advice. Admittedly, there are a couple of strands in None So Blind which I might reasonably be expected to know something about: It’s set in the Teifi Valley. I grew up there. Most of […]

For me, writing comes in two varieties – conscious and mostly subconscious. Almost every word of my novels is written by a process which involves me having a vague idea of where the current scene might go then setting off and seeing where it actually goes. I don’t plan much and, if I do, I […]

So, I can now announce that None So Blind, first of the Teifi Valley Coroner historical crime series will be launched at 6.30 on the 8th of April here:   This is the Coach House – visitor centre of the historic St Dogmaels Abbey in Pembrokeshire and run by a good friend of mine. It’s […]

Here it is: the cover for None So Blind. And, delighted as I am with the artwork, I think I may be even more chuffed by the quotation from E S Thomson. It goes to print this week. Things are speeding up!  

I’ve just read an article which gave me pause for thought. And that thought is: I need to draw better e-boundaries. Prior to entering into a publishing relationship with Freight, I had established a modus vivendi with Facebook. I had no FB friends whom I didn’t know in real life. No readers, no friends of […]

So. Cardiff book festival. It’s astonishing that the capital of Wales hasn’t had its own literary festival until this year but, now it’s got one, it’s a really good one. An interesting mix of writers were invited to speak in venues throughout the city – the Central Library, the Old Library, the Angel Hotel – […]

  Last week, I had a brief Twitter exchange on editing with a crime writer I know slightly after chatting to him over the course of the St Hilda’s Crime Weekend. He tweeted something to the effect that he was going through the very, very, very (probably) last read through of the book before giving […]