Fiction
Most of my recent output (2001-present) is on Doogal's website. I'll put some of my older stuff here, along with the occasional bits of poetry I do and some new short stories.
Short Stories:
Cradle
Palna in Delhi is a charity that provides a home for abandoned children. Most of the children are successfully adopted, with about 50% going abroad. I wrote this after visiting it as part of a sponsored trip to India. As usual, if you think I've misrepresented the issues, please mail me. 2005. 22KB pdf.
The Light Comes Pouring Out
All life's important stuff packed into a 3000 word story. It's set in Canning Town, which seems to have become centre of my fictional universe. 2005. 26KB pdf.
One Flower for the Sake of One Heart
Or Ek dil ke liye ek phool hai as it should be called. My paen to Hindi films. Chaucer, poetry and wild romance come together in an alternative world where the phrase "British Raj" means something quite different... 2002. 46KB pdf.
The Glitch Quartet:
Bow
My writing took a really weird turn in 1997. This is the first in a series of four very odd documents. It chronicles a Bow that no longer exists. 21KB pdf.
Red Eye
This is the second. I'd just moved to Oval. Scary, messed-up piece of not-quite-fiction from 1997, all about being haunted by the curse of the Red Eye. Rather appropriately, my life collapsed just after I started writing it. 28KB pdf.
Glitch
After a 2 year hiatus, during which I wrote the first draft of Hope, came the third. One of my most extreme pieces. 1999. 28KB pdf.
The Golden Age
The last of the quartet. There had been a lot of press coverage at the time over a 16 year old prostitute who had died of a heroin overdose. The published details of her life formed the basis of this piece. 1999. 28KB pdf.
Poetry:
Imaginary Words for Real Pictures
I had RSI at the time and couldn't type. I wrote the whole thing left-handed. It was my first bit of poetry in 8 years. 2000. 17KB pdf
Glass Heart
I wrote this after a friend's husband died. 2000. 12KB pdf
Thief Of Fire
This is based partly on a dream I had and partly on a very scary London Underground experience. 2001. 16KB pdf.
Red Sun
I'm still not satisfied with this piece, despite several revisions. 2002/05. 8KB pdf
Veil
A short piece. 2005. 7KB pdf
Revenant
After spending most of 2005 so far writing the first draft of 'The Game', I returned to poetry after the 7/7 and 21/7 London bomb attacks.
In the immediate aftermath it seemed easier to deal with events in verse rather than fiction. 2005. 17KB pdf
Conversations with ghosts on the A13.
Inspired by the long dark line of Commercial Road at night, which is beginning to exert the same sort of pull on me that Elephant & Castle did in the late '90s. 2006. 14KB pdf.
Fallen Stars.
Deserts... and Dagenham. 2006. 11KB pdf.
Always the Second Time Around.
I've spent a lot of time on Farringdon Road recently. And I've been listening to Iggy Pop's 'The Idiot' too much. Both seem to be getting to me. 2006. 12KB pdf.
Bridge.
2006. 14.5KB pdf
In the Name of the Other.
2007. Poetry/photographs. html.
Drowned World.
2007. Poetry/photographs. html.
Sky Blue Void.
2007. Poetry/photographs. html.
Other bits
Love
A return to the style of the Glitch Quartet. Kind of. A bit more didactic than my usual stuff. 2005. 22KB pdf