• Writing

    So what’s your book about?

    So what’s the book about, and what’s its genre? Ugh! That question always shuddered through my body no matter how prepared I was. I’d often stand there stuttering like an idiot. I knew what my book was about, but how to articulate it was the problem. We all deal with labels. They’re shorthand for us, and when people asked about Crown of Fire, they were asking for a label. Something they could assign it and create a narrative we could build an understanding around. Many courses advise authors to force their ideas into a category; to chop and change to fit them into a specific genre, paying particular attention to…

  • Short Stories

    Merry Gods

    Luuk’s hands stretched around the gift-wrapped flower pot, the orange flower heads bouncing as he strode along the sterile corridor behind his father.  He raised the pot to show his dad how his fingertips almost touched on the other side. ‘Look,’ he said, as the dancing orange heads caught his attention again. ‘Merry Gods!’ ‘Marigolds.’ Luuk held the pot close his chest.  ‘… and in Vlaams?’ ‘Goudsbloem,’ Nick replied, and stopped to face his son. He brushed at Luuk’s sandy hair with his fingers, tidying it as best he could. It still amazed him how scruffy a six-year-old could get after a few hours, even on the last day of…