Own-trumpet-blowing

I'm sort of in two minds about writing this - it feels far too much like flagrant, cheap self-promotion to be comfortable... but I'm going to do it anyway, having come to the conclusion that no-one else is going to make either a song or a dance about it, let alone both!

The picture on the left is of a new collection of short stories called Unthology No. 1, published by the quite splendid Unthank Books. It's the first in what will be a series of annual anthologies featuring established and emerging writers. And the reason I'm blathering on about it quite so much is that some words of mine will appear in it. Yes, really. I wrote a draft of a short story called Waiting Room last year; when I saw Unthank's calls for submissions earlier this year, I gave the story a quick tidy-up and sent it in. Next thing I know...

The book's publication date is the 1st of December (although, in some way that I haven't yet worked out, Amazon are already dispatching copies). There are going to be launch events and everything - I will even be reading an extract at one of these (and just how nervous will I be about that?).

So there we have it: an actual, proper book, from an actual, proper publisher (to whom I am in no other way related), with something that I've written inside, that you'll be able to go into Waterstones and buy (or at least order). I hope you can forgive the own-trumpet-blowing, but I'm a little bit excited about this.

If you're not already fed up with me wittering on about this - and I'm even starting to bore myself now - you can read a little more about Unthology No. 1 here.

I'll stop now, I promise...