I’ve published a couple of stories on Amazon Shorts — it being one of the few places left for short stories besides the New Yorker and some literary magazines, since the big glossies no longer do them.

This one is called “Cut and Thrust,” and has the same three old pals that appear in “Airborne,” in the collection OLD BABES IN THE WOOD.

The three are plotting to murder nine men — for reasons, and with a rate of success,  you must discover for yourself — and to my surprise has been nominated for an Edgar — the mystery and murders award. That should be hilarious.

On February 11, 2025, my publishers (PenguinRandom in the U.S.A., the U.K., and Canada) revealed the cover for my forthcoming memoir, BOOK OF LIVES: A memoir of sorts, coming November 4, 2015.

In the press announcement, I said: “I sweated blood over this book – there was too much life to stuff in, and if I’d died at 25 like John Keats, it could have been shorter.”  — but I also laughed a lot.

A memoir is what you can remember, and you remember mostly stupid things, catastrophes, revenges, and times of political horror, so I put those in — but I also added moments of joy and surprising events revealed.

I hope you’ll have as much fun reading Book of Lives as I did writing it.

I’m working on the French Revolution — why? Because we seem to be in that sort of period again — specifically, I’m revisiting A Tale of Two Cities, for a new let’s-take-a-close-look-at-a-book platform called Rebind.

Tale was Dickens’ most popular novel, and has been the subject of several movies, including the 1935 Ronald Coleman one. It features the Best Ever Mme Defarge, played by smouldering Blanche Yurka.

They did the storming of the Bastille live, with real people — including, I hope, a lot of stunt artists, who I hope did not get injured as they fell off the drawbridge.