Earlier this year I gave long answers to some very basic questions for a film student’s diploma dissertation. Is there a difference in writing for UK and US audiences, and if there is, what is it (cost, budget, more/less freedom)? I don’t think the audiences are that different, but I find that the commissioning cultures…

Earlier this year I gave long answers to some very basic questions for a film student’s diploma dissertation. I had two aims in mind, beyond the obvious one of helping him out. One was that I’d eventually put the material online for general use (so other film students, take from this what you will and…

At the request of crime specialist and site editor Barry Forshaw, I wrote a piece for the Interviews section of the Crime Time online website. Here’s a taster: There are two kinds of characters that carry novel series. They’re devised or they’re grown, and those are quite different beasts. The devised character is like a…

I’ve meant to do this ever since I saw a script in which a scene contained the unhelpful direction, “They fight”. And no more. Film fights have a dramatic purpose. Gone are the days when personal violence was offered as the test and proof of a hero’s moral superiority.  Even in Fantasy, that’s a fantasy…

From Mulholland Books, with a June 20th publication date, comes this reissue of The Saint Goes On with an introduction by yours truly. Mulholland is an imprint of Hodder and Stoughton, publishers of the classic ‘Yellow Jacket’ editions. So in effect, the thirty-five reprint titles are being kept within the family. Their number does not,…

Here’s my Father’s Day present from the one known as @audreydeuxpink.

Well, I’m back from Dublin and the European Science TV and New Media Festival. As ever, the only downside of my visit to the city is that I didn’t get to stay for longer. We did our panel thing in the afternoon, as part of a programme that included screenings of some of the entries…

If you’re in Dublin tomorrow, you can come and see me yak at this free Science Gallery event. It’s part of the 2013 European Science TV and New Media Festival, with a keynote speech followed by a panel discussion. 14.00 – KEYNOTE TALK AND PANEL-LED DISCUSSION SESSIONScience, Medicine and MediaKeynote Talk: Dr David Kirby, Senior…

There’s a long-established and old-fashioned bookshop in Southport, Lancashire, called Broadhurst’s – new books downstairs, old books above, and they wrap your purchase in brown paper and string before you leave. The really high-value stuff is in a room that resembles Sherlock Holmes’ study, with a velvet rope across the doorway, while on the same…

I recently guested on a late-night radio music-and-chat show where the topic of conversation was “My Mis-Spent Youth”. To be honest, I don’t think my youth was particularly mis-spent. Comics, B-movies, telefantasy and cheap paperbacks pretty much gave me a career. But you have to get into the spirit of the thing. So I talked…