Knowing Simone

07/12/2025

Happy to be Long-Listed for the Flash500 (UK) 2025 Best Novel Opening, for my Blacksmith and Canon: The End of the Medieval. It's part of a four-novel series set around the year 1503, a commemoration of 500 years after Niccolò Machiavelli death in 1527. Blacksmith and Canon is a treat for the Gothic-minded reader (although almost by accident).
So now I've been long or shortlisted for three novels: 'Start with C', 'Knowing Simone' and 'Blacksmith and Canon'. I can put this alongside of my 58 publisher rejections!

02/12/2025

hello again. Been out of the loop a while, so here is a short excerpt from Chpeter 16, Knowing Simone:

As Madame Bovary discovered, a married woman with an out-of-town lover risked disgrace and her husband’s revenge, so Simone and I built a fortress in her mansion: curtains drawn, passions lent and all acquaintances excluded. Given holy days, her cleaner stayed away, Mimi diverted and indulged, and employees forbidden visitation. We deceived Lectoure’s suspicious religious orders and marketplace rumour mill and had jars of conserve´ delivered on our doorstep, Mercredi et Vendredi, wax-sealed.
She and I cooked jam to her recipe. She inflamed our affair; my pride saying a woman of her age might feast upon a younger man.
For my part, her friendship with Papa brought esteem. My employer claimed a kind of ownership over me, and forbade my enquiries into her past — as if my curiosity could be silenced.
Desire swelled our lips. When we made love, all precautions adopted, wasn’t I amazed when she dug her teeth into my shoulder, her hands clung to my buttocks and gifted me lessons in pleasure. Flattered and helpless to her passion, a person of free went missing, I was a hare in the jaws of my shewolf.

12/02/2025

It's happening. 'Start with C' is available now at https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0D9KMVTB2 This novel is the result of many real events in my life, events that affected and shaped me. This novel is the most personal, involving friendships and seering experiences in 1977, 1987 and 1988.
When my dear friend, Mick Childs, took me to Brewarina in 1977 I had no great hopes. Mick aimed to collect his guitars after a year away and a prior three-year stint as a Science teacher. I had the complete tour of the town, its famous 'fish traps' and met numerous indigenous locals. For a small town of around two thousand, with perhaps 40% indigenous, it had three leaders: Essie Coffey AO, Steve Gordon (later an ASIIC rep for the region) and Tombo Winters, a warm and wonderful person. They inspired many characters in the book, and for that I am forever grateful.
In the meantime, if anyone wants a free copy of the paperback, I will gift one to you, on the basis that you'll post an honest review on Amazon Australia by March 7. (I will provide the links). Email me at [email protected] with your name, postal and email address, and I've have a copy posted to you.

What is Start with C about????
Start with C is an upside-down, outback murder mystery Down Under. We don’t know who has been murdered, who was the murderer, and who is telling the tale.
Passionate, comic, bighearted characters, 'Start with C' was Longlisted for Best Unpublished Manuscript Award, Whitsunday Lit Festival, 2024.

Brief Excerpt:
‘Cats. Cereal. Criminals. Clocks. Commodores. Why do they all start with “C”?’
‘And constables,’ said Crowbar, trying to be helpful.
No wonder the Commander was confused. This was an upside-down murder mystery, Down Under.

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In 1987, local outback handyman, Kev, searches for the missing Bicentennial official, Cliff Badger. Most of the suspects are his friends, complicated when an Indigenous death-in-custody gains worldwide publicity. What a spectacle! With enterprising crims, a media pack, cynical locals, and an upcoming election, the comedic Riot Squad is chasing its tail. Everyone wants to find Cliff Badger’s Commodore. Whoever is telling the story is finding it cathartic.
--
Note- The Author’s royalties will be donated to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

14/12/2024

Flash 500 in the UK has shortlisted 'Knowing Simone', highly regarded for its opening chapter. The competition carries a one thousand pound prize.

27/07/2024

Please join my creative pages, one for each novel or creative pursuit. Like and join "Belonging", 1st novel. "Starts with C", my second. "Knowing Simone", third. "Blacksmith and Canon, fourth, 1503, the series, taking in "A Blacksmith's Life" or "Inheritance", "The Reckoning" "Tales from The Viviers Chronicles or 1593" and Machiavelli's Pope". Other sites include Hugo d Hugo of poetry, Photobooks GMc, and the Camino de Santiago books.

25/07/2024

KNOWING SIMONE a novel set in Victor Hugo's France, when dynamite replaces duels.
Patrice is a young man on the run. Employed by mine owner, Simone Beaufort, in Gothic Lectoure, he is fascinated with her connections with his father and Parisian society.
As Simone and Patrice's liaison develops, he discovers her shocking situation and struggles to understand her ambitions and her connection to Jessai, Napoleon III's Minister for Railways.
Holding secrets from each other, they form an unlikely alliance involving Parisian lawyer, Leon Gambetta, (later, President of France), Claude, her deaf-mute assistant, local pâtissier, Marie Creche, and the ten-year-old town waif, Mimi. No one knows who the local gendarme, Mr Hambouff, supports, but with the arrival of Patrice’s bete-noire, the Minister’s final visit brings matters to a head. After a torrent of intrigue, murder and betrayal, Simone and Patrice confess their greatest secrets.

18/06/2024

My stepson, Ben Nightingale's mew album. Drop in for a listen, including their remake of my poetic "Sarria". https://open.spotify.com/artist/4L3PzIFZCfdWQFz4NIHfqZ?dd=1&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0osSlc5V101CFQ9SKDlBPJSzfteeOjD_Qf2FILlsiDiTuJd-vmgmiYG9U_aem_JFocbikwr9_mhbBQto2TjQ&dlsi=8d3fd135ae294ec8 &si=Zsc0tswOSDeiqkgVZz_iRw&nd=1&flow_ctx=ff49693a-28d8-430c-91ac-d5197e83eb18:1718755113&creation_point=https://open.spotify.com/artist/4L3PzIFZCfdWQFz4NIHfqZ?sp_cid=1608b8bc18d55855a5404a129ee3f004

Artist · 20 monthly listeners.

04/12/2023

Just watched Louise Adler on the 7.30 Report. What a clear, compelling and powerful Jewish voice for the Palestinian cause. To hear her call out thethe numerous occasions the Israeli lobby tried to repress Palestinian voices was an eye-opener. I admire her strength and clarity, and her call to "not look away" at current events. Well said, Louise.

03/12/2023

Not sure if this pic will reveal itself in a Facebook format. But if you take a looooook at "Caveman Sights the City" ...

03/12/2023

New publication from Pamela Press, The Passions. A series of images, quotes and commentary of 'the passions'. Limited edition of fifty (50).

03/12/2023

New publication from Pamela Press, Abstract Photography. A series of images, quotes and commentary on the relevance of abstract photography. Limited edition of fifty (50).