This the last little thing I’ll tease before publication, here is the cover for A Riddle for a King by Mark Forsyth, and maybe illustrated by me, which publishes September 2024 with David Fickling.
You can pre-order your copies now - your local bookshop will have the best ones.

I think I’m all okay to share this image because it’s in proofs out there.
Meet the Midnight Witch from A Riddle for a King by Mark Forsyth, maybe illustrated by me, which publishes September 2024, you can pre-order your copy now.

Sometimes I think oh I’ll write a book, but my only ideas are either about a millennial who is so over time travelling that their response to being held in the stocks is ‘I can’t even with this right now, how long am I expected to do this for?’. Or something with nuns.

I did this at some point in 2018 and never finished it/have no memory of it

Publishers, the covers of magical middle-grade books need to stop looking all the same please

You should be issued a lifetime ban if you choose to walk the Met Gala red carpet in a completely unremarkable black suit, and don’t think you can be like hey not me look at my embellishments, masculinity doesn’t exempt you from participating in art.

CAPES.

I’m reading a book that’s set in the 1300s and one character has just said ‘fair enough’ and ‘no regrets’ in the same sentence. I hope the writer has regrets.

Yesterday after finishing up a transaction a customer announced ‘and that’s my Christmas shopping complete’.

I’m sure she was a mystery shopper trying to get me.

WHY IS IT AN UNEXPECTED ITEM? It is a bag and this is the bagging area.

If your name wasn’t Flora there was no room sorry

I’m interviewing the very brilliant Chris Carse Wilson tonight about his magnificent debut, Fray. You can book your free tickets here - eventbrite.co.uk/e/873368567897…

I’ve been doing some shelf headers at work and it took one tiny elderly customer to point out I didn’t mean MIDDLE EAST & ASLAN TRAVEL

Most recent update: my hairdresser will no longer serve me, he insists I book my appointments so his nephew can be around to cut my hair. I’m one haircut away from my free haircut.

His nephew calls me Maffy and I’m kinda into it.

(Teeny moment of sincerity) Ripley is glorious

… I loved that they emptied ice cube trays on three separate occasions in a charming 60s way (the moment was short)

Do you think Pepsi is constantly raging that Coke is like we’re Santa’s preferred beverage?

I just stuck my head out of the window and asked the scaffolding men to not build any higher for five minutes so I can have a quick shower and one of them was like lets crack on Benj we don’t wanna miss this.

Old people keep asking me what Hamilton (currently on at the Festival Theatre) is all about. I’ve told so many of them it’s a musical about Formula 1.

A lady asked to speak to the manager, as I was the most senior member of staff in the building I said that would be me.
She said ‘I find it hard to believe that someone like yourself is the manager’

It turned out the person like myself was wearing a jumper with a racoon on it.

My flatmate didn’t warn me that she’d hidden a Lindt bunny for me in the oven so after 7 mins of preheating it wasn’t a bunny.

I feel at my most alone when drivers of passing buses acknowledge each other.