If you go looking online for books by me, I hope you'll find: two novels; two books on storytelling; six (free for now) collections of essays and short stories. As of today. I'll be sure and keep that list updated.
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Everything else is either out of print or deniable.
I also write on Medium dot com, and this site is riddled with stories, essays, blog posts going back years. Anyway, the two novels are The Journey from Heaven and Escape Mutation - A Journal of the Plague Years. The story of how I came to write The Journey from Heaven is at least partially told across the About Us and About Me pages here, and as for Escape Mutation - we were in a lockdown. Global pandemic. What was I thinking? You can answer that question by ordering (or possibly even buying) the paperback from your friendly local bookstore, or you can order it from the publisher, Climbing Tree Books, or you can look for the ebook in the format of your choice. Did I really need to say all that? Sorry. Same goes for The Journey from Heaven, oviously, and - actually. Save time. Here are my novels and books on storytelling. |
Do you have an idea for a novel? Do you want to have an idea for a novel?
The First-Novelist's Guide to Getting Started does exactly what the title says it does. It will get you started on your first novel. Read this book with a pen in your hand and a keyboard nearby. “You can't learn how to write from a book. But you can learn to write from a person. If that person is William Essex then you'll pick up a lot of tips, tricks and actual wisdom and experience pretty damn quickly. And you'll have fun doing it.” Simon Minchin, author of Silverback and Viscera. |
What might have been; what might be.
Escape Mutation is an account of the plague years that followed the mutated-virus outbreaks of the early 2020s. In a desk diary scavenged from a house of the dead, a man records his own experiences of the end times - what he has to do to survive; how he came to be marooned where he is; how he reacts to the discovery that he is not alone. "Utterly convincing, utterly terrifying in a very quiet way, with great shafts of humour." Patricia Finney, author of Lucky Woman and Gloriana's Torch. |
What's it like being kissed by a frog?
Why can't little princesses do their own laundry? The essential guide to DIY bedtime storytelling answers all your questions and several you didn’t ask about getting young children to sleep. Contains one complete bedtime story and tips for telling many others. |
Where are the angels?
In the desert, a victorious rebel army advances on a makeshift camp overcrowded with refugee families. The aid workers expect a massacre. But then one young woman decides that she will not accept death. Closer to home, an old man cries out for certainty. A sick child meets an invisible friend. And out there in the darkness, under an empty sky, a young man prepares to take a dangerous road. Who is that, standing beside him? “In a world that can seem rough and harsh, this beautiful book is a balm for the soul.” Simon Minchin, author of Silverback and Viscera. |
The collections of essays and short stories are currently only available on Kindle, as ebooks obviously, and they're free if you sign up for Kindle Unlimited. That is not an affiliate link; it's just information.
My idea with these was just to offer something for quick easy reading.
We all have those liminal moments when there isn't going to be time to watch a movie or settle into a proper doorstop of a novel - but when just gazing into the abyss of social media would be far too soul-depleting. So maybe one or two quick stories would be a brain-engaging alternative? I hope so. Keep one (or more) of these collections on your device for when the plane is delayed or the wifi goes down or civilisation collapses. And who's to say that you won't one day watch the rain wash away the ashes of the old forests, and water the new? |
After the fires and the deluge, the soft rain. The green shoots and the new beginnings.
But how harsh will the the fires be and what is the future that awaits us? Here are stories of despair and stories of hope. Stories of the past and the present and the time yet to come. |
Here’s the future as it won’t be.
When the world has ended and the wifi has gone down for good, read these stories to find out what didn’t just happen. I can remember soaking home-grown lettuces in salted water to get the bugs out. Buying fish off the quay, and vegetables in season. Nothing wrapped in plastic. Lucozade in glass bottles. Kilner jars. Bakelite telephones with tangly platted cords. But the past is another country. No flights there. Are there? |
Not everything dies if the world burns. But we do. So what now?
Climate change would stop if we all just went away. Global warming would stop too, if we all just agreed to cancel the advances and the technologies of the last hundred years or so. If we all went back to a time before the word “global” was connected to the words “supply chain”, we’d survive. But all of that’s impossible, right? Isn't it? |
Robots and other tech overshare, don't they, private information especially?
I didn't buy a teapot once. It was red. This collection includes that story.
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