Rae of Light

Why SciFi? For years Sci Fi has been the purview of male writers. Specifically white male writers. This is the reason Octavia Butler was repeatedly asked in interviews: Why Science Fiction? And her response was always “Why not!” My introduction to screen Sci Fi was through my mother. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, television meant that series such as Dr Who and Star Trek were making their way onto the small screen. I didn’t learn about Dr Who till I came to the UK and went to university. Because of my mother however, Beam me up Scottie, Lieutenant Uhura kissing Captain Kirk and Vulcan salutes regularly featured in conversations. This at a time in my particular part of the world, when cross-racial kissing was frowned upon and not every household owned a TV. The wealthiest families polished their set with Mr Sheen every Friday before friends came round to watch The World at War or Dallas after dinner. Interestingly, I initially only consumed Sci Fi on the smal...

The Main Characters Brueberon – A very lonely over-sized dragon in need of a friend. Clarissa Henry – An extreme reader who dreams of worlds other than the one she lives in. Kastaspella – A dastardly witch who detests Clarissa and hopes to make her life even more miserable than it already is. A Book Is Born My intention was never to write a children’s book. Before I started working at Inkhead I actively avoided little children quite simply because I was afraid of them. Okay, terrified is more accurate a description. As a teacher I stuck with teenagers. Despite their erratic qualities I related to them very well. Perhaps I was still a teenager at heart. Ultimately I assumed my writing would focus on teen and adult themes. At the time I was already writing the first in my Sci Fi series and was almost done with the final edit of my debut novel. So I was a little stunned to find myself writing The Lonely Dragon . I’m even more surprised now to find myself producing a ...

When I wrote my debut novel Six Dead Men it was meant to be a stand-alone piece. I was already working on a Sci Fi Novel and had several other ideas floating about for new novels. It also had a very different ending to the current one. My ART at the time (a writing group run by Caroline Natzler) were insistent I change my planned ending. Here was this bunch of hard core writers who demanded the perfect word in exactly the right spot and my realistic ending was proving too traumatising for them. Who could have predicted it? Certainly not me. It took me a while to rethink my ending (an entire summer if I recall correctly) to find a closing which didn’t involve a rewrite of the entire novel. This made the writing process a touch challenging but I believe it produced a better book. However, it also woke the voices of the subsidiary characters who then demanded I write something just for them. It's the reason I now also have Six Degrees , a book of short stories in the ser...