Rain, rain go away

How are we already 1/6th of the way through 2026? Spring is supposedly around the corner which is fantastic because I’ve definitely had enough of this winter weather, nearly two months of constant drizzle and dark skies. Our chicken pen looks like a bog! And it’s always easier to get the kids out and about when it’s sunny. And, here in Wales, the 1st of March is St. David’s Day, so, in advance, Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!

I’m pleased to say I completed one of my writing goals for 2026: I submitted a story to the Rhys Davies Short Story Contest. I don’t know for sure when the finalists are announced, but it looks like in previous years it’s been around June time. This is more of a literary contest but it is open to all genres. My expectations are not high but you’ve got to be in it to win it, right? I thought the same about Writers of the Future and look what happened there (ICYMI: I was a winner in 2025).

I also wrote a flash fiction story and a ‘Drabble’ (a complete story that is EXACTLY 100 words, which is much harder than it sounds). The latter I wrote on my phone in an afternoon as a bit of a writing exercise while my baby son slept on my lap. I’m pretty pleased with how they both turned out and both are now out on submission. That makes it eight stories out on submission; hopefully one of those will be accepted.

I haven’t made much headway with the fantasy story I want to submit to the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award (deadline is the end of April), which is one of my other goals for 2026. I ended up cutting about 2,000 words, though I’m pretty happy to do so as the story starts off at a better point; though it’s only left me with 500 words (🫣). I’ve been distracted by the flash story, my novel (see below) and life in general, and I’m not feeling so confident now about finishing this one on time. It may be that I park this goal to focus on the novel. I’ll decide in the next month.

But I have got back into writing my space opera novel this month. I wrote about 4,000 words and all of that in the last week, taking the work in progress to 13,500 words. My target is a 90,000 word first draft by the end of the year, as that is a marketable length for a modern space opera novel. That leaves around 76,000 words to write in 10 months, so 7,600 words a month. Probably (definitely) a bit ambitious, but who knows. Maybe I’ll do it. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

I'm a bit late posting about my favourite book I read in 2025, but here we are! It's been quite a busy few weeks since welcoming our third child into the world, so this post just slipped down my to-do-list. But better late than never, eh, and this book is definitely worth the wait. Some of you may remember me waxing lyrical about this during a previous newsletter when I was reading it last year.

Even before I spent a year teaching English in China, I had a soft spot for Chinese folklore and myths, which only grew after that amazing experience, and I particularly loved the stories in this collection that drew on some of those elements. Stories such as “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King”, which is about a peasant lawyer taking on corrupt, land-grabbing officials in ancient China. Or the eponymous story “The Paper Menagerie”, which is about a mixed race boy in 1980s USA who pushes away his Chinese mother and her (and his) culture to try and “fit in”. His mother makes him magical origami animals as he is growing up and as a way to connect. It is a very moving story and, I’m not going to lie, I shed a tear reading it. It was also the first story to win the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, so I’m clearly not the only person who thought it was great.

Ken Liu is a real inspiration for me. He’s both a Writers of the Future alumni (his story “Gossamer” appeared in Volume 19) and a former lawyer before becoming a full-time writer. I’ve got his epic fantasy / silk punk epic series “The Dandelion Dynasty”, as well as a few Chinese SF books he has translated (such as “The Three Body Problem” and the short story collection “Invisible Planets”) on my TBR pile, so you may see his work reappear in future issues of my newsletter.

Disclosure: To cover some of my running costs, I have incorporated affiliate links from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops. If you buy books linked to my site or newsletter, I may earn a commission.

What I’ve been reading: I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. It’s a gothic horror about a pair of sisters who live with their elderly, infirm uncle in a big old house on the outskirts of a small town somewhere in the USA. They are the only survivors of a fatal poisoning of the rest of their family six years before, for which the eldest sister, Constance, was tried but acquitted of their murders. This has left the family ostracised by the local village and the sisters the subject of taunts and songs, not that Constance ever leaves the house as she is a real recluse. The story is narrated by the youngest sister, Mary Katherine (“Merricat”), who is…uh, a little quirky to say the least, with rather deadly day dreams about people she does not like. Also, she may or may not have killed her family. Out of the blue, their estranged cousin Charles comes to visit and Merricat does not like him, which is reciprocated, and she wants to drive him away so she can live alone with Constance in their house for the rest of their lives. This was the pick for my book club this month and I really enjoyed it.

What I’ve been watching: I’ve been watching Small Prophets on BBC, written by Mackenzie Crook and starring Michael Palin. It’s about a chap whose girlfriend went missing a number of years ago and his life is in limbo as he waits for her to come home. Everyone else thinks she has died. His dad (Palin) suffers with dementia and lives in a residential home but tells his son how to grow prophesying homunculi (tiny humanoids) in jars in his shed. These homunculi are the ‘small prophets’ and they must answer any question truthfully. The chap intends to grow them to ask about his missing girlfriend. This is an easy to watch, light-hearted comedy with a bit of magic; what’s not to like?

This one is a St. David’s Day special.

It takes me back to school days where the girls would wear the traditional Welsh dress and the boys would wear a Wales rugby shirt and / or a leak on their jumpers. Some boys would have a little felt leak (like I often did) whereas some boys looked like they had raided their fridge a moment before school because they’d pinned a giant leak precariously to their jumpers. Now that I’m a parent, I can see how that might happen. St. David’s Day is approaching, we don’t have a felt leak, but we do have a giant leak in the fridge…

Until next time, keep dreaming.

Joel