Mark Stay's Blog, page 2
September 5, 2025
This weekend’s Comic Cons: Bournemouth & Peterborough
I’ll be selling and signing m’books this weekend. You can find me on Saturday 6th in Bournemouth, and on Sunday 7th I’ll be in Peterborough. Click on the images below for more details…
And for future dates, pop over to my diary and events page here.
August 29, 2025
Creative Differences is One Today
Creative Differences, the monthly podcast where I talk to writers about the little things that make a big difference to their writing process, is a year old today! It’s been such a treat to chat to authors, and to have writers and readers like your good selves joining us on the livestreams and asking such excellent questions of the guests.
If you’ve not dipped in, then there’s never a better time to start. I’ve interviewed bestselling and award-winning authors like Sarah Pinborough, Nadine Matheson, Gareth L Powell, Tracy Buchanan, Rowan Coleman and Nicola May, and debut authors and writers that I just really like. You can find them all on Youtube or on your favourite podcast provider…
LISTEN TO THE PODCASTSOr you can watch them all on this Youtube playlist…
And there are bite-size clips here…
And if you’re a writer looking for guidance in this crazy world of publishing, then you can join me in the Green Room…Twice a month, I run live sessions on Zoom where you can ask me questions about the craft of writing, your WIP, or the business of publishing. The sessions are fun and informal and chatty. You can send me questions in advance. They’ll be recorded live and saved on Kofi for exclusive access to Green Room supporters.
I’m running this via Kofi, where you can join by clicking on the Green Room membership tier for £20 a month. There’s no long term commitment. With Kofi, you can support for just a month, or for as long as you like.
My goal is to be able to give supporters advice that will make a real difference to their writing and career, because the way I see it: having worked in this industry as a salesperson, bookseller and author for over 30 years, I’ve made every mistake, so you don’t have to.
DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE GREEN ROOMThanks again to everyone who has supported the podcast by listening, sharing or leaving a rating/review with their podcast provider. It makes a huge difference!
August 28, 2025
Passive Aggressive or Punctuation?
A learned debate on the use of punctuation in messaging apps from the Creative Differences podcast, featuring contributions from professors Rowan Coleman and George Stay …
LISTEN TO THE WHOLE PODCASTOr watch it on Youube…
GD Wright LIVE tonight, 28th August 2025
Join me LIVE tonight 8PM BST with GD Wright, bestselling author of Into the Fire, on the Creative Differences podcast where we discuss the little things that make a big difference to the creative process…
JOIN US ON FACEBOOKOR ON YOUTUBE…
August 22, 2025
Rowan Coleman: “I Was a Bit Grumpy…”
Special guest Rowan Coleman, bestselling author of Never Tear Us Apart, reveals how a research trip to Malta started with her being ‘a bit grumpy’ but resulted with her making a magical connection with the island…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: You went to Malta to research this. So what’s your process when you go to a place to research? Do you have like a shopping list of things to do, or do you just step out the hotel and go, right, where do I go now?
ROWAN: I was a bit grumpy about it, actually. Because, believe it or not, because the island itself is… but it’s sort of tied up with my own feelings about my relationship with my father. And so I was like, well, I expect I’m just gonna hate it and it’s going to be rubbish and I won’t like it. But when I turned up, it was the opposite. I did actually feel weirdly, immediately connected to it. And my shopping list is… I don’t really have a specific set of things for this book, because I first visited before I started writing it, really. If I’ve written a book already, like with The Summer of Impossible Things, I knew that I wanted to get to various locations in Brooklyn. But for this book, I was just getting a sense of the island for the first time, and so I just let it lead me. And it’s very small. It’s about the size of the Isle of Wight. And so the first thing that drew me were the ancient temples, and there are many Mesolithic temples on the island that are absolutely magical and fascinating. And that kind of was like my my first step on a very organic journey into putting all the components of the book together.
LISTEN TO THE WHOLE PODCASTOr watch it on Youtube…
August 15, 2025
Rowan Coleman: “I Forgive Myself…”
Special guest Rowan Coleman, bestselling author of Never Tear Us Apart, reveals how forgiveness has become part of her creative process…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?
ROWAN: I think the thing that’s made the biggest difference to my creative process is forgiving myself. For not… Sometimes going quite slowly to sometimes just doing small bits at a time. I am a late diagnosed, unmedicated ADHD woman, and I used to think… I was convinced that I had a very strict writing regime and sat at my desk from 9 to 5, and wrote every day, and I didn’t realise that this was, in fact, not true until I took my kids with me to a book event when they were quite young. And I was saying this and I heard this laughter from the back of the hall, I was like, what? Why are you laughing, darling? “You don’t do that. All you do faff around all day on the internet.” (laughs) I thought, that is true. That is all I do. So now I sort of just think, well, if it’s not… if you can’t… you know, sometimes you have to write when you have to write because we all have multiple things that we’re juggling, you know, proper jobs and, teaching courses and all that stuff. And sometimes you just have to go, right. Well, this is my time to write, and I have to write, but if it’s… if I can’t be that disciplined, I just say, all right, well, it’s not happening today, but it will happen tomorrow. And you only write ten words. That’s fine, because that’s ten more words and you’ll add to it tomorrow. And I sort of just let myself off the hook and I don’t let myself feel shame about it anymore, which is a big part of growing up with neurodiversity. Undiagnosed neurodiversity particularly is kind of constantly feeling that you’re not trying hard enough. So I try to tell myself now that I am, in fact, trying hard enough, and it does somehow work out in the end. I don’t know how, but it does.
MARK: Yeah, I think the moral of the story is be kind to yourself and don’t invite your kids to book events.
ROWAN: I mean, I don’t know what’s worse: that one, or when they came when they were a little bit older and were sitting in the front row on Switches.
LISTEN TO THE WHOLE PODCASTOr watch it on Youtube…
August 13, 2025
Rowan Coleman: What Would Charlotte Brontë Do? | Mark Stay’s Creative Differences Episode 12
Bestselling and award-winning author Rowan Coleman joined me to discuss her new book Never Tear Us Apart, revealing how a family photo inspired her to research in Malta, why she wrote her next book, The Good Boy, under a pen name, then there was something about quantum physics, and ultimately she asks the question we all want an answer to in any situation: What would Charlotte Brontë do? This was a really fun chat with tons of great advice for writers.
LISTEN TO THE PODCASTOr watch it on Youtube…
LINKS
ROWAN’S SUBSTACK ON QUANTUM PHYSICS
August 7, 2025
Fancy Some Magical Mischief?
I’ve got a (sort of) short story in this excellent new collection of short stories from the listeners of the Bestseller Experiment podcast (click on the image to get your hands on a copy)…
Why only sort of? Here’s my authors’ note from the collection…
Author’s Note (and excuse)What you’re about to read is not exactly a short story. I did start one — honest, guv! — and it was a belter, all set in the world of my Witches of Woodville series. It started in the 1920s and ended in the 1970s*… which is where the problems started. As I began jotting down ideas for the story it soon became clear that I wasn’t about to squeeze it all into the allotted five thousand words. No, it soon became clear that this was going to be a whopper, perhaps even a novel all of its own. And things happen in the story that, at first, I thought I didn’t want to rush. Then it occurred to me that the real reason that I didn’t want to rush it was that, actually, I might not be ready to write them yet, as it meant saying a final farewell to certain characters. So I’ve popped that story back into a drawer at the back of my mind and will wait till the time is right to go back and see if I’m ready to finally [REDACTED] to poor old [REDACTED].
And if that wasn’t enough of a tease, then what you’re about to read is the first chapter of a thing that might never happen. It’s a new story, set in the world of the Witches of Woodville, and I’m still wondering where it might go, if anywhere. But I had great fun writing this opening chapter and I think it almost works as its own little standalone moment. So, in the spirit of mischief, I offer you The Canary Girls…
Happy reading, and please send all complaints to Miss Araminta Cranberry at the Woodville Village Library,
Mark Stay
*If you’ve ever wondered why the Woodville Village motto is ‘Witch-free since 1973’ this story was going to reveal all
So there you have it… and don’t forget, the anthology is packed with terrific stories from amazing authors, including (deep breath) W. J. Grupe, Jr, Rosie Stirling, Phil Oddy, Jeevani Charika, Jan Carr, Eva St. John, Dylan Blake, Anne Woodward, Angela C Nurse, Andrea Corzatt, BR Dexter, ZA Gowland, WA Leggatt, Trey Montague, Tommy Wills, Morgan Delaney, Kate Baker, Karen Storey, Julian Barr, Jocelyn Sordoni, GM White, GB Ralph, Gareth Lewis, Emmanuella Dekonor, Andrew Guile, Andrew Chapman, Alex Weight, SC Gowland.
Treat yourself…
Get your copy hereAugust 6, 2025
Bookmarked Interview
There are some fun questions (and answers!) in this Q&A that I did for that most-excellent thriller writer Max Elwood on his blog. To find out what book I think should be adapted as a movie, how I organise my bookshelves, and why I think Amazon is both the best and worst thing to happen to publishing, click on the image below…
August 4, 2025
I’m at the Canterbury Gaming Convention 9-10th August
I’m going to be a special guest (my mum always said I was special!) at the Canterbury Gaming Convention this weekend Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th August. If you’re a fan of tabletop games then this is basically your Disneyland, and if you’re a fan of books then there are other bookish guests like the author Willow Woods, Books and Brews and little ol’ me! It’s in two — count ’em! — of the big sports halls at the University of Kent. Click on the image below to check out the amazing exhibitors and guests and for tickets… See you there!
