The Spoons That Are My Ears!

I have just finished my 450th story. It was a 'Don Cosquillas' tale and it means I'm now halfway through writing The Pilgrim's Regress. This book is turning into one of the most daft things I've done! I've given Don Cosquillas a bicycle, a sword and a sidekick panda, and sent him on a journey that involves meeting many characters from my other story cycles. He's like a needle trailing a meta-thread. I'm not using him to tie up loose ends but to pass over and under them, weaving them together into a scarf of recursiveness, something to keep the neck of absurdity warm!

I sometimes ask myself: "What's the most successful story I've ever written?" The answer is probably 'The Old House Under the Snow...' It was my first story to be translated into a foreign language (Serbian) and was my first story to feature as a magazine cover (Postscripts #2). Also it is due to be reprinted in English in Mike Ashley's forthcoming Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy and it has just appeared in French translation as 'La vieille maison sous la neige' in Fiction #7. The story concerns explorers who venture into a house buried under snow. Completely unlike the above photograph, which shows explorers climbing a chocolate cake!