The Spoons That Are My Ears!

The second edition of Mister Gum is out! It's superior to the first edition in several ways, the most obvious being the production values. The original resembled a samizdat publication, the sort of thing smuggled across heavily patrolled borders at night. The winegum-man cover came in for particularly harsh criticism. It is the only cover I have ever personally designed and has proved to be my least popular cover ever.

The book clearly deserved better production values and now it has got them! This second edition contains extra material, including 'The Sticky White Hands', a new chapter written especially for the expanded version; 'I am a Slimy Man', the poem that won me the First Swansea Poetry Slam competition back in 2006; a new Afterword that strenuously denies that the character Mr Gum is anything like me; and a Foreword by the inestimable Joel Lane, a fine fellow and a great writer...

Mister Gum is a mosaic novel made up of four interlocking story cycles that outline the adventures of the depraved tutor Mr Gum and his sidekick, Fellatio Nelson. Basically it's a wild and filthy satire on the 'teaching' of Creative Writing. It is also partly a Roman à clef. Can you guess who the obnoxious Samuel Tweed is, I wonder? The truth is that I regard this as my funniest book, but don't let that put you off! The first edition had plenty of great reviews. But be warned: this book really is excessively rude! If you are easily offended by scenes of a sexual nature, then it'll be safer for you to avoid it...

Mister Gum is available right now direct from Dog Horn Publishing for the princely and lipsmacking sum of £9.99.