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My stories, and all other materials on this website, are copyright. I want Black Dog to have as wide an audience as possible, so I've published it under a Creative Commons license which allows anyone to copy and distribute the story with certain conditions (no commercial use, no alterations or additions, and I must be acknowledged as author) attached. The copyright notice at the end of every story chapter has a link to the licence. For all other materials on the site all rights are reserved, and nothing may be reproduced or used in any way without the express permission of the copyright holder. The copyright to some material on the site may be owned by others. This is noted where necessary.

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LATEST NEWS!

Missing: Muse

September 8 2011. I'm taking an involuntary break from writing because I've misplaced my muse. I did begin working on Will You Love Me?, but I haven't written anything for well over a year and I just can't find inspiration to continue it at present. My sincere apologies to those who were looking forward to another story; I'll update this page when I have further news.

Accidentally Poetic

A collection of poems from 1970 to 1972, mostly written during a six-month stay in hospital following a car accident. Read them here.

New novel: Will You Love Me?

Brady O'Brien is a twelve-year-old orphan with attitude. He's angry, disruptive and antisocial. He wears out foster families quicker than most kids wear out sneakers. As a last resort Brady's case manager places him with emergency carer Jonathan West.

Update, March 13 2010:

I have started writing again, so it shouldn't be too much longer before Will You Love Me? begins appearing on this site! Thank you for your patience.

Black Dog

Michael is a typical teenager living in an Australian country town. He has a loving family and cool friends, and is doing well at school. Then he suffers a major trauma.

Black Dog is the story of his journey inwards in the aftermath of this life-changing event.

I'd never felt so frustrated in my life. I was learning to ride my first bike, a Christmas gift the year I turned six. I'd been on tenterhooks for days. We had spent Christmas and New Year with my grandparents. It was bad enough that I had to wait until we came home before I could properly try out my new transport; it was even worse that I couldn't get the hang of riding the thing. Why was it so hard to stay on it? I picked myself up off the lawn after yet another fall and stood the bike up again, looking around to see if Dad was coming back yet. He had been coaching me when he'd been called to the phone, and left me to keep trying. I got back on and tried again. I was concentrating hard on keeping upright and didn't notice the young boy watching me from the footpath. I lost my balance; my foot caught in the chain and I yelled in pain as I hit the ground and the bike landed on top of me. Blinking back tears I tried to get my foot out, but in my haste I wasn't thinking straight and only made the pain worse. Then a voice behind me said, 'Here, lie still and I'll help you.'

A few moments later the bike and I were separated, and I was rubbing my foot where the chain had left a deep imprint. 'Thanks,' I said, as I looked up at the other boy. 'Who are you?'

Read on...

Download Black Dog!

Download a pdf file (580kb) of all ten chapters of Black Dog.

Brighten your day!

Being Five is a very funny cartoon about Georgie, a little kid who blogs using voice recognition software. Thanks to George Sfarnas for making it freely available. Updates automatically when the author publishes a new cartoon on his site.