Ste Pickford to illustrate Deg, cover revealed

Deg, my first novel, is to be illustrated by BAFTA-nominated artist Ste Pickford, a developer with a huge history in games art. Ste’s drawn the title image and will create separate plates for each chapter. Urbane revealed the cover last night on social media.

Collaborating with Ste is proving to be a brilliant experience. I have great respect for his talent, and his work is granting Deg’s text a level of maturity I feel it would fail to achieve alone. Ste’s take on the content, on its imagery and routines, is fascinating to me. Seeing the words visualised is as bizarre as it is thrilling.

Deg will release this autumn.

While Deg’s path to publication winds ever on, I’ve finished my next book. A fifth draft went quickly since I decided to bring some proper attention back to my fiction – VG247’s growth was a priority for me in 2015 – and I completed a final general pass last week. Securing an agent is an urgent goal for me now, so hopefully this next round of subbing will work out.

With this latest book in the bag I’ve been able to start writing something completely new, with good progress made on a first draft made since the Christmas holiday. While the previous two projects have been largely built on the past, it seems this will focus on France and the Vosges, my current home.

If you want to read something of mine while you wait for Deg, my latest story appeared in Dark Tales from the Secret War late last December. There are many reasons to buy this book. David J Rodger (this was David’s final publication; horribly, he died last November), Martin Korda and Richard Dansky all contributed under John Houlihan’s editorship, and the print version is a beautiful thing to hold. It’s only £9.99 (€14.99) in print, PDF included. There’s a PDF-only version, if that works better for you.