I’ve created an epub and pdf version of Sascha Martin’s Gobbly Goo, the story I narrated in the three podcast teasers. But I don’t have a cover design yet and I don’t see one of those arriving any time soon. Zombie Dust and Pitchy Witch have the same issue. And the Derry Girls book.

A Wee Bit of Integrity: Limericks After Derry Girls Seasons 1 and 2

The free sample is ready.

I’ve also finished the free samples for these books now:

Sascha Martin’s Pitchy Witch
Sascha Martin’s Zombie Dust
The Fifth Line: Limericks After Lear Book One
The Next Hundred Lears: Limericks After Lear, Book Two

You’ll find them in the shop at JohnArthurNichol.com.

Sascha Martin’s Christmas Eve: the free sample is ready for download.

More titles to follow.

I’ve started on the free samples of my books. The first ones are ready: Sascha Martin’s Rocket-Ship, Sascha Martin’s Time Machine and Sascha Martin’s Super Ball. These are the three full colour picture books that Manuela Pentangelo illustrated.

The samples I’ve made are pretty fair, I think. Each one begins at the start of the story itself, and skips all that front matter (title page, copyright and so on) that usually fills up free book tasters. You can choose the PDF or Epub version, or download both.

You’ll find the samples linked at the top of the book pages in my Buy Me a Coffee shop, which also doubles as the showcase for my books.

I’ll do the free sample for Sascha Martin’s Christmas Eve next. This book also features Manuela’s illustrations, but the format is different from the picture books.

I hope you’ll give these samples a try, and let me know what you think.

This is a test post.

Closure of Russian Consulate in Sydney

Petition EN5399

Only 18 days remain for citizens and residents of Australia to sign the e-petition to the Australian Government calling for the closure of Russia’s Consulate in Sydney.

Please read the petition and add your signature at:

https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN5399

Thank you

🇺🇦 #Ukraine #StandWithUkraine #RussiaIsATerroristState

A brown Dachshund prances across the road, its tiny legs like springs on the asphalt.

On Sunday the Russians killed a girl who’d only lived for 23 days. They also killed her parents, and her brother who was 12 years old. He died in the hospital.

At Wynyard the tiny girl squeezes past on her father’s arm. She looks right at me and I wiggle a finger at her. Her mother smiles. The girl is unmoved.

Inside the bus, a tiny girl is higher than everyone, squeaking real words as her dad points out the sights.

On a slope beside the Harbour Bridge approach two excavators lurk, one above the other.

A plump woman stands on the footpath, feet together, back straight. She holds out her phone like a certificate she’s been given at assembly.

Neutral Bay. Grind and Dose. Faces at the window.

88 and family decamp at Spit Junction. The girl and two women stand talking. The boy swings his arms.

A building site on the Spit. Sheds at the water’s edge and logos, an architect’s name. Yellow barriers floating round a couple of pylons.

The bridge is up. Three lights flash in a triangle at the bottom of the hill, but we stop half-way down where a wall of vegetation blocks the light. Alien plants. Scrappy invaders. They’ve captured an orange and white lane marker with a printed message taped around its perimeter. It can’t escape, and no one’s looking for it.

‘Wo-o!’ says a smiley girl with red-hair and freckles. She’s barely reached the top and the bus is lurching away. She grabs a pole and follows her friends. ‘Oh my god.’

A girl nearly goes head-first down the stairwell, tripping on her own foot as she crosses the aisle. But her hand grabs the pole and she descends in good order.

A young teen girl leans in to hug her mother at the B1 stop in Dee Why. Her hoody has woolly Autumn stripes and a big blue 88.

Outside Wills and Wishes, hands clasped, a middle-aged woman stands beside a big red wheely suitcase and a thing that’s fallen, like an expeditionary neck pillow. She wears a white three-quarter jacket and an air of formality.

A cabbage moth flies round the distant weeds, but as I approach the window it ducks behind the plastic sheeting.

I can feel it watching me.

A magpie stares at its feet, trying to remember something. With a sigh you can almost feel it turns its head and chooses some floppy thing to shake and drop, to stand on and pull at. Not really feeling it. The magpie pauses. It stares into space, still chasing that elusive thought while something floppy dangles from its beak.

Exasperated, it tosses its head back and swallows.

In the Hawkei, Australia has made
Air defence for a mobile brigade;
The Ukrainians bleed
On their own, but they need
This equipment, this vehicle, this aid.

🇺🇦 #Ukraine #FreeTheHawkei #StandWithUkraine

Prigozhin is mobbed like a star,
As his President trembles afar;
With Russians dividing,
And Putin in hiding,
The door to the Kremlin’s ajar.

🇺🇦 #Ukraine