Roger's Plog

I've moved.

2009-10-18T20:29:00.000+01:00

To here.

The plog is dead, long live the bloody blog

2009-10-12T14:49:00.003+01:00

I'm moving my blog over to wordpress, largely so that I can have a combined website and blog, all under the same domain name: www.rogernmorris.co.uk

It's also an opportunity for me to finally treat myself to a proper website, rather than the hokey amateurish job that was even mocked by my kids. This one has been designed professionally, by my old mate Antoney Calvert of Colourform. I think Antoney's done a great job, with a solution that works particularly well for writers. So if there are any writers looking for a website reading this, get in touch with Antoney! You can find his email address on the Colourform website.

I haven't quite got round to transferring over all my links. In fact, I haven't done any yet but give me a chance! In the meantime, I hope to see you at the Bloody Blog.

Dostoevsky on 'literary types'

2009-09-26T15:21:00.004+01:00

From The Demons (aka The Devils, or The Possessed):

"She invited literary people, and they were immediately brought to her in great numbers. Then they began to come on their own, without invitations: one would bring another. Never before had she seen men of letters like these. They were impossibly vain, but very openly so, as though that was their duty. Some (though by no means all) would even turn up drunk, but they seemed to see this as evidence of some beautiful, special truth that had been discovered only the day before. All of them were strangely proud of something. On all of their faces it was written that they had just discovered some extremely important secret. They would abuse each other, and reckon it their honour. It was rather difficult to determine just what they had written; but critics, novelists, playwrights, satirists and specialists in exposes were in attendance."

(I don't know how to do an acute accent on the second e in "exposays"..)

Last Words compiled by Claire Cameron

2009-09-24T12:50:00.002+01:00

Toronto-based writer Claire Cameron, author of The Line Painter, compiled a collection of last words uttered by executed prisoners in Texas. Her piece ran in the New York Times here. I thought it was incredibly affecting and weirdly poetic.

A Razor Wrapped in Silk cover

2009-09-18T12:46:00.003+01:00

Keanu Reeves’ pint pot

2009-09-17T10:29:00.001+01:00

I was meeting a friend for a drink in the Compton Arms in Islington last week. As I was waiting for him to turn up I overheard a conversation between the barmaid and a punter.

“That’s Keanu Reeves’ pint pot,” said the barmaid, nodding towards something wrapped in a plastic carrier bag.

“Who?”

“Keanu Reeves. He was in here the other night. Must have been filming nearby and he came in for a pint of Guinness. They like to try things, don’t they?”

“Who do?”

“Celebrities.”

“Is he a celebrity then? I’ve never heard of him. What’s he called?”

“Keanu Reeves. He was in The Matrix.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a film. Well, there are three of them. Matrix One. Matrix Two. Matrix Three. He was in them all.”

“Any good?”

“Yeah. Well, it depends if you like that sort of thing.”

“I don’t know. Never seen them.”

“He’s been in other things.”

The punter absorbed this news in silence.

“Well, anyhow, he was in here the other night. Had a pint of Guinness. He left a bit in the bottom and Alan said ‘Do you dare me to drink that?’ So Jack said he’d put three quid in the charity box if he drank it. So he did. Then Tom said we should auction it off, for charity. Keanu Reeves’ pint pot. We got ten pounds thirty for it. So thanks to Keanu Reeves, we raised thirteen pounds thirty for charity. Mike bought it, but he forgot it, so it’s waiting for him, the next time he comes in. So there it is, Keanu Reeves’ pint pot.”

The punter gazed inscrutably up at the pint pot wrapped in a plastic bag. “Thirteen pounds thirty?” He shook his head incredulously, as if for him this was the most amazing part of the whole affair.

My kids mocked my website

2009-09-14T16:13:00.002+01:00

I made the mistake of clicking on my website in front of my son (aged 9). He howled with derision and called his sister (11) over.

"No, Dad, no! Colour clash! It's so amateurish! You should have got us to do it! That's terrible!" All this was accompanied by much laughter, and the occasional patronising "Aww" at a particularly inept bit of design on my part. It comes to something when you're patronised by your own kids.

It was quite hurtful. I mean, aren't our kids supposed to look up to us at that age? Isn't it only when they're teenagers, and work out they can beat us in a physical fight, that they're supposed to start treating us with the contempt we deserve? I was hoping I had a few more years of uncritical admiration to go yet.

At least my wife was on my side. She had to be, as she had approved my original design. Though now I am beginning to wonder whether her "Yes, dear, very nice" at the time was quite the ringing endorsement I was looking for.

Anyhow, their main problem with it seemed to be the colours of the typeface. I had bright red and bright blue contrasting vibrantly. A bold statement, I thought. They claimed it hurt their eyes. So I toned down the colours.

This is the revised version. I haven't shown it to my kids yet. I don't think I can stand the humiliation.

Humble apologies to any commenters

2009-09-14T12:35:00.003+01:00

Oh God, I feel awful about this. I just discovered that I had 22 hidden comments waiting for me to moderate. I had been wondering why I hadn't been getting any comments recently. The truth was I had, but I just didn't know they were there.

I must have switched over to moderating my comments and then immediately forgotten that I'd done so.

God. I'm so crap. And sorry. Sorry sorry sorry.

I promise that I will keep an eye open for comments from now on.

Rapping with the rap sheet

2009-09-09T09:29:00.002+01:00

Michael Jacob, who with his wife Daniela de Gregorio is one half of the crimewriter Michael Gregorio, has written up the recent event I did in Perugia for the Rap Sheet.

I finished reading Mike and Daniela's latest, A Visible Darkness, at the weekend.

It's an intensely dark and gripping tale, grotesque, atmospheric, full of candlelit twists and the fetid stench of the past - a bit like picking your way through an old, labarynthine castle. The Prussian amber industry on the Baltic coast, taken over by Napoleon's occupying forces, provides the setting, and as always Mike and Daniela's grasp of the historical situation - and their ability to bring it vividly to life, to imagine it from the inside - is extrememly impressive. This is what it must have been like, you can't help thinking. And a grim and grinding time it was, though beautifully evoked by Mike and Daniela. It's the third in their series featuring the Prussian magistrate, Hanno Stiffeniis. If you haven't discovered the series already, a treat is in store for you. Buy it here or here. Or you can start with the first in the series, Critique of Criminal Reason.

The Lithuanian Axe

2009-08-30T20:46:00.002+01:00

I have to say, I love the cover my Lithuanian publisher has produced for their edition of A Gentle Axe - evidently Svelnusis Kirvis in Lithuanian.

It's just been published, I'm told.

Back from Italy

2009-08-27T13:22:00.007+01:00

Just got back from our holiday in Italy - a week in Umbria followed by three days in Rome.

While we were in Umbria, we met up with Mike Jacob and Daniela de Gregorio, the husband and wife team who together write as Michael Gregorio. I'm now reading their latest release, A VISIBLE DARKNESS, a copy of which they very kindly gave to me. It's the third outing for their Prussian detective of the Napoleonic era, Hanno Stiffeniis. So far, it's a brilliant read. The authority with which they summon up the period is breathtaking (especially the descriptions of the excrement-flooded streets), added to which it's a riveting murder story with some gloriously gruesome details. Mike and Daniela put the finishing touches to the fourth book in the series while we were out there. I had the privilege of seeing, and touching, the raw manuscript on their desk.

We got to know Mike and Daniela last year when they invited me to the Trevi Noir Festival which they organised. They are lovely, warm people - with incredibly dark and twisted imaginations.

Mike and Daniela very kindly organised an event for me in Perugia. Amazingly a fair few people turned up! Given the heat, this really was a miracle.

My daughter Claire took the pictures:

The poster advertising the event.

Mike Jacob, RNM and Daniela de Gregorio.

We're joined at the table by the Perugian bookseller Alberto Mori, who sponsored the event.

Plantagenet Queen twitters

2009-08-11T22:05:00.006+01:00

I just noticed this article in the Guardian about Philippa Gregory's venture onto twitter. The Guardian describes it as "the latest in a series of recent literary experiments on the micro-blogging service which have run the gamut from the comic to the literary".

I was pleased to see I get listed as one of those recent literary experiments, though they don't make clear which end of the gamut I'm at.

Proof preshure.

2009-08-10T10:45:00.002+01:00

I've been reading the proofs for my next novel, 'A Razor Wrapped in Solk'. Sorry, that should be 'Silk'. But believe it or not, that was actually how the title was set on the title page. I hasten to say that that particular typo had already been picked up by someone at Faber, but it just goes to show how things can go awry.

The thought of proof-reading terrifies me in advance, though I'm always grateful to have had the chance to read through the pages one last time before they go to print. At least I've spotted a few clangers. Inevitably, I'll have missed many more.

The temptation is to start rewriting the whole thing. That's not allowed, thankfully - otherwise I think I would go mad. There were a couple of sentences that I did rework slightly, and a couple of word choices that I modified. Mainly that was due to correcting egregious grammatical or sense atrocities, so I hope I will be indulged by Faber.

Anyhow, I think I'm pretty much done. Which means it will be going to print before too long.

The New York Times pronounces. Twice.

2009-07-27T15:01:00.004+01:00

The New York Times Book Review ran the briefest of reviews for the US paperback of A Vengeful Longing on Sunday. Except that in the print edition they reviewed my earlier Porfiry Petrovich novel, The Gentle Axe, under the title of A Vengeful Longing. The online edition of the supplement carried the correct review, and this correction:

A brief description in the Paperback Row column on Page 16 this weekend, about “A Vengeful Longing,” by R. N. Morris (Penguin, $15), was published in error. It describes a previous book by the same author. A correct description of “A Vengeful Longing” follows:

In this sequel to “The Gentle Axe” — “CSI: St. Petersburg,” our reviewer, Liesl Schillinger, called it — Morris returns to the city in the late 1860s. His protagonist, once again, is Porfiry Petrovich, who solved Raskolnikov’s crime in Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” Here, Petrovich discovers a link between three apparently unrelated murders in a book that is richly evocative of its time and place.

Ellen Meister, the author of The Smart One and Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA, who is a friend of mine from the writing website zoetrope.com, very kindly scanned in the print edition, which carries the mistaken review:

New trailer for Cocteau in the Underworld

2009-07-15T17:36:00.009+01:00

This is the new trailer for the opera Cocteau in the Underworld. The footage was shot at the Brighton performance in May. The trailer was put together by the film maker David Newell.

If you can't see the video, possibly because you're using a mozilla firefox browser, you can watch it on Youtube, here.

What you get when you win a New Covey Trailer Award

2009-07-14T09:11:00.001+01:00

More details here.

Red room features my cat

2009-07-13T18:43:00.003+01:00

The writers' site Red Room has pulled out the video of me struggling with my writing demon, or cat, and featured it on their homepage. It seems they think my pain is entertaining.

And the winner is...

2009-07-10T11:17:00.002+01:00

My trailer for A Vengeful Longing was picked as the best author-produced trailer in the monthly New Covey Trailer Awards for May. Chuffed, I am.

Twuffer's gone mad

2009-07-02T14:12:00.000+01:00

Apologies to all my twitter followers. It seems that the application I use to schedule my tweets has gone mad. I set it up to send out an instalment every hour, but it has been bombarding people with tweets in strange clusters. I think it's probably lost me a few followers, who are getting hacked off with the inundation.

Possibly this could be the end of the experiment. I can't contend with the technology issues. For one thing, the tweets I scheduled were meant to keep the story going over a couple of days, but twuffer has spewed them all out at once. So all that work entering them has effectively gone to waste, plus the ill will that it has probably created is very unfortunate.

We shall have to see, but I don't seem to be able to get into twuffer to see what's going on, or to correct it.

Bookhuggers unite!

2009-06-29T11:24:00.002+01:00

There's a new website called bookhuggers, which I think is well worth a look. Okay, I'll declare an interest. I'm on it. I've taken part in a 'virtual panel' about crime writing - exploring both the factual and fictional varieties. The other panellists are Armand Cabasson, a psychiatrist and novelist working in the North of France, and Jay Dobyns, an ATF undercover agent (!!!) who infiltrated the Hells Angels after faking a murder (even more exclamation marks!!!!!!!).

Check it out here.

The guilty one

2009-06-26T16:30:00.005+01:00

This was the line-up in the Waterstones Islington shop window. That's me on the right. The guilty one. I was caught red-handed inside the shop taking the photo below - a picture of my book, A Vengeful Longing, on display, complete with a bookseller's recommendation. "Excuse me, we don't allow photographs of the displays!" came the cry from the sales assistant. "But it's my book!" I pleaded. She softened. Smiled. "Oh that's different," she said.

I pointed to myself in the line-up poster as proof. "See, that's me."

"We'll do our best for you," she promised.

Here's the offending shot, which I was not made to delete:

Waterstone's Fresh Blood

2009-06-23T11:49:00.006+01:00

Waterstone's are doing a major promotion for crime fiction this summer, and I was lucky enough to be included in it. You can see me as large as life in Waterstone's windows at the moment, in a window poster. It's reproduced on the Waterstone's website here, and above. That's me at the end on the right.

Leaving aside my own deep misgivings about posing as the Kevin Spacey character from The Usual Suspects (not my idea, honest!), still this is great news!

A tale of two covers

2009-06-22T19:10:00.006+01:00

Interesting. The French edition of A Gentle Axe, which goes by the title L'Ame Detournee, seems to be available in two different covers:

Presumably one's aimed at male and the other at female readers.

I wonder if even more alternative cover designs will start to appear as the publication date (1.9.09) approaches?

Watch the book

2009-06-22T17:53:00.002+01:00

Watch The Book is a blog that features book trailers. They've very kindly posted my trailer for A Vengeful Longing. Go see!

Stupid Whoosit

2009-06-22T10:20:00.003+01:00

If you've ever played the Chad Valley game Whoosit, you'll know it's very good training for developing the skills of young detectives. Each player conceals the identity of a mystery person from the other player, who has to use deductive reasoning to eliminate characters from their playing board. You must have played it. the players take it in turns to ask questions, usually based on the physical attributes of the characters, such as hair colour, sex, or whether or not the person wears glasses or earrings.

We were playing it in the garden on Sunday, but it fairly quickly deteriorated into a variant of the game invented by my wife, called Stupid Whoosit. In this version, the questions you ask are almost impossible to answer with any certainty, and when you have the answer you are generally none the wiser as to who you should eliminate. A couple of examples that were asked in our games: "Does this person own a boxed set of the second series of Star Trek?" (asked by my son Luke); "Is this person an aspiring playboy model?" (asked by daughter Claire); "Has this person ever had an affair but been forgiven by their partner or spouse?" (asked by wife Rachel). Surprisingly, a couple of times the correct character was actually identified, as after a while you do feel like you get to know the people on the boards and you are able to make some calls about what their tastes and personal histories are.

It's a good game. I recommend it.

Overheard in Somerfield

2009-06-18T10:15:00.002+01:00

He was wearing camouflage shorts and a pastel vest. What was strange was how calm, how natural, how easy within himself he was. He was not at all abashed, or agitated. He spoke clearly so that there could be no misunderstanding. He didn't seem to mind that everyone in Somerfield could hear his half of the mobile phone call: “Just push her out then lock the door. Right? If she comes back don’t let her back in. Try not to let the police in if they turn up. Just turn out the lights and don’t let on there’s anyone in. But don’t resist arrest... if they do get in, don’t resist arrest. No, listen. I know you. That’ll only make it worse. If they arrest you, don’t cause any trouble. I know you. I’m serious. It’ll be worse if it gets to court. You could end up in jail. No seriously, don’t resist arrest. That’s big trouble that, mate. Don’t cause trouble. All right?”

He bought a Ginsters meat pasty. No petrol. Just that. "Do you want a bag?" asked the woman serving. "No, I'm going to eat it now," he replied.

The New Covey Trailer Awards

2009-06-07T09:31:00.003+01:00

I've entered the trailer into an on-going awards scheme called the New Covey Trailer Awards. It's in the 'author-produced' category, which will be judged by a panel of experts.

However, it's also in open competition for the 'most intriguing trailer', which anyone can vote in. There's a poll here. The voting panel is on the left. My trailer, A Vengeful Longing, is listed at the bottom, #20, so you have to scroll down a little to find it. Should you wish to vote for it, that is. Oh go on, you know you want to!

The trailer is also appearing on bookscreening.com.

Spot the difference...

2009-06-03T17:49:00.003+01:00

This is a new version of the trailer for A Vengeful Longing. I wonder if you can tell how it differs from the last version I posted?!

A free copy of the book to the first person who gets it right.

The surrealism of detective fiction

2009-05-26T14:26:00.003+01:00

A short piece I wrote for the Strictly Writing blog.

The eve of paperback publication

2009-05-25T19:33:00.004+01:00

Tomorrow (Tuesday 26th May) is the publication date of the Penguin US paperback of A Vengeful Longing. To celebrate, I thought I'd re-post the trailer I made for the book:

And here's the Publisher's Weekly review of the hardback:

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Set in St. Petersburg in 1868, Morris's superb second novel to feature Porfiry Petrovich (after The Gentle Axe) puts the detective borrowed from Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment on the trail of a series of vile murders. When the wife and son of a doctor die after consuming a box of chocolates at their dacha, the obvious suspect is the morphine-addicted doctor. Then a shooting and a stabbing lead Petrovich elsewhere—to an elegant confectioner's full of pastries and possible revolutionaries as well as to the city's underworld. As Petrovich breaks in a new detective, the aptly named Pavel Virginsky, he introduces colleague and reader alike to the Russian capital and to the ills of the entire society. Morris captures this world with expert strokes, never content to merely peddle exotica, but making sure that his characters spring convincingly from their setting. While the person behind the crimes is a little unlikely, this novel stands out from a number of fine czarist-era mysteries—by Russians and foreigners alike—like a Fabergé egg at a yard sale.

A week away....

2009-05-19T14:28:00.004+01:00

... from the publication of the US Penguin paperback of A Vengeful Longing.

If you're interested, there's a Reading Group guide here on the Penguin website.

Bristol CrimeFest.

2009-05-13T09:44:00.006+01:00

It's the Bristol CrimeFest this weekend, and I will be there. I'm taking part in a panel on historical crime writing: A Moment in Time - CWA Historical Shortlist Panel.

I'm very happy to be participating, even if it does mean I have to be on the train by 8.00 am on Sunday morning. Yes, Sunday morning. I'll be travelling to Bristol with my fellow panellist, and fellow North London Historical Crime Writer, Andrew Martin. Our panel is at 11.00 am and the other panellists are Marjorie Eccles and Ann Granger. The panel will be moderated by Janet Laurence.

Photos from Brighton

2009-05-05T18:59:00.000+01:00

Viewable here. Thanks to the photographer Matthew Andrews.

Times Listings Opera Choice, Saturday May 2

2009-05-05T17:23:00.002+01:00

Cocteau in Brighton

2009-05-05T14:27:00.009+01:00

Composer Ed Hughes in front of the Pavilion Theatre Brighton, scene of last night's performance of his opera Cocteau in the Underworld (with a libretto by me!).

A view of the set, with John Lloyd Davies in discussion with Liz Webb, Samantha Kerrison and Sophie Cleobury.

Another view of the set, showing the back of Ben Oliver .

We had a great night in Brighton last night, a tremendous, powerful performance from a fantastic cast: Owen Gilhooly as Cocteau, Jacqueline Varsey as Eurydice, Hannah Pedley as Princess Death, Andrew Mackenzie-Wicks as Orpheus and Richard Scott as the Loved One. Electronics were by Ben Oliver. Stage Manager was Samantha Kerrison. Sophie Cleobury and Liz Webb were respectively the Artistic Administrator and Project Manager. The Musical Director was David Angus. And the brilliant repetiteur was Lindy Tennent-Brown. The production was directed by the genius John Lloyd Davies.

Ed and I have been constantly telling ourselves we were lucky to have such a great team on board and last night it was clear just how lucky. It was an electric performance in which everything came together faultlessly - well, as faultlessly as live theatre can be! We couldn't have asked for more from everyone involved.

It was pretty much a full house and the audience was incredibly receptive: a fantastic high for me to hear the extended applause and cheers even! If only you could bottle that for the times when things aren't going so well. As it was a workshop performance - part of Brighton Festival's Platform showcase - we invited the audience to give us feedback in the bar afterwards. I only had one comment from a guy who was getting drinks at the same time as me. "Don't change it. Just do it." I don't know who he was, but it was great to hear.

Thanks to everyone at Brighton Festival, OperaGenesis, and ROHII for their help in developing the piece. We all very much hope that we will be able to take it forward to a full production next year. Fingers crossed.

The View from Here in print...

2009-05-01T14:18:00.004+01:00

The interview I did with The View From Here is now available in their hard copy printed magazine. Browse and buy here. Look at me next to Iain Banks. And I see there's also a contribution from Michael Kimball. Sounds like an issue not to be missed.

Must go, as I'm meant to be working on a short story!

Brighton Festival draws near

2009-04-23T10:30:00.006+01:00

This year's Brighton Festival takes place from 2-24 May. For the first time ever, it has a guest curator - the Turner award-winning artist Anish Kapoor. Of course, in this current economic climate there is less money around for the arts than ever, especially in Scotland, it seems, with the hard-hit Scottish banks withrawing their sponsorship. However, according to this blog piece in the Telegraph by Rupert Christiansen, the Brighton Festival doesn't seem to have fared too badly in the financial squeeze. In fact, in his opinion, this year's programme is shaping up to be the best ever.

That's reassuring to hear, especially as I have worked on a piece that is going to form a part of this year's festival programme. It's the opera, Cocteau in the Underworld, for which I've written the libretto. The composer is Ed Hughes.

A workshop production of Cocteau in the Underworld will take place in the Pavilion Theatre on Monday 4 May at 9.00pm. It will be pretty much self-contained, but is not the complete opera. In fact, it represents about half of the piece and should take about 35 minutes.

There's more about the Brighton Festival here.

More about Cocteau in the Underworld here.

New website

2009-04-22T12:11:00.000+01:00

Here.

View from Here interview part two

2009-04-15T13:42:00.002+01:00

I think it must be the longest, most in-depth interview I have ever done! Part Two is here.

Part one, if you want to read that first, is here.

Jen Persson of View from Here also reviewed A Vengeful Longing here.

I feel like I am rather hogging the view over there.

But if that's not enough for you, Alex at Faber spotted another review in Eurocrime.

The Page 69 Test

2009-04-14T18:26:00.005+01:00

Michael Gregorio, aka Mike Jacob and Daniela de Gregorio, has undertaken the page 69 test with their new novel, A Visible Darkness, which is published today in the USA. You will note my confusion as to whether to treat them as a single entity (Michael Gregorio) or as two individuals (which is what they are). Hence my grammatical inconsistency.

I'd say they passed with flying colours.

The Inter-view from here

2009-04-13T20:56:00.004+01:00

Part one of an interview with the literary magazine The View From Here is here.

Part two will be there soon.

Thanks to Jen for some great questions.

New opera trailer

2009-04-09T18:15:00.003+01:00

A new edit of the opera trailer has been posted on youtube. It's subtly different from the last.

May 4 - the date of the Brighton performance - approaches! Book here, now. Please.

A fellow traveller in Twit Land

2009-04-09T11:00:00.002+01:00

I'm truly in awe of Brazilian author Claudio Soares, who is not only serialising his novel Santos Dumont número 8 on twitter, but has set up twitter streams for each of his main characters!

The book is in Brazilian Portuguese, as is the twitterisation, but you can read about his experiment in English in this smashwords blog post.

The novel itself sounds wonderful, and I hope he finds an English publisher for it (anyone at Faber or Penguin paying attention????).

Here's the Santos Dumont número 8 twitter page for the serialisation.

Yet another edit of the trailer!

2009-04-07T13:57:00.002+01:00

Twimbo

2009-04-07T10:15:00.005+01:00

It's holiday time here. Which means the kids are off school and semi-cluttering up the house. Actually, one of them is doing a music course, which runs more or less usual school hours and the other is no trouble at all. So I can't really blame them for my lack of productivity. But I have to confess I am not at my most productive at the moment.

It's not as if I don't have something to work on. I do. A nice project, actually, a longish short story. Or maybe it's a shortish long story. I haven't decided yet. I have no definite deadline for it though, and maybe that is the problem.

In the meantime I am waiting to hear back from my editor about the edits I did on my new manuscript. I think it's that, really, that's preventing me from getting on with anything. Until I know what's happening there my writing life is slightly suspended.

Of course, there is the daily, hourly, feeding of the twitter beast. Or perhaps that should be 'tweast' following the apparent trend (sorry, I mean 'twend') of taking perfectly good words and bastardising them by replacing their initial letters with 'tw'.

It can produce some interesting coinages - or should that be twoinages?

There's twiction, and twitterature, of course, which have been used to describe my own particular experiment on twitter (twexperiment?). Others have also come to my attention: twistory, twictures, twelephone, twexy, twoddle, twonsense, twiresome and twen-will-it-all-stwop?

Then again, I may just be twitting you.

Interview with Preston Writing Network.

2009-04-05T18:21:00.004+01:00

Jenn Ashworth is a Preston-based writer whose debut novel A Kind of Intimacy has received to-die-for critical acclaim. (In fact, the Guardian reviewer asked: "... who wouldn't kill for a comic gift like Jenn Ashworth's?") Jenn runs a blog for writers in her neck of the woods, called the Preston Writing Network, and she very kindly interviewed me for the site.

American paperback trailer

2009-04-03T12:50:00.003+01:00

Ahead of the publication of the American paperback of A Vengeful Longing, which comes out in May, here is a slightly edited version of the trailer to include the name of my American publisher, Penguin.

More on twitterature

2009-04-02T09:27:00.003+01:00

The Daily Beast has run another piece on twitterature, which has been picked up by lots of other bloggers, including The Huffington Post! I see that yahoo also included it in their Daily Buzz bulletin.

I was also mentioned in this introduction to the whole topic on squidoo.

The only question I'm left with after reading all this is should it be Twit-Lit or Twitterature?

Either way I suppose I have to keep going now!

Detective Dumpty and the Murder Myster-yolk.

2009-04-01T21:01:00.003+01:00

It's that time again. The egg decorating contest at my kids' school. This year my son and his friend did a joint effort, which was all their own idea without any influence from me I promise: the theme they chose was Detective Dumpty and the Murder Myster-yolk. The picture only represents half of their endeavour as the background, which included a forensic tent and a perpetrator hiding in a bush, was not available for me to photograph.

You will notice that that is an axe sticking out from the victim's broken shell.

My daughter and her friends went for a slightly more surreal theme, which as far as I can tell was based on the idea that 'Eggs are strange'. The scene was offered as evidence of this, depicting as it does some eggs eating breakfast in a bathroom. It's pretty deep.

Mack captures social networking

2009-03-30T16:12:00.002+01:00

Mack Lundy, who blogs as Mack Captures Crime, is running a series on the way authors use social networking and the internet in general. He's written a piece about my efforts. I'm pleased to say that Mack is one of those who is enjoying my twitterisation of A Gentle Axe.

Spot the difference...

2009-03-29T20:51:00.009+01:00

Between the US hardback of A Vengeful Longing and the US paperback, due out May 26:

Digitalist digs twitterisation

2009-03-27T10:42:00.009Z

The digitalist is a blog by the digital team at Pan Macmillan and they were kind enough to mention my twitter experiment in a favourable way: "Reading it in my twitter feed each day is a fantastic experience."

I've also noticed a brief mention in the influential galleycat blog. I was very flattered to discover that my "link-filled look at Twitter writing can help guide us as we march into the microblogging future". Ha!

Less enthusiastic is Ian Hocking, who found my sentences "curiously ordinary". Ian makes some good points about the importance of context in storytelling. I suppose in my defence, what I would say is that I am not really expecting this to deliver the same level of satisfaction as reading a traditional narrative. You could say that receiving tweets about what people you've never met had for lunch, or from celebrities waiting for their next shoot to begin, is not as satisfying as a night out with your mates. As a means of communication, twittering is necessarily disrupted and disconnected. That's part of its charm - or its irritation, depending on your point of view.

I suppose the interesting question might be not how my tweets compare to the traditional way of publishing a novel, but how they compare to other tweets. I was contacted by one person who said that for them tweets have to be personal, and therefore their use as a narrative vehicle is not effective. But I have had others contact me telling me how much they are enjoying the tweets - and that they like them because they are different to most other tweets. One person at least has bought a copy, albeit of the Kindle edition! A sign of the times maybe.

Despite Ian's and others' misgivings, I am going to stick with the experiment. I'm not really sure what I'm doing or why, but now that I have begun it seems important to see it through to the end!

View the latest epitweet (or should that be tweetisode?) here.

New audiotrack for the trailer

2009-03-24T22:53:00.003Z

Voiceover provided by John Curless, taken from the audiobook of A Vengeful Longing:

Adventures in Twit Lit

2009-03-18T10:08:00.003Z

Okay, I admit it. It's a mad idea. Serialising a whole novel on twitter. But there is something about the experiment that appeals to me on a creative/communicative level. Inevitably it has led to a fair bit of head shaking of the 'what is the world coming to' variety.

There was this in a Miami Herald blog. "Oh the temptation to start raging about the idiocy of new technology is strong..." Well, rage if you like. But what about print newspapers with online bloggers attached? Couldn't that be seen as another way that new technology is changing the way we receive information. Far be it from me to decry that as 'idiocy'.

Blogbook dismisses it as a publicity stunt, and a failed one at that. I admit that part of my motivation was to try and attract new readers to my books. Guilty as charged. We writers do not have the massive budgets spent on advertising that a new blockbuster film has, for example. So we have to do what we can. That said, I was interested in how this way of receiving text differs as a reading experience from sitting down and reading a book.

It's true, getting a sentence or a fragment every hour - that's how I am now scheduling my tweets - is not like sitting down and reading an extended section of the book through. You won't necessarily remember what went before. The text will work on the reader in a different way - but I am interested to see just how.

I like the way my sentences pop up every hour. It's interesting for me, as the writer, to see them like that in isolation. They take on, if not a different meaning, then a different power - stranger, more enigmatic.

Not all the coverage has been negative. Hannah Rudman seems to talk a lot of sense about twitter here. Whilst the Daily Beast includes me in a round-up of something it calls Twit Lit in a discussion on the Future of Publishing. Twit Lit, hmmm. Not sure I like that, but I suppose it was too hard to resist.

And not all of the coverage has been in English either. I even made the literary news in France.

Meanwhile, the twitterisation continues. New followers join here.

Trailer for A Vengeful Longing

2009-03-17T15:06:00.002Z

Bookseller shows interest in twitterisation

2009-03-17T10:36:00.001Z

Here.

To follow, go here.

Let the twitterisation begin

2009-03-16T09:39:00.001Z

Well, it has actually. Here. Please follow, if you feel so inclined.

The twitterisation of A Gentle Axe

2009-03-15T10:11:00.004Z

I am planning to serialise my first Porfiry Petrovich novel on the social networking site twitter, starting tomorrow.

I'm not the first writer to use twitter to publish fiction. I've been very much enjoying Sarah Fox's unfolding story, Circus. Someone, I assume it's the author Laurie R. King, is tweeting quotes from the Mary Russell books, The Beekeeper's Apprentice and The Language of Bees.

And perhaps my favourite fictional twittering exercise is RealRaskolnikov, which purports to be tweets from Dostoevsky's double-axe-murderer. And very funny it is too.

As far as I know, I will be the first person to serialise (or twitterise, as I prefer to say) an already published novel. It will be an interesting exercise!

Crime writers who turn to opera

2009-03-12T18:28:00.007Z

It seems I'm not the first crime writer to turn his hand to writing a libretto. Apparently, Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith have also had a go, as I discovered from this article in The Times.

Is there something about writing crime fiction that makes us especially qualified for the task, I wonder?

Without wanting to appear either pretentious or glib - though aware that I will probably come across as both - I wonder if it is something to do with a preoccupation with death. I sometimes feel when I'm writing my Porfiry books that the whole thing is really a way of confronting death, facing up to it. This happens literally, of course, when the detective, and the reader, is presented with a corpse. And I, as the writer, have to look that corpse in the face and try to describe what I see - or rather imagine.

I also have the sense that I'm trying to beguile death with my writing, or win her over. I want to show her that I'm on her side. Up to a point of course. In the hope, perhaps, that she will spare me, though I know she never will.

Yes, I give death a feminine aspect, following Cocteau. She is the Princess, the mysterious visitor who steps through the mirror in Orphee.

Death is present in all the best operas too. But maybe in a different way. Many are structured around the death of the central character. Death is still beguiled, but this time by song. And rather than being a confrontation, they are a distraction - for her and for us.

The drama both brings about the heroine's death, and keeps it at bay, at least until the final act. And in the meantime the opera says to death: Wait a while before you do your work, and listen to the song.

Cocteau in the Underworld

2009-03-06T20:42:00.002Z

That's the trailer for the opera I'm working on with composer Ed Hughes. We're starting rehearsals next week for another workshop performance, this time at the Brighton Festival on May 4. It's very exciting. We have kept a number of the original cast, but other commitments, and an imminent baby, meant we had to make some changes.

On a slightly different note, Mack Captures Crime published a great review of A Vengeful Longing.

My thanks to Crime Fic Reader for bringing it to my attention.

Our trailer for the opera has inspired me to create a trailer for A Vengeful Longing. I hope to be able to reveal it soon.

before and after the shave

2009-03-02T21:16:00.006Z

In response to popular demand - well, Colin M requested them anyhow - here are the before and after photos.

BEFORE THE SHAVE:

AFTER THE SHAVE:

Whatever possessed me?

2009-03-01T19:24:00.004Z

Today I shaved. The beard is gone. The kids didn't want me to shave it off, but it's my face, after all, not theirs. If they want a beard, they can grow one themselves. That's the problem with kids these days. They expect everything to be done for them.

It was the soup at lunchtime that decided it. Too much got filtered out on the way to my mouth. Also, I hated the feeling of moisture on my moustache when I had a drink of water in the night. Somehow it was worse in the night. In the darkness. I could feel the water sitting their on my whiskers, tempting me to lap it. Like some animal licking its fur.

I hated the smell of my beard. Even when clean, it smelled. It smelled of whiskers. Whiskers have a smell all their own. I can't describe it but I hate it. I have always hated the smell of whiskers.

I didn't like the way it felt either. Though I did spend an inordinate amount of time, stroking and twirling it.

Then there was the fact that the beard made me look about fifteen years older than I did without it. At first - perversely - that was my main reason for keeping it, as I actually liked looking older, although I have to say it was older in a shabby rather than a distinguised way.

And, naturally, I was more determined to hang on to it the more people told me to get rid of it. Though my wife never once asked me to shave it off. I suspect she was using reverse psychology all along and is now mightily pleased that I have succumbed to the razor.

But now, it's gone. And I'm glad to see the back of it. God knows what possessed me to grow the thing in the first place.

Crime Squad's top ten books for 2008

2009-02-27T12:49:00.003Z

I'm in it, just - at number 10!

Here's the full list:

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
Quercus £7.99

2. Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
Pocket Books £7.99

3. Blood From Stone - Frances Fyfield
Sphere £12.99

4. A Simple Act of Violence - R.J.Ellory
Orion £9.99

5. Swan Peak - James Lee Burke
Orion £14.99

6. Therapy - Sebastian Fitzek
Pan Macmillan £6.99

7. Revelation - C.J.Sansom
Macmillan £12.99

8. The Perk - Mark Gimenez
Sphere £6.99

9. Echoes from the Dead - Johan Theorin
Doubleday £10.99

10. A Vengeful Longing - R.N.Morris
Faber and Faber £12.99

And here's what they said about mine:

"Our review said; "A Vengeful Longing is in essence a novel about power, suffering, bitterness and the lengths that people will go for revenge. There is a darkness about A Vengeful Longing that leaves the reader repulsed yet fascinated." Strong and stirring."

I'm thrilled to be included in their list.

What I think about when I'm swimming

2009-02-25T18:46:00.006Z

I spent most of the last year and a bit writing a novel. To stop myself contracting that well-known condition 'writer's arse', I made myself go swimming twice a week, a quick(ish) twenty lengths at Wednesday lunchtime, and thirty lengths (going up to forty lengths more recently) on Saturday morning. That's not a lot of exercise, I know, but more than I have done for a long time. And I am not a strong swimmer, nor a technically proficient one. My breaststroke is ragged and my front crawl raggeder.

I admit that I didn't always manage both of my twice-weekly swims. The mid-week lunchtime session was the one in most danger of being dropped, especially as I approached the end of the novel, and the deadline. Sometimes, I just couldn't allow myself the time away from my desk.

As I swam I often thought about the book I was working on. Not in any useful way. I did not attempt to resolve any tricky plot issues, or sketch scenes in my head. No point really, as I wouldn't have been able to jot down any good ideas that came to me. It's hard to swim with a notebook in one hand.

No, I would just think about the process of writing, and I would carry with me a sense of where I was in the writing of the book, and somehow I would relate that to the act of swimming. So that it almost felt like I was swimming my book.

I would always compare where I was in the writing, how far I was from the end, to where I was in the day's swim, and how far I was from my target number of lengths. When I was more or less halfway in the book, I would get a special sense of harmony with myself when I hit the mid-point of my swim.

My ability to finish the lengths I set myself encouraged me to believe that I would be able to finish the novel.

Now I'm working on the edits of my novel, and there isn't really any analogous phase in a swimming session; except perhaps if I swam an extra length or two after I'd reached the day's target.

I confess I nearly didn't make it to the pool today. My desire to just get the edits done nearly won out. The fact is, I don't really enjoy swimming. It's the same kind of drudgery as writing a novel.

What I enjoy more than swimming is having swum. In the same way, I suppose, I find having written far more satisfying than writing.

And yet I am determined to persevere in both.

Only three steps away from Rigor Mortis

2009-02-23T10:23:00.004Z

It has been pointed out to me, in a rather cheeky thread on the writers' site WriteWords, that my name is very similar to the phrase Rigor Mortis. It's like one of those word puzzles: How do you get from Roger Morris to Rigor Mortis in three steps?

The solution is:

ROGER MORRIS
>>>>>>>>>>
ROGOR MORRIS
>>>>>>>>>>
RIGOR MORRIS
>>>>>>>>>>
RIGOR MORTIS

I couldn't help thinking that Rigor Mortis would be quite a nifty nome de plume for a crime writer, though maybe it's a bit too extreme. Maybe Grigor Mortis would be better. More subtle, I think.

Hmmmm, that gives me an idea.

I'll get me coat...

2009-02-22T15:44:00.004Z

I've just realised I'm being linked to from the Faber and Faber website. It's wonderful of them to do but... it has suddenly made me feel very self-conscious. Looking at the other blogs on the faber blog roll only brings home how much cleverer and more knowledgeable than me other faber authors are.

They write erudite and brilliant articles about the state of the novel, literary criticism, President Sarkozy... meanwhile I bumble on about wooden cooking utensils and make videos about my cat.

Ed's blog and a trailer for the opera

2009-02-19T14:49:00.002Z

Composer Ed Hughes has started a blog. It's here. He's created a rather nifty trailer for the opera, Cocteau in the Underworld, which you can view there.

Oh, I wrote the words.

Roof Whirl Away by Tom Saunders

2009-02-12T12:53:00.003Z

I don't often write reviews. But I was so impressed by Tom Saunders' new collection of short stories, Roof Whirl Away, that I managed to put a few thoughts together. You'll find them here.

Porf-hairy Petrov-itch

2009-02-10T10:49:00.007Z

The beardy photo of me I posted a few days ago prompted my old friend Nick Primmer (website under construction - oh yeah, we've heard that before) to pen the following, in which he speculates, with uncanny accuracy, about my next novel:

A RAZOR WRAPPED IN SILK

The latest in Morris’s Porfhairy Petrovitch series of crime novels opens with the detective bearded in his den, and scratching his head and facial hair over a mystery of a different type from the usual.

Why will his trusty cut-throat razor not remove his morning growth with its usual alacrity? He had no problems with A Gentle Axe, which although a little tricky to get the hang of did at least remove most of his beard, and indeed a good portion of his body above his neckline too. Similarly, A Vengeful Shaving did the trick, leaving him smooth-cheeked with only the occasional gobbet of bloodied cotton wool to mark the progress of his Gillette across his features. But now, now his latest cut-throat device failed to make any impression on the impressive beard which was already reaching down below his fobwatch chain, after only three days of unrestrained growth.

Petrovitch hefted the aforesaid instrument from the desk in front of him. The edge seemed singularly soft and dull – a telling metaphor for his own detecting powers which he tried his best to ignore. Once more he applied it to his jawline, but as before it slipped across his face without effect. He felt sure the mysterious note left on his desk from R. N. Morris was a clue: “A razor wrapped in silk.” What could it mean? If only it was a mere 75 years later when packaged goods had been invented, he could have worked it out, and would have known to remove the silk before shaving. But no, those days lay far ahead. Confused, clueless, Petrovitch stood and made his way to the kettle whistling on the hob, being careful to avoid tripping over his beard which was now floor length. Why on earth would anyone package goods for sale, thought Petrovich, carefully opening a tea bag and emptying the leaves into his teapot. It was certainly a mystery.

I'm sorry to disappoint Nick, a man so heavily bearded he looks like a Russian monk, but my own facial fuzz received a severe pruning yesterday.

Raskolnikov twitters!

2009-02-08T17:53:00.002Z

This has made my day! Well, not quite. It was a good day anyhow. But it is very funny. Genius even.

I'm all a-twitter

2009-02-06T15:20:00.002Z

Well, if it's good enough for Stephen Fry, it's good enough for me.

So the beard...

2009-02-05T20:12:00.006Z

... looks like this:

My target length is this:

Or even this:

Bookgasm reviews A Vengeful Longing

2009-02-05T11:40:00.002Z

My google blog alert showed up a new review of A Vengeful Longing on the Bookgasm website.

I'm extremely pleased with it, especially this bit:

This is period fiction of the best kind: accurate in its details; staying within its appropriate time; even managing to teach us a bit about the society’s norms. And on top of that, you get a rousing good mystery that keeps you thinking until the end. More, please, from Mr. Morris. —Mark Rose

Okay, Mark, I'm working on it! On which note, back to the edit.

Two things

2009-02-01T09:01:00.007Z

Thing one

Last week I was interviewed by the literary website Authorscoop. They asked for a photo to go with the interview. I thought it was time for a new one, especially as I now have a beard. You can read the interview, and see the beardy photo, here. Thanks to Jamie Mason of Authorscoop for interviewing me.

Thing two.

Jamie is someone I have 'met' through the internet. We actually came into contact through a website called AbsoluteWrite, and linked up on myspace. In the same way, I've virtually met a lot of wonderful writer friends through the American Zoetrope website, set up by Francis For Coppola. Marko Fongo is one of those, and he has very kindly written a wonderful, and very perceptive, review of A Vengeful Longing for his blog ChanceLucky. Thank you, Marko.

More on the beard later.

Some thoughts on completing a novel.

2009-01-30T17:22:00.000Z

I put mine here. Go click.

Audio book news

2009-01-29T10:32:00.009Z

I was asked by facebook friend and audiobook reviewer Sharon Harriott whether there is an audiobook of A Vengeful Longing. The answer is yes!

I have to confess that I'm not a fan of audiobooks myself. Reading has always been a silent occupation for me, and I find the reader's voice too intrusive. This is especially so when I'm listening to audiobooks of my own work - which, frankly, is something I just can't do. However, I do know there are people who love them, and indeed some who rely on them. (Audiobooks in general, I mean - not my audiobooks!) So for those of you who are interested, the audiobook of A Vengeful Longing is available through audible, as an mp3 download. I think that means you can put it on your ipod, if that's the kind of thing you're into. It's read by John Curless, who may or may not be this guy:

I'm sure he does a great job, though I can't bring myself to listen to the clip on the audible page. Perhaps you will be able to and report back in the comments what it sounds like.

Finished!

2009-01-27T12:35:00.003Z

Yes, this morning I finished writing the first draft of my new Porfiry Petrovich novel, A RAZOR WRAPPED IN SILK.

Current word count stands at 124,942. I imagine I will cut that down significantly (10%?) in the editing.

I'm eager to crack on with that, as cutting words can be tremendously satisfying. But I do need to get some distance from it before I begin the read through.

And it's a lovely sunny day. I feel good.

Armando Iannucci, librettist

2009-01-17T16:02:00.010Z

I heard on Radio 4 the other day that the comedy genius Armando Iannucci has "written an opera", as they put it, although as he himself admits, he has actually provided the words. The composer is David Sawer. Traditionally, an opera is the composer's piece, and it is the composer's name that is associated with it. The librettist does not usually get a look in. It's Verdi's La Traviata, not Piave's. But the Today Programme package I listened to failed to even mention the composer's name. Skin Deep, we were told, is a new opera by Armando Iannucci. I wonder how David Sawer feels about that!

I haven't seen it yet, though I am hoping to do so soon, when it transfers down to London. I was very interested to read this article by Iannucci about the process in The Times. As I've also written a libretto for an opera, I identified with a lot that he said, particularly this:

Somebody asked me to write an opera. I wasn’t expecting that. Being asked to write an opera is like being asked to demolish a power station or go in a rocket with Al Pacino: it’s not something you’d ever expect to do in your lifetime. You’ve got to say “yes” no matter the amount of trepidation that soon follows once you’ve agreed.

This too struck a chord:

it’s always a useful constraint on the ego to wallow in a line you’ve written only to be told that it needs to be four syllables shorter. You realise that you are there to service the music, not the other way round. Your words are like costume and scenery; part of a larger experience.

I would add that it is an amazing experience to hear words you've written set to music by a brilliant composer and sung by fantastically talented singers. It's an enormous privilege that's strangely humbling too.

And as an extra treat, here's a clip from Armando Iannucci's previous operatic work, Ibiza Uncovered: The Opera

Will the giving frenzy never cease?

2009-01-16T15:09:00.002Z

Another chance to bag a free copy of A Vengeful Longing over at It's a Crime...

Bearded bloke writes about bearded bloke

2009-01-14T19:47:00.017Z

Rowan Williams, author of a recent book on Dostoevsky.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, subject of a recent book by Rowan Williams.

In honour of this wonderful event, I have grown a beard. Photo will appear soon.

Seriously, though, the book - Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction - sounds fascinating. I have to admit that I did not know Rowan Williams was an authority on Dostoevsky. He speaks Russian too, which is very impressive.

Here's the blurb from amazon:

This is an extraordinary book, which through the lens of Dostoevsky's novels enables the reader to consider the nature of God in the 21st Century - a societal landscape fraught with tensions and social inequalities.When an Archbishop of Canterbury takes time off to write a book about Dostoevsky, this is a sign of great hope and encouragement for The Church of England and for all those who seek God.The current rash of books hostile to religious faith will one day be an interesting subject for some sociological analysis. But to counter such work, is a book of the profoundest kind about the nature and purpose of religious belief. Terrorism, child abuse, absent fathers and the fragmentation of the family, the secularisation and the sexualisation of culture, the future of liberal democracy, the clash of cultures and the nature of national identity - so many of the anxieties that we think of as being quintessentially features of the early twenty first century and on, are present in the work of Dostoevsky - in his letters, his journalism and above all in his fiction.The world we inhabit as readers of his novels is one in which the question of what human beings owe to each other is left painfully and shockingly open and there is no place to stand from which we can construct a clear moral landscape. But the novels of Dostoevsky continually press home what else might be possible if we - characters and readers - saw the world in another light, the light provided by faith. In order to respond to such a challenge the novels invite us to imagine precisely those extremes of failure, suffering and desolation.There is an unresolved tension in Dostoevsky's novels - a tension between believing and not believing in the existence of God. In "The Brothers Karamazov", we can all receive Ivan with a terrible kind of delight. Ivan's picture of himself we immediately recognise as self-portrait. The god that is dead for him is dead for us. This Karamazov God of tension and terror is often the only one we are able to find. This extraordinary book will speak to our generation like few others.

About the Author
The Rt. Hon. and Most Reverend Rowan Williams is Archbishop of Canterbury. He was formerly Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford and Archbishop of Wales.

When I told my wife this news she suggested I should get a copy of either A Gentle Axe or A Vengeful Longing to him for a quote. Well, it worked with Lorraine Kelly, another fan of Dostoevsky! (That sounds like a good pub quiz question, doesn't it? What connects TV presenter Lorraine Kelly and Archbishop Rowan Williams? They are both fans of Dostoevsky.)

This is a very lazy blog post, I admit - although surely I deserve some credit for working in both Rowan Williams and Lorraine Kelly. My excuse is I'm desperately trying to finish my latest novel. I really am nearing the end, which is making me incredibly tense and bad-tempered. I feel like it could all fall apart in my hands. There is the faint hope that it might not.

One more winner to announce

All the winners' books have gone off now, including one to Fiona Robyn, who I forgot to mention in my last post, and who is also running a FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY MADNESS FRENZY FEVER type thing on her own blog.

Lucky winners!

2009-01-12T12:27:00.004Z

The three lucky winners of my Paperback Giveaway Madness Frenzy are:

Sarah Fox

Peter Devonald

Clare Clarke

Philip Amos

Iasa Duffy

Mary Akers

Jen Persson

Sharon Scinicariello

Mack Lundy

Rachel Green

Gerry Byrne

Alicia Gifford

Bonnie ZoBell

Miranda Morris

Carol Reid

Morgan Hayton

Martina Schwiebert

Loveina Khans

Justine Taylor

Gerry Byron

Hang on a sec, let me count that again.

Oh, looks like I miscounted first time. Never mind. Everyone's a winner. No more books, or jiffy bags, now, so I'm afraid the competition really is closed.

But, what's this? Another chance to win copies here!

I feel a special mention must go to Morgan Hayton, who contacted me on behalf of the 'Books for Fiji' project.

This is the message Morgan sent me:

The [Books for Fiji] group started about 6 months ago, I am 16 and went on a school trip to Fiji to do volunteer work at some schools there. One school we went to only had a few books for the whole school and village, when we got back to Australia my teacher Mrs Dawson set us 5 students a task of how to help on our own, I came up with the idea of building the library one book at a time via people just sending one book when they got my email, I contact authors like Jackie French and Garth Nix and they sent a book but also suggested to put the request on Facebook as most author have a page there, well thats how its has grown and got to be on Pass it on and also on a local community radio in Melbourne.

I was so impressed, I sent off a copy of both A Vengeful Longing and A Gentle Axe. If anyone else would like to donate a book, please get in touch and I will pass on Morgan's details.

Oh and I had some more ink on Sunday, in the Sunday Times, from Joan Smith. I shall post a quote when I get a chance.

In today's Guardian!

2009-01-10T15:41:00.001Z

A great review of A Vengeful Longing by Cathi Unsworth.

As fans of Morris's previous A Gentle Axe will know, this author not only has the nerve to lift his lead character from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment but also the skill to bring that distant Russia and its inhabitants to life, while drawing parallels with our own world.

A great start to the weekend!

COMPETITION CLOSED

2009-01-09T11:27:00.003Z

I think it's only fair that I declare the competition closed now as I have had more entries than I have books to give away. There will be another competition on another blog next week, which I will give details of as soon as I have them. So if you are not a lucky winner this time, you will have another chance.

I am now going to sort through the entries and notify the winners. With any luck I will be posting the winners' names here later.

While we're on the subject of giving giving away free books...

I thought this was very interesting. My thanks to Mary Akers for the link.

FREE books!!!!!! Paperback giveaway madness!!!!!!!

2009-01-08T10:39:00.005Z

Hey, do I know how to write a headline! You can't argue with FREE, can you? And for those of you who like reading, 'books' is a pretty good pull too! In fact, what could be better? It's such a good offer I'm now wondering if I really needed all those exclamation marks, or 'screamers' as they're known. And maybe 'giveaway madness' doesn't quite hit the right tone. Ah well, too late now.

Here's the deal, to celebrate the official publication day of the UK paperback of A Vengeful Longing (shortlisted for the 2008 CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger, longlisted for the 2008 CWA Ellis Peters Award for historical crime fiction, runner up for New York Magazine's best thriller of the year) I have three signed copies to give away as prizes in my FREE TO ENTER competition (never hurts to slip in an extra 'FREE' now and then). All you have to do is email me at rogernmorris at blueyonder dot co dot uk with the name of the investigating magistrate from Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment who is the protagonist of my books A Gentle Axe and A Vengeful Longing.

Also, you'd better tell me where you'd like the book sent.

It's as easy as that!

Happy New Year... let's hope so.

2009-01-01T11:45:00.004Z

Jeepers, how the New Year creeps up on you. All of a sudden we're in 2009. A new year means a new edition of A Vengeful Longing, the mass market UK paperback, which comes out a week today on the 8th of Jan. Here's what it looks like:

It should start appearing in the shops around now, but it's already available for pre-order here.

Of course, the downside of having another book out is that it gives me something else to obsessively google and rank-check. Anyone know a good hypnotherapist?

Christmas past post.

2008-12-26T16:36:00.005Z

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas. Ours was very quiet but fun. I only dozed off once, briefly, during Dr Who. Don't tell the kids.

It's Boxing Day now. I spent the morning sorting out ipods and wiis. Well, one ipod, one wii. Everyone's occupied, so I thought I would try to get some work done. Obviously, it wasn't as easy as I had hoped, which is why I am on the blog.

I did a bit of festive googling and found this from Darryl Accone in the Mail and Guardian of South Africa:

Place and time are crucial also to RN Morris, who brings Dostoevsky's investigating magistrate Porfiry Petrovich brilliantly to life in A Vengeful Longing (Faber), the second in the self-styled "A St Petersburg Mystery" series. Paying due acknowledgement to Dostoevsky this time round, Morris's filigree recreation plunges us into 19th-century St Petersburg and a rash of poisonings and deeply hidden motivations.

I remembered a previous article from Accone, in which I'd been criticised for not sufficiently acknowledging my debt to Dostoevsky. It seems I got the balance right this time.

New York Magazine Best Thriller 2008

2008-12-08T17:10:00.002Z

... was won by Child 44 by Rob Tom Smith.

Runners up: A Vengeful Longing by RN Morris and The Likeness by Tana French.

Full story here

Here's what they said about AVL:

Morris resurrects one of literature’s all-time greatest characters: Porfiry Petrovich, the detective from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The result reads like an episode of Columbo, but with feverish Russian psychology and the filthy overflowing canals of 1868 St. Petersburg.

Cardiff event approaches

2008-12-02T14:40:00.001Z

Historical Crime Fiction Evening
Borders, The David Morgan Building, 14 The Hayes, Cardiff
6.30 pm Thursday, 4 December, 2008

Don't forget, I'll be taking part in the above event this Thursday in Cardiff with fellow histcrimefic authors Andrew Taylor and Bernard Knight.

I hope I don't forget!

Christmas rush?

2008-11-27T19:08:00.004Z

Not that I check out my amazon page very often, you understand, but I must have accidentally clicked on it today whilst looking for some other book. I discovered this message:

Only 2 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

What has prompted this sudden surge in demand for A Vengeful Longing, I don't know. Could it be that people are snapping it up as a Christmas present for the discerning reader of historical crime fiction?

If so, I hope amazon are as good as their word and get some more copies in. Pronto.

Cocteau in the Underworld

2008-11-21T20:54:00.013Z

Soprano Jacqueline Varsey as Eurydice. Photo by John Lloyd Davies.

I got some photos through of last week's workshop at the People Show Studios. They were taken by John Lloyd Davies, our brilliant director and head of Opera Genesis at Royal Opera House 2. I hope they give you some idea of the workshop production.

Baritone Owen Gilhooly as Cocteau at the beginning of the opera. He is struggling to write, but cannot overcome his grief for his dead lover. Writer's block. Photo by John Lloyd Davies.

Cocteau and his mysterious visitor, The Princess, played by mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds. Photo by John Lloyd Davies.

Encouraged by The Princess, Cocteau is about to kill himself. Photo by John Lloyd Davies.

Orpheus, played by tenor Andrew Mackenzie-Wicks, is summoned by Cocteau for advice on journeying to the underworld to bring back a loved one. Photo by John Lloyd Davies.

At Orpheus' bidding, Cocteau accepts the Princess' symbolic "gift", "one petal from a blood red flower". This blurs the boundary between this world and the underworld. Photo by John Lloyd Davies.

Cocteau's dead lover, Raymond Radiguet, played by counter-tenor Andrew Radley, appeals to Cocteau. Photo by John Lloyd Davies.

Having chosen art over love, and in the process rejecting his lover, Cocteau is able to overcome his writer's block and returns to work. Photo by John Lloyd Davies.

Composer Ed Hughes on set - photo by me.

Day four of rehearsals

2008-11-13T23:17:00.003Z

Today was day four of rehearsals for our opera workshop. And tomorrow is the performance. I can't begin to say how impressed I am at the way it's all come together. The singers have been amazing. There's a set and even lighting.

Yesterday I learnt that the studios we're rehearsing in used to be the gym where the Kray Twins boxed.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. It's going to be great to see the workshopped scenes from beginning to end. Watching the piece take shape has given me a real taste to see the whole opera produced. I just keep thinking of the bits we're not workshopping and wondering how they would look and sound.

We all hope that one day a full production will come out of this week's hard work.

In the meantime, I heard from Kristen at We Be Reading about a fab review she's written of A Vengeful Longing.

In rehearsal

2008-11-11T20:33:00.006Z

This week I'm spending my days in Bethnal Green, at The People Show Studios. We're workshopping the opera Ed Hughes and I have written. He did the music - I did the words, just in case you were wondering. And thankfully, people other than me are doing the singing.

The workshop is being run by Opera Genesis, which is an initiative run by Royal Opera House. Our opera, Cocteau in the Underworld(scroll down after clicking for info), has been commissioned by The Brighton Festival.

It's pretty bloody mind-blowing to have people singing your words, that's all I can say! And I turned up today to discover a set had taken shape. Also mind-blowing.

We're working towards putting on a performance for an invited audience on Friday. Not a lot of time. But the performers are brilliant and the director (John Lloyd Davies) is a genius. So, we shall see. In the meantime, I'm having a great time!

Cardiff here I come

2008-11-09T20:02:00.004Z

Historical Crime Fiction Evening
Borders, The David Morgan Building, 14 The Hayes, Cardiff
6.30 pm Thursday, 4 December, 2008

While we're on the subject of Christmas shopping, I'm thrilled to be taking part in the above event in Cardiff with fellow histcrimefic authors Andrew Taylor and Bernard Knight. They're both stellar writers so I feel very honoured to be in their company, and I owe my place at the party to Rhian, aka Crime Fic Reader, who has organised the event.

Rhian has been fantastically supportive of me over recent years and I'm enormously grateful to her for that, as well as for doing such a sterling job putting this event together at a very difficult time for her.

Paperback writer

2008-11-09T19:39:00.005Z

Just a quickie to preview the cover of the paperback edition of A Vengeful Longing.

It's not officially published until January 8, 2009, though I've been told that Faber will be releasing some stock early to catch the Christmas shoppers. So feel free to mention it in your letter to Santa.

Trevi Noir

2008-11-03T21:37:00.008Z

I was lucky enough to be invited to the very first Trevi Noir festival in Umbria, Italy at the weekend.

Many thanks to the event organisers, Michael Jacob and Daniela de Gregorio, the husband and wife writing team who are together Michael Gregorio, author of Critique of Criminal Reason and Days of Atonement. Two fabulously dark and gripping books, by the way.

I did a full round-up of Trevi Noir for the Rap Sheet and there's the definitive summary from Mike and Daniela themselves on the Michael Gregorio blog. I thought here I'd just post a few photos from the event:

Rachel and Mike.

Daniela.

Laura Wilson and Maxim Jakubowsky

Caroline and Andrew Taylor.

I think it's fair to say, a fabulous time was had by all.

Revenants - a story for Halloween

2008-10-28T16:30:00.007Z

I'm off to Italy now, to attend the Trevi Noir festival. I'm really looking forward to it!

As I won't be around for Halloween, I thought I'd post a Halloween story now. This was something I wrote ages ago, for a competition run by a small comic publisher called Warpton. They put some evocative images on their website and asked people to script a comic strip for those pictures. The winning story would get made as a comic book. I was lucky enough to win.

The illustrations were done by an artist called Simon Mobbs, and here's the page on his website that shows the whole of the comic strip. You can click through the story from the top, left to right.

Here's the story without the pictures:

Revenants

By
Roger Morris

'It's strange,' said Kneale as we hovered at the bottom of the subway stairs. 'When I was alive I didn't believe in ghosts.'

We took the stairs in one bound. At the top we sensed the presence of other dead in the air, thickening the darkness. For a moment, we too dissolved and became a part of it.

'Now that I'm dead I find it hard to believe in the living.' The distant light drew us to it. Then suddenly I sensed that Kneale was gone.

I knew where he would be. Back in the subway, chasing echoes. Passing through the vibrations of drunken cries and laughter, mingling with the smell of freshly spilt piss.

I waited by the light for his return, watching the blank wall for moving shadows. 'I don't know why you torture yourself like that,' I said when I felt him back with me.

'You're not so different,' he said. 'You think the living are going to show themselves to you here, like some kind of movie.' He shot away and I followed.

'I don't need to see them to know they're there,' I protested. He led me through the city, building speed.

Now we were shooting through the empty streets like electrons in a particle accelerator. 'I mean, look around you. Who built all this if it wasn't the living?' I screamed.

'Don't try to trick me with logic,' snarled Kneale, as he sped towards a concrete pillar. 'We've gone way past logic.' As if to prove his point, he passed through the pillar, zig-zagging between its atoms with arcade precision.

'We don't have long,' I warned. 'As soon as the sun's up, we won't even be able to see the buildings.'

'It makes no difference,' said Kneale. 'I could find this place when I'm day-blinded.'

'Like I said, I don't know why you torture yourself like this. First the place where they knifed you. Now your flat.' But he had already passed through the front door.

I found him in the kitchen, mingling with the smells of her breakfast. 'No one asked you to come along,' he said glumly.

There were voices in the living room. The TV was on, but the images of the living were hidden from us, just as they were themselves.

We were alone in the flat now. 'It's not the fact that I can't see her that tortures me,' said Kneale. 'It's the fact that I can still smell her.' And for a moment we both danced in the lingering scent of her perfume.

At last, the Russian Axe (Благородный топор)!

2008-10-23T22:36:00.006+01:00

This is a great thrill for me. The russian language edition of my St Petersburg-set novel - Благородный топор. It was one foreign rights sale I really wanted, and hardly dared hope for.

The idea of my Dostoevsky-inspired mystery being translated into the language of Dostoevsky is just mind-blowing. In many ways, I imagined the book as a translation of a lost Russian novel. It's almost as if the original has now turned up.

The headless gambler

2008-10-10T20:07:00.004+01:00

Photo Credit: The Michael Gregorio Collection.

Inspired by the Israeli cover of A Gentle Axe, Michael Jacob - who happens to be one half of crime author Michael Gregorio - sent me the headless photo above from his collection of Victorian photographs and daguerreotypes. He has very kindly given me permission to use it here.

Here's what Michael said about the image:

Double-exposure trick photography of this sort first began to appear in the 1860s. The more common examples featured men drinking, playing chess or cards, the same sitter appearing twice, and thus – to the great amusement of our Victorian forebears – playing with himself!

‘Beheaded’ portraits are extremely rare, so I thought you might like to see another one from my collection of Victorian photos.

This example was made by Enrico Andreotti, a photographer who was working in Florence in the 1860s. It portrays a card-player who has lost everything – including his head – by betting on the lowest card in the pack.

Don't forget, I'll be talking to Michael and his wife Daniela (the other half of Michael Gregorio) at the Trevi Noir Festival, on the first of November. Book your tickets now!

And I thoroughly recommend 'A Critique of Criminal Reason' - a wonderfully atmospheric and grisly tale.

News dump.

2008-10-02T16:17:00.008+01:00

Aaargghh! The problem with neglecting your blog is that all of a sudden there's a ton of news to report.

First off, it seems I narrowly missed making it on to the shortlist for the CWA Ellis Peters Award for historical crime fiction, though I'm pleased to see my fellow North London Historical Crime Writer, and Faber stablemate, Andrew Martin made the cut with his latest Jim Stringer novel, Death on a Branch Line.

The full short list is:
Ariana Franklin, The Death Maze, Bantam Press
Philip Kerr, A Quiet Flame, Quercus
Andrew Martin, Death on a Branch Line, faber and faber
C J Sansom, Revelation, Macmillan
Andrew Taylor, Bleeding Heart Square, Michael Joseph
Laura Wilson, Stratton’s War, Orion

If you go to the CWA site and scroll down below the excellent and well-deserving short-listees (see, I'm not bitter), you'll find this little addendum:

Longlisted novels

This year has brought an unprecedented number of excellent historical crime novels. The CWA Ellis Peters judging panel has asked for the following books from their long list to be published in recognition of their merit:

Marjorie Eccles, Last Nocturne, Allison & Busby
Ann Granger, A Mortal Curiosity, Headline
H R F Keating, Inspector Ghote’s First Case, Allison & Busby
R N Morris, A Vengeful Longing, faber and faber

That's me, that is, at the end.

Le Spie del Male

You may be interested to know that two of the short-listed authors, Andrew Taylor and Laura Wilson, will be taking part in a festival of historical noir (hey, what a great idea for a festival!) in Trevi, Umbria (what a great place to hold such a festival!), November 1-2. The festival is called Le Spie del Male, and I will be there too.

I was invited by Michael Jacob and Daniela de Gregorio, a husband and wife writing team, who pen superbly gothic historical mysteries under the name Michael Gregorio. Their series is set in Prussia in Napoleonic times and features the detective Hanno Stifeniis, with two books published so far, The Critique of Criminal Reason and Days of Atonement.

Michael and Daniela are not only great writers, they're lovely people too, so I am very much looking forward to the festival. I'll be in conversation with them on Saturday at 11.30 discussing crime in a historical context.

There's more about the festival on the Michael Gregorio website. "Mister Noir", Maxim Jacubowski, author, editor and owner of London's foremost crime fiction bookshop will be taking part too.

Seeing stars

2008-09-18T11:46:00.008+01:00

There's a new interview with me up on the Faber site.

I was also interviewed this week by an Israeli journalist. It seems the Hebrew edition of A Gentle Axe has either just come out or is about to. The interview was for the Maariv newspaper and hasn't appeared yet.

The Israeli journalist asked me about the cover for the Hebrew edition, which I had not seen, and had nothing at all to do with selecting. It's an interesting image, which I suspect may be highly controversial in Israel. After all, it does depict a severed head. But, I repeat, I had nothing to do with selecting it.

I can only trust that Keter, my Israeli publisher, know what they are doing, though this article, which I don't understand, seems to suggest that it has provoked some discussion. Why otherwise do they show a close-up of the severed head.

A friend located the book's page on Keter's website and I was able to judge it for myself. I have to say, striking as it is, the image seems to have very little to do with the book I wrote. I found myself wishing I had written the book for which that would be an appropriate image.

And now a cautionary tale for all internet-obsessed, meddling authors. Whilst I was looking at the Israeli publisher's page for my book (without being able to understand it, of course) I saw this line of numbers, one to five, and wondered what they did. Thinking that maybe they led to other pages about my book, I clicked on the number two. The next thing I knew, my book had a two star rating. Surely the first ever instance of an author giving his own book a crappy rating.

My own question to myself is, Why? I mean, it's not as if I would have understood the "other pages" I thought I was navigating to anyhow. I was just meddling and that was the price I paid.

Of course, I tried to redress the balance by clicking on five, but it seems the software has something written into it disallowing the same computer to rate twice. The following morning, I looked at the page on my other computer. As that is networked to the laptop I had been using, and the laptop accesses the internet through it, I expected it to be the same story. But even so, meddler that I am, I couldn't resist clicking those numbers again, just to see what happened. Well, they worked this time, though I hadn't expected them to. Yes, I confess, it was a five I clicked on.

Feeling enormously guilty, I contacted the Israeli publisher saying, "Look, there are two ratings on your site for my book, one two star and one five star, but they are both my me, and I didn't really intend to do either of them. Could you please delete them and clear the rating."

The sound of laughter reached all the way from Tel-Aviv.

That'll learn me.