a pile of leaves

The girl at the heart of Christopher Edge’s novel is ahead of her age: clever enough, at nine years old, to understand astrophysics, quantum mechanics and nuclear fission. She’s about ...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2018/06/ghost-train-rollercoaster-space-rocket.html

This article was first published in the Spring 2017 edition of the British Fantasy Society Journal. Learn more about the Society here . In 2014’s Autumn edition of the British Fantasy Jo...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2017/12/hereford-king-cole-and-box-of-delights.html

“A man. A house from his dreams. His two cats. An attempt to get to grips with the Grey Fug that is depression.” I’d like to introduce you to the world of Chris Browning. He’s the ...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-chat-with-chris-browning-author-grey.html

It’s ages since I had a nice sit down and a chat with someone on Pile of Leaves, so let’s correct that right away. Meet Dom Conlon: poet, storyteller, picture book author and space biscuit. ...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-chat-with-dom-conlon-author-of.html

I thought I’d write a word or two about mess. There’s a lot of things that can get in a mess – detritus and and plans, politics and clothes. When books get in a mess it can sometimes be...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2017/05/stay-wild-stray-true.html

Books are for life, not just for childhood. Well, some books, anyway. I’m fairly sure the Beast Quest books have little to offer the fully-grown reader, any more than we need our dinner ...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2017/05/late-to-party-on-revisiting-childrens.html

Hello! Here’s a blog about why the blog is quiet and for how much longer, about what’s new with me, about a new story in the world, and some errata. It’s officially and Meteorolog...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2017/03/are-we-nearly-there-yet.html

For my last blog of the year, I'm reviving a meme from yesteryear. Last week, Facebook, for all its faults, reminded me of a blog post from 2010 where I set myself the challenge of answering ...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/12/new-years-meme.html

This winter, I’ve been working in a bookshop for the first time in my life. I don’t want to talk directly about it, so let’s dive straight into the realms of fantasy and say it’s a ve...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-books-of-christmas-presents.html

It seems that nobody quite knows why we tell ghost stories at Christmas. There’s Charles Dickens’ massively influential tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, of course, and mentions in Washington Irv...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/12/five-ghost-stories-for-christmas-bbc.html

What’s your favourite wintry read? It’s a good question to ask right now, really, because amid the admin, travel arrangements and X Factor singles, the power of the winter equinox can be ...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/12/books-of-delight-and-wintry.html

Something different today; an insight into the writing process in the form of a guest-post by Stuart Douglas. Founder of Obverse Books and erstwhile features editor of the British Fantasy Socie...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-stuart-douglas-author-of.html

What makes a page-turner? Someone gave me a copy of Fangirl for my birthday this year, and they must know me well because I just spent my holiday reading it, with occasional breaks for cultural...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/11/making-it-up-as-you-go-along-fangirl-by.html

Something different, just for this week. I've written an unsettling story for Halloween . It's about dreams, writer's block and rivalry, and it contains bad language. It's here on this websi...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/10/bad-dreamer-short-story.html

On June 16th 2009, and on a whim, I started a blog that is still (just about) going. I called it A Pile of Leaves, but it’s an indoorsy blog. Indoors with a mug of tea, a packet of biscuits...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/10/on-leaves-and-leafing-too-many-books.html

  I am a child of books, that’s what the badge says, and it’s true. What is more, I am a blog of books. But not often picture books, for whatever reason. Perhaps it’s because I can’t ...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/09/child-of-books-discovering-arnold-lobel.html

I love the communal bookcase in a youth hostel. You know you’ve truly escaped the grind of the present day when you browse those shelves and there's nothing there published since the end of...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/09/walking-with-fair-folk-haunted-mountain.html

This past week has mostly been about re-reading the children’s writer, John Gordon. Gordon was there at the beginning of my PhD in more than one sense: unlike some of my writers, found in t...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/09/invisible-forces-re-reading-john-gordon.html

> Folk lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood > through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and > instinctive love for stories...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-borderlands-of-oz-reading-l-frank.html

The actor Tom Baker, as you know, was once a monk. For six years, he led a life devoted to mystery, awe, mystic significance and the complicated love between man and higher being. Somewhere...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/08/bakers-end-king-of-cats-starring-tom.html

Last week I told you I was heading off to my first campsite. I’ve never slept in a tent, not at a festival, not in a garden. I suppose I’ve always seen myself as intrinsically indoors, no...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/08/why-are-you-so-strange-charlotte.html

I appear to be summering in the 1970s. The Puffin Book of Football (1970), Maurice and the Life to Come (1971), and here we are with Tove Jansson’s indefinable 1972 novel The Summer Book. W...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/08/sommerbloggen-summer-book-by-tove.html

Forster’s Selected Short Stories are published by Penguin, with a pretty but pretty underwhelming cover photograph. The Selection, however, is strangely small, especially when you think how...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/08/queer-tales-life-to-come-and-other.html

I’ve never given a flying bicycle kick about the game of football, whether playing or watching. Looking back, I wonder why. Culturally it’s unstoppable in the UK, besides which my Dad’s...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/07/last-on-pitch-puffin-book-of-football.html

>  >  >  “We must entice this schoolmaster up to the Castle,” said the > Wicked Countess. “Twill cheer up our dull and lonely life to have > a bit of music ag...

http://leaf-pile.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-ordinary-and-fabulous-people-in.html