FICTION
George is currently working on his debut novel as part of the Escalator scheme at the National Centre for Writing. As both a writer and a reader, he is particularly keen on character-driven fiction which explores the relationships between ordinary people, and he admires writing with a strong sense of place. George has worked as an editor and editorial consultant on other people’s novels, and he also writes short fiction. His work has appeared in literary magazines, anthologies and on competition longlists.
You can find links to some of George's published stories below.
HOLDING OUT (The Literary Platform, October 2020).
I followed him, one morning, to make sure he wasn’t up to anything. I feigned sleep and quickly rose and dressed once I heard the front door. I tracked through the high grasses behind him, burying my face against the rain and the cold coastal wind.
ONE OF THE GUYS (Reflex Press, July 2021)
I unhook another can from that plastic mesh that dolphins love to eat and wedge it in the chair’s cup holder. We are living in luxury today, I say, and one of the guys laughs but the others don’t seem to hear me over the music. My empty goes flying, bent double, towards the centre of our circle, where it lands with a thin metallic clank on the heap.
CHRONIC (Reflex Press, October 2021. Also in the anthology, In Defence of Pseudoscience)
He wasn’t well. He kept repeating himself, stumbling over syllables that turned to mulch beneath his tongue. ‘They put little cows in boxes,’ he was saying. ‘The cows, baby cows. They can’t move.’ He spoke between sobs, sleep thick in his eyes and wet in his throat. ‘It’s like torture and they do it because they can, for the taste. They’re only babies.’
ROADKILL (The Literary Platform, May 2022)
At the bend, not far from the pub, something caught me, something different. It was tucked against the curb – an animal, of sorts. At first glance it seemed to be taking shelter beside the raised pavement, like a windbreak. I didn’t know what it was, exactly, until I got closer; with each step it resembled less an animal and more a knotted rag, something dirty and tangled and inorganic. It had been a fox, once, before a car hit it. Hollowed it out. I looked away and tried not to think about it too much, and when I passed the twisted dishcloth of fur, I quickened my pace.
MISSING IN KREUZBERG (Reflex Press, July 2022)
He had wanted a child, and she had valued her independence. They were still young but they wouldn’t be for long. He ruminates on this as he drinks, smokes. Many of their friends believe that to bring life into a dying world is immoral. She used to stay up late reading bad news on her phone and he would have to force her to switch it off.