Buittle Castle and best-selling novelist John Dean have teamed up to run a workshop on how to write a ghost story in the spooky surroundings of the Medieval Tower House near Dalbeattie, Dumfries and Galloway.

The event, which will take place between 3-8pm on Halloween, Thursday October 31, 2019, will help writers to tap into their reader’s…

As a writer, I am always inspired by a sense of place. Whether it be a gloomy city or a stunning hillside, a glass-strewn council estate or a majestic waterfall, something about my surroundings repeatedly triggers ideas. It’s been the theme of a series of creative writing workshops I have recently been delivering.

Let…

Best-selling crime novelist John Dean has announced the 2020 dates for weekend writing workshops at his home near Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway.

John, author of 18 novels and currently published by London-based The Book Folks, is the creator of the popular DCI John Blizzard and DCI Jack Harris series.

He will run two courses, based around sense of place and the mechanics of storytelling,  from his 19^th Century home set in rolling countryside on the weekends…

The latest DCI John Blizzard is out, the seventh in the series published by The Book Folks.

In A Flicker in the Night, a spate of murderous arson attacks evokes bitter memories for stalwart detective John Blizzard…It was a defining moment in DCI John Blizzard’s early career when he caught a notorious arsonist on a killing spree.

Yet…

I am currently teaching a creative writing course, part of which focuses on the unreliable narrator, a character who tells a story that the reader cannot take at face value.…

What turns a story from good to very good? For me, it is that extra something. That attention to detail on the part of the author.

Whether it be the description of a place that makes you shiver because you feel the chill air coming off the hills, or a portrayal of a character so…

One of the key things that I tell my creative writing students is that the opening lines of their stories are crucial.

Why? Because harassed publishers, overworked agents and readers with a mass of choice all need grabbing within moments of picking up the book/short…

The DCI Blizzard Murder Mysteries Books 4 to 6 is out.

This is a collection containing the second three books in the DCI John Blizzard…