UK Book Club discussion

I'm Andrew Lawston, a writer, actor and publishing manager who lives and works in London.

I've been writing since I was about seven years old. Let's be honest, it's a cheap hobby. I'd had bits and pieces of Doctor Who fanfiction published in charity anthologies, and then sold my first short story professionally in 2005.

Something Nice is a collection of ten of my short stories written from 2000 to 2011. Many have been published in small press magazines, a couple have won competitions, but all the rights had reverted to me and I realised that no one other than myself had read all of them.

Something Nice: 10 Short Stories is available from Amazon and Smashwords in every format I could find.

My stories are sometimes creepy, sometimes scary, sometimes horrible and sometimes funny, but hopefully always entertaining. There's some tongue in cheek SF space opera action in The Hero Function, an unpleasantly Kafkaesque transformation in Gluttony, and a haunted photocopier in Tempaghost. And metafiction gone bonkers in the oldest story in the anthology Write a Short Story.

And the title? Whatever I write, my Mum is very supportive right up until she finds out what it's about. At which point she sighs and says: "Andrew. Why can't you write something nice?"

Well, now I have :)

The book is now listed on Goodreads, and several members have been kind enough to write (so far very positive) reviews.

Thanks to R.J. Askew for my 4th consecutive five star review on Amazon for: Something Nice - 10 Stories

"Andrew Lawston is an engaging contemporary writer with an easy touch and a diamond-tipped wit. He has a natural eye for a story and can write in a variety of genres. Above all, for me at least, his fertile mind produces some love turns of phrase. I would have been happy if I had liked three or four out of the ten stories in his SOMETHING NICE collection. I actually enjoyed seven out of ten and though one of the other three was almost there. So I enjoyed 7-1/2 stories out of ten, if it possible to enjoy half a story. I was impressed. Above all I enjoyed the read and found myself looking for moments to steal a little kindle time with his stories. I was curious to see what he would do next and I would happily have read on if there had been twenty stories in the collection. One of his stories made me feel seventeen again. Another had me rocking with ribald laughter. Another made me think. Here is one of my favourite dabs, 'the remembered weight of a heavy schoolbag'. There were at least a score of similar passages which caught my eye. Anyone who was growing up in the nineties and noughties will instantly know where Andrew Lawston is coming from."

I'm now up to seven 5 star reviews on Amazon.co.uk for Something Nice - 10 Stories.

Nine 5 star reviews on Amazon.co.uk for Something Nice and a mixed bag of 4 and 5 star ratings here on Goodreads. The nicest feedback I've had so far was from a friend who emailed me to say she'd loved the stories, but was now worried about the contents of my head...

Now up to eleven 5 star reviews for Something Nice on Amazon.co.uk, the most recent one below:

Absolutely loved this collection of short stories. They were all quirky, well thought out and a brilliant combination of funny, shocking and different. Each story is special in it's own way and they all stand out. One of my favourite collections.

Just 77p for the Kindle edition, these stories have been getting great feedback. Do please take a look and see if you enjoy the sample.

Well it's a a few weeks since I've plugged my collection here, but Something Nice - 10 Stories has now sold over 100 copies, and garnered 13 excellent Amazon reviews across the US and UK sites, as well as some great ratings on Goodreads.

I'm now working on just one or two more short stories for a second collection - though this may be delayed as one of the tales is currently being considered for a professional anthology.

I hope you enjoy these stories as much as my other readers seem to have done so far :)

I have at least one professional short story credit this year! I'm delighted to say that my short story The Frag Prince has been accepted for Volume 4 of the Grimm and Grimmer series. These anthologies of updated fairytales are already building up a lot of support with the first two volumes already published. I also gather a story I wrote last year may be included in a Christmas collection - scary that publishers are already looking ahead to the very end of the year!

In the meantime, Something Nice is now over one year old and still selling and garnering positive reviews. Do please take a look at the free sample...

In the build-up to my pro debut with The Frag Prince in Grimm and Grimmer Vol 4, I'm working hard to try and get enough stories together for a follow up anthology. It's mostly zombies. Zombies are still cool, right?

In the meantime, however, Something Nice is still available, and still quirky and twisted and dark and funny as ever (or so I'm told).