Mark Liam Piggott

With my extensive tabloid experience I can confirm that this morning I sent Davey C and Nicky baby my application for the currently vacant position of Head of Communications at 10 Downing Street. Obviously, as part of the application process I put forward a number of reasonable and intelligent strategies that in my opinion will help the Coalition get the public onboard at this difficult time. My main proposals are: · End duty on alcohol. · Declare war on Wales.

Always a strange month, January, more so this time round: waiting on “emptiness”, tampering with a couple of short story and feature ideas, and then out of the blue yesterday started working on a radio play inspired by a nightmare.Very odd, very difficult to think about (my own life, my many mistakes), but strangely easy to write; already written almost 7,000 words, but how much is useable? Also this week I wrote to the production company responsible for “the 10 o’clock show”

"Every serious or even semi serious reader deludes themselves with the notion that they “have a book in them”. We read the mundane, run of the mill fiction that populates many of the best seller lists convinced that we could do at least as well ourselves. Then, out of the blue, a book comes along that destroys this fantasy. A book that is so well conceived and crafted that it brings us back to earth with a resounding thud. Our delusions evaporate as they are exposed to true l

On the shelf - or not? Went into the Waterstones at London Wall for a last-minute gift to find everyone fighting over Michael McIntyre, and Gok Wan, and One Day, and Jamie Oliver, and the memoirs of a Meerkat: my publisher is based a few metres down the same street but neither of mine are even in store. Could have cried. On flashing my “Society of Authors” card in the hope of a rebate, the sales assistant joked I should pay more, as an author, not less; I laughed too, non-exi

As I said in my last blog, I spent last Tuesday with the staff and clients of New Horizons in London’s Somerstown. Today, my article was published in the "Sunday Express". “Betrayal of our homeless youth” is about how projects such as New Horizons are bearing the impact of cuts and changes in the way grants are allocated and I’m really grateful to all involved, including Channel 4 newsreader John Snow and Mayor Boris Johnson. It’s getting harder and harder to get articles lik

Following on from last week’s blog about reviews in The Times, I find it impossible to refrain from adding that the “Culture” section of the Sunday Times is just as bad. To provide just three examples from the most recent issue: Christopher Goodwin, reviewing “Frank: the making of a legend” (James Kaplan), asserts that Frank Sinatra was a “momma’s boy”. Yet a few paragraphs down it turns out his mother was“abusive, violent and vengeful”. Make your mind up... By the way, I sup

Read all about it: some very special Guardian readers’ offers. Plus: “Nobody cares about the One Show” and “Why can’t our football team bribe anyone?” “Hague scotches ‘bald’ rumours”, Plus much, much more over on Home Defence...

Very funny blog in yesterday’s Guardian by Martin Howard As an unpublished author I thought everything would be plain sailing once I had my first book on the shelves; the journalism commissions would roll in, I’d be free to give up all other forms of work and my biggest worry would be deciding which cravat to wear to the Groucho, where I would challenge my many critics to a duel. Two novels and two years down the line, I’m still stuck; doing jobs I don’t want to do, unable to

It’s tough being a freelance journalist. Thinking up interesting feature ideas is hard enough; the writing and researching is probably the easiest aspect of the whole dismal process. The really hard bit is getting newspaper editors to respond to polite emails in which you propose what you want to write and why you think it would work particularly well for their publication. Every so often, when some newspaper editor fails to return my polite email, or says they only take stuf

We never made Seville, but we did make it along the winding road to Lloret, Tossa’s near-neighbour a few kms south. Large, tacky and...

Last Friday (30th Aug) I went to a friendly local cafe with internet facilities to post my last blog, but somehow managed to cause a complete technological meltdown for the Costa Brava region. Won’t go back there in a hurry... Later that night, up Vila Vella, Sean fell backwards in his chair and banged the back of his head. He seemed fine, but a few minutes later said something to Emma: that his own great nana fell as a baby and banged her head, and he was her grandfather and

Tossa de Mar, Costa Brava: sitting out on our large, covered, tiled balcony, sipping crisp white wine (actually we finished the wine ages back and are now on San Miguel, but “wine” scans better) washed down with chorizo, soft cheese and Serrano ham. We arrived late Monday night off the bus from Barca airport, helping the sleepy kids traverse quiet Calle Barcelona like miniature drunks. As we inspected the terrace two Manchester women shouted from the balcony above: “There’s t

I’m really delighted to announce that “Out of Office” has just been announced “book of the month” by the deeply influential “bookgroup” website. Previous authors to have been nominated include Hilary Mantel, Cormac McCarthy and Colm Toibin, so it’s a massive honour to be in such distinguished company. As well as a review of the novel which you can read here, the website has published an interview with me which you can read here. My only tiny regret is that once again Lucy and

Sometimes you forget what’s important. Where you’re from, where you are, and what’s next. You go to work or you don’t, you play with your kids or you don’t, you feed the cats, pay the bills, hang out the washing, surf the net, flick the channels, go on holiday, and all the years slide by and then it’s gone and so are you. Music helps me remember who I am. Tonight I compiled the Fire Horses soundtrack and yet again I was awestruck by the beauty of the people who write those so

Wonderful as it is to be “published” anytime, anyplace, anywhere (aren’t 2 & 3 the same? anyway) – there’s something extra-magical about seeing your short stories in a proper print magazine, ISSN and all. When the proper print magazine in question is the wonderful, world-renowned “Open Wide”, the right-chuffed feeling is even better. It is therefore with great delight and pride that I announce the publication of my short story, “the man who buried himself” in issue 23. I’d po

Spent an interesting morning with Tom from Legend and fellow author Andrew (“Holloway Road”) Blackman “running” a writing workshop at Blackwell’s bookshop in Holloway Road as part of the festival. Brought back fond memories of my degree at UNL (as was), when Blackwell’s was the shop of choice for many of the more penurious undergraduates (not me, of course) so it was sad to hear it’s going to be flattened soon. As part of the workshop we asked those present to write about any

Recently I’ve been reworking a long short story (if that makes sense) about an Englishman who becomes a hermit in an abandoned Australian mining town. My aim was to get the length down from 10,000 words to around 8,000, but rather than hack long sections away I decided instead to cut extraneous words (like “the”) wherever possible. Using this brutalist approach I’ve managed to cut almost two thousand words from the story, and it seems much stronger for it; the style has been

I still find it miraculous, Eurostar: you get on the train at St Pancras and disembark two hours later in a completely different culture – though not so different as Leeds. But then, Paris is closer, and more like London than Leeds can ever be. Expensive, for a start – nine euros for a pint at some outdoor place near Notre Dame, crikey on a bikey. Did the usual stuff – up the tower for an eyeful, ate in great little Algerian restaurants in the back streets, visited the same I

When George Best died a few years back, I was reminded of a strange little story I read in a book of sports jokes as a child. I never could find the author, so I decided to rewrite it from memory as a tribute to my idol, who I once saw drinking a beer at his pub, the Phene Arms (now, like George, and that book of sports jokes, long gone) on the King’s Road. For a long time I regretted not buying George a beer; now, I’m rather glad I didn’t... READ THE STORY HERE

Much in the manner of Turkmenistan ex-president Saparmurat Niyazov’s humble decision to re-name January after himself, I’m delighted to confirm the period 29 March – 4 April is henceforth to be known as “Mark Piggott week." Although obviously a trifle put out that uber-trendy LA-based webzine “Outside Left” have so far only seen fit to devote just two per cent of the annual calendar to me, which seems stingy, it’s only a matter of time before the entire Easter period is named