I'm on live radio in just over an hour, writing and performing a new comedy poem in the studio, and talking about my new sci-fi book, and a book voucher giveaway. You can listen online.
I'm on live radio in just over an hour, writing and performing a new comedy poem in the studio, and talking about my new sci-fi book, and a book voucher giveaway. You can listen online.
Link in email
Just a quick one, anyone here who is a fan of my podcast (which returns this summer with new guests) might be interested in this: I’m back on ALLfm this afternoon to talk about books, my American comedy experience, and my future writing projects.
It starts at 3pm and ends at 5pm. UK time.
ALLfm is an independent Manchester radio station which focuses on local artists and creators. In particular today’s Sunday Tea Show has been the first ever radio interview for a lot of aspiring creatives in the town.
I have an interesting connection to ALLfm. When I published WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? (the special edition of which is now available for click and collect at Waterstones by the way) back in 2020, I didn’t really know how to go about advertising myself as an author. I had an instagram (with seventeen followers, so I can brag that 50% of my followers pre-ordered WBTH) and a twitter which, to this day, I still don’t understand the nuances of.
Luckily, someone called Ruth turned up and asked me if I’d be interested in being interviewed on the radio. She thought I lived in California, and I thought she might want some money out of me for the privilege of being on the radio (because up until now, any and all contact I had with interviewers was actually contact with ‘promoter’ type people who milk the pensions out of elderly fantasy authors using gloves made of lies and deceit).
Anyway, Ruth was very much real and very much decent so I got my mum to drive me down to the radio station. It turns out the recording studio is inside the very first library I remember going to, as a five year old.
Because I used to live round the corner from ALLfm.
So the place I first properly stared at a book and thought “I want to make one of those things” became the place where, over 20 years later, I would talk about having made one of those things.
Pretty cool, right?
Ruth and I later became friends, and I later became some hybrid of frequent guest and co-host at ALLfm. Through 2021 and bits of 2022, I also worked at FABradio doing a comedy show with Stephen, their regular host.
All of this prepared me for THE PHILLIP CARTER SHOW (renamed from STRANGE STORIES because sci-fi authors kept telling me they didn’t have any strange stories to tell… how can that be?). Anyway, TPCS is a nerdy comedy show which I would call neurodiverse if it didn’t make me cringe so much.
We’ll be talking about this today, on the radio, at 3pm UK time.
What you can expect to hear
I’ll be writing, and performing, a brand new poem inside the studio. I have no idea what it will be about.
I’ll talk about my trip to Salt Lake City, where I told jokes about Mormons, to Mormons, and most of them loved it.
I’ll definitely be announcing THE COSMONAUT WHO DIED TWICE, my new sci-fi novella which comes out June 5.
I’ll be talking about my new venture as a toy artist, covering my new series of insect-themed shirts, such as this one. I’ll be letting listeners know that the website to get them at is linktr.ee/grumblebricks and that there’s a 15% discount until next Sunday if they use the code BEES. This shirt artist thing is a fun expansion to the Halfplanet Press mission, as it paves the way for me to adopt and help other indie artists in the future.
I’ll be talking about why I’m NOT going to the Fringe this year, and why I am instead saving up to purchase 100 ISBN codes (the barcodes for books) at the same time, for Halfplanet Press (spoiler, I have about 17 books I am working on, or have finished, such as the poetry ones).
I’ll mention that all my books connect.
I’ll talk a little bit about my podcast, and how it’s returning with an appearance from a horror author, then a comedian, then a psychic, and how my long-term goal is to get them all in the same call debating the mysteries of the universe.
I might mention that to celebrate my books appearing in Waterstones, I plan to do a £20 Waterstones / Barnes&Noble voucher giveaway soon, (once I can work out how to set one of those things up) for new and existing subscribers on this newsletter.
I’ll probably tell a joke or two, if they are family friendly.
See you there!