Unpublished Works.

Here’s a graveyard for my unpublished books. Feel free to rob their tombs.

They’re yours to download, read, share with others, and scoff at if you like. But their copyright – for what it’s worth – remains with me.

Time of Grace

People have many times asked me if I’ve ever considered writing fiction. Time of Grace is the answer to that question.

Back in 2006, Text Publishing signed up the novel on the strength of its first three chapters. Publication was scheduled for 2008; but when they saw the final manuscript of Time of Grace, the publishers had second thoughts. I made a lame attempt at revision, but discovered there was no more novel left in me.

Here then is the stillborn Time of Grace. Get Time of Grace as an eBook here!

Henry Vivo, post-office detective, is not a man easily flummoxed, nor given to fancy. He’s a straight-line man, in thrall to the minute-hand. But when letters start appearing out of nowhere, addressed to a street that doesn’t exist, Henry finds himself drawn into a world of uncertainty.

Fin de siècle Melbourne throbs with things unsaid. Behold Henry’s daughter, Lil, at her typewriting agency, turning out unblemished copy at 70 words per minute: the very model of self-restraint and discretion. But scratch the surface…

Spanning eleven days in September 1893, Time of Grace begins with a metaphysical mystery and shakes down into family secrets. For, as the Vivos discover, the past is always with us.

Mrs Bradley's Melbourne

A Serendipitous Guide to the Sovereign City of the South

Early in 2009, newly unemployed and in possession of a ten-week rail pass, I was inspired to write a quick-and-quirky book about Melbourne past and present, aimed at idlers like me. Brilliant. Except that nobody wanted to publish it.

Perhaps idlers don’t constitute a substantial market segment. Perhaps there are no idlers. Or perhaps Mrs Bradley’s Melbourne is just crap. You decide. Get Mrs Bradley's Melbourne as an eBook here!

Another name for this book could be Melbourne Off the Top of My Head since its contents, the extranea of years of reading and noticing, have lodged uninvited in my cerebrum and Mrs Bradley’s Melbourne represents an attempt to evict them.

From cafeterias to meteorites, from Humbug Reach to Homicide, from pigeons to Ned Kelly’s horse – this book takes the reader on a zigzag route through little-known Melbourne, past and present.