Welcome to my newsletter for keeping in touch with readers. Here's where I’ll keep readers up to date with - where I am with my latest projects, when a new book (or something else) is coming out, when I'm accepting the Best Screenplay Oscar or whoops, I must learn to separate fiction from that other stuff, I think they may call it real life.

May ‘25 newsletter

Here’s what I’ve been working on since Jacksboro Highway was released in April.

1. Colin the superhero is coming along nicely. About 50,000 words or half a novel. No idea for a title, but I’ll have to devote some time to the question soon. I’m intending Colin to become a series, so maybe a recurring word or phrase in the title might be useful. ‘Reluctant superhero’ could lead on to ‘Overconfident superhero’. ‘Apprentice superhero’ leads on to ‘Journeyman superhero.’ Then there’s ‘Genesis of a superhero’ which has plenty of possibilities.

If you have ever dreamed or daydreamed how you would mend our country — if only you woke up one day with amazing superpowers — then Colin will be your cup of tea.

Remember, you can read Chapters 1 & 2 here. Feel free to reply with comments, suggestions, likes, dislikes. If becoming a beta reader appeals to you, or being the first to receive chapters in progress, I’d welcome that.

2. A collection of half a dozen unfinished stories have been demanding I finish them. They’ll appear in my next short story collection – possible titles ‘Brave New World’, ‘How to rebuild a country’, ‘New direction’, ‘Shall we try this again?’, ‘Stories from a better world’, ‘The first turn after the corner’.

I’ll tell you about two of them today.

In the series of emails I send out to every new subscriber, I mention the themes I explore intentionally and unintentionally in my stories, including true manhood and masculinity, true leadership, honour and integrity.

As I see our country draw ever closer to being flushed away down the toilet, I anticipate that — come the rebuild — these discarded values will become more and more essential.

A couple of days ago I spent the whole day on a long, short story I’ve been working on and off with for years. All those themes are high in the mix. It’s set in New Zealand after the collapse. Our protagonist, a Maori man-boy called Tane, spent years as a gang prospect, hoping one day he’d be patched. The end of the world happened and there was no rebuild. Instead, survivors returned to farming and simple manufacturing. Ferals scrape a living by raiding these farms and communities. Except the one which Tane ends up living on, by a stroke of luck, as a prospect. Tai Tapu is a well organised, successful farm, tightly regulated and protected by a rigidly hierarchical military leadership. Warriors are in charge and they don’t dish out membership like confetti. Rather like a biker gang. And at the same time, nothing like one.

After failing more trials than he passes, Tane is assigned as a shepherd on a high hill pasture. All alone for months. Nothing to do but watch the sheep — and think.

Have you ever watched the underrated gem ‘The Wrestler’ by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Whale) starring a spellbinding Mickey Rourke? It gives generously every time I re-watch it. What gripped me last time was the utterly bare, mercilessly transactional world that Ram (Rourke) and Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) live in. They have two identities, a performer and a real-life, day to day person (who is almost invisible by contrast). Their performer identities are valued and sought after, the real person they are is not. At all. Hence, the ‘fake’ persona keeps pulling them back, but time is a one way street and one day soon they will have to reconcile with the real world. Or will they? 

Anyway, Cassidy’s character and dilemma, but even more so the transactional world she lives in, is what inspired my short story ‘Anjelica’. She self-identifies as a high-class call girl, clicks that those days are (almost) over and plans to get out by landing a wealthy husband. She expects the husband will be a dupe, a true believer in love, trust, genuine complementary relationships and so on but after a lifetime of charging for love, she finds she cannot recalibrate. Can anyone?

The transactional world, which we see idolised and promoted everywhere ... by rappers, Kardashians, crime and gangster dramas and films is a good example of all that glitters. It offers golden riches, satisfaction of your every desire, fame, status, exclusive gated mansions proles can only dream of but it’s really a cheap and shiny counterfeit world when compared to – well, family, love, sacrifice, selflessness, brotherhood, truth and beauty – to name but a few.

Happy reading

Martin