Journal

Dorothy Kuya, Bernie Grant, and the Novel I Didn’t Expect to Find Her In

Trevor Davies September 17, 2026 No Comments

While I was researching Melly Strikes Back, I came across a name I hadn’t been looking for: Dorothy Kuya. She appears in the novel as herself — a real Liverpool…

The Archive on the Dock Road

Trevor Davies September 10, 2026 No Comments

I grew up in a city that never stopped telling itself stories. Most of them weren’t written down in an archive. They were told in pubs, on picket lines, at…

Care Is Work. The Pictures Say Otherwise.

Trevor Davies September 3, 2026 1 Comment

A girl carrying her brother, captioned as devotion, is a picture of the reason she is not at school — with the reason edited out. A new free course for…

The Long View: Writing at Seventy-One

Trevor Davies September 2, 2026 1 Comment

Twenty-six years in Harare, a return to Liverpool, and what age actually gives a novelist: not wisdom, but duration.

Gender Inequality in Southern Africa: What the SADC Protocol Gives a Novelist

Trevor Davies September 2, 2026 1 Comment

Gender inequality in Southern Africa is legislated against more thoroughly than most readers assume, and still not reaching women. What the SADC Protocol, the national statutes and the Gender Links…

The Modern Slavery Act 2015: What I Learned Writing Red Dress

Trevor Davies September 1, 2026 3 Comments

Red Dress is published today. Half of the children the UK identifies as potential modern slavery victims are there through criminal exploitation. Here is what the Modern Slavery Act 2015…

A Road That Goes Nowhere: Why Red Dress Had to Be Set in Liverpool

Trevor Davies September 1, 2026 2 Comments

Red Dress, the first Byrne and Walsh novel, is published today. Here is why the city is the reason it exists.

How I Write as a Pantser: Why Research and Iteration Changes Everything

Trevor Davies August 26, 2026 No Comments

I write as a pantser. For years, that meant abandoned projects and a drawer full of unfinished first drafts[1]. The pantser writing process felt free, yes. Exciting, even. But it…