The Archive on the Dock Road
I grew up in a city that never stopped telling itself stories. Most of them weren’t written down. They were told in pubs, on picket lines, at kitchen tables —…
Journal
Notes from the research behind the books — Liverpool history, the dockers' strikes, Zimbabwe's untold stories, and the music that runs through it all.
Care Is Work. The Pictures Say Otherwise.
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
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
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
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
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
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…
Ten Pound Poms: What the Scheme Was and When It Ran
The Assisted Passage Migration Scheme, 1945 to 1982. Ten pounds an adult, children free, two years or repay the fare. Over a million went, a quarter came home, and half…