Since my post about making a living from art, I’ve decided to follow the example of Scottish writer Hal Duncan, and make one of my short stories available in PDF format in return for donations.

I will send a copy of the 5100 word story by email to anyone who makes a donation using the “Buy” tab above. There is no set amount: if you’d like me to send you a copy of the story, simply pay whatever you think is a fair price.

The story is called ‘What Would Nicolas Cage Have Done?’.

It received a good response when it appeared in the Future Bristol anthology from Swimming Kangaroo Books, and now the time has come to open it up to a wider audience.

The story starts with a young man meeting a beautiful shop assistant while playing truant from his office job, and ends up somewhere far weirder and stranger than he could possibly have imagined…

Click the “Buy” tab and not only will you have the chance to get a copy of this story for whatever you think it’s worth, you’ll also have the satisfaction of supporting a writer trying to make an honest living through his work.

James Maxey reviews the Future Bristol anthology for Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. Of my contribution, he writes:

“The strongest part of the story is the budding love story between the narrator and a girl he meets in a bookstore. I found the dialogue to be very natural and plausible; often dialogue in short stories is simply there to push the plot forward. Here, the dialogue has nothing to do with the gee-whiz tech that will erupt a few pages later. As a result, it felt very real to me. It seemed like the way people actually flirt, and makes the story feel like an actual window onto life.”

Read the full review online here.

Keri Honea reviews the Future Bristol anthology for Suite101:

The story with the most original and intriguing name is one of the biggest highlights of the collection. “What Would Nicolas Cage Have Done?” by Gareth L Powell ends the entire world through a freak accident with nanotech computer builders and random chance saves one man from Bristol to decide who will repopulate the earth with him. The tie in to Nicolas Cage’s movie, It Could Happen to You, was both unexpected and brilliantly played out.