Short Trips: How the Doctor Changed My Life, a collection of brand new Doctor Who short stories published by Big Finish is now available, and it includes The Shopping Trolleys of Doom – my very first piece of professionally published fiction!

The theme of the collection is people’s lives who have been changed by the Doctor, for good or bad. Mine is about Joe Stevens, an ordinary supermarket worker who notices that the shopping trolleys are behaving strangely. Here’s a short extract from the beginning to whet your appetite…

‘Oi, wait!’ I shouted, lowering my spanner from fixing a shopping trolley. I’d been staring at the newspaper stand, each paper with flashing images of the latest wave of spaceships heading out of the solar system, brave explorers among the new planets. I imagined what it would be like to be a hero out there with them, discovering new places and creatures.

And then I noticed a scruffy man slipping some bread under his grey overcoat. My head was in the stars but my life was stuck down here on Earth. Stopping a shoplifter was the greatest adventure I’d ever have. I sighed as the man quickened his pace, hurrying nervously towards the main exit of Megamart…

There are previews of the other stories on the Big Finish Facebook group. You can order the book directly from the publishers, Big Finish, who also publish some very good audio dramas, or from Amazon, or from your local bookshop, who should be able to order a copy if they don’t have it in stock.

And although it’s my first published fiction, it definitely won’t be my last – I’ve already got another short story accepted for publication in the spring, and work continues apace on my fantasy novel. If you buy a copy of Short Trips, I’ll be very happy to sign it for you, and if I become the next J K Rowling, then it could be worth a ton of money! I can but dream…