At the beginning of February 2014, I’d just finished a first draft of an as-yet-unannounced novel for Obverse but already knew it needed another run at it before I could call it finished. Since it’s been something like two years since Stuart Douglas at Obverse first asked me to pitch him something, I thought I’d better get in touch and check he didn’t need to see it urgently. He didn’t - which was fortunate, as I was just about to put it to one side to write my story for Iris Wildthyme of Mars. When I mentioned this to Stuart, it must have set a few braincells firing: he asked if I had any desire to edit an Iris book of my own. Although I quite regularly beta-read other writers’ work, I’ve never actually edited anybody else. The idea was appealing, not least because it would give me the chance to say I had editorial experience. You never know exactly what might lift you up above the crowd …
We discussed terms, and I promised to come back to him with an idea as soon as I could.