Two Self-Portraits

I rarely like photos of me - but here's two that I do. From 1974 and 1995 respectively... both collaged with stuff in my journals. The white alsation was Nicki, the first dog I ever had. He was a retired police dog and when I was tiny I'd sit on his back like he was a pony. I'd sit inside his kennel while he lay outside and kept watch.

The other pic comes from photos that were taken for my first novel, 'Marked for Life' coming out from Chatto when I was twenty five. I don't think they even got used in the end. Maybe I'll write a bit more soon, about publishing that first novel and how it all happened. And what it was like, in the mid-nineties, writing and publishing queer-northern-working-class-magical-realism, as I used to laughingly refer to it.