The Ides of June 2026

I am a fish I am a fish (I am a boat)

Greetings Picklesversians!

It’s the 13th of June and the Ides are upon us once again, so it’s time for my monthly message.

Here’s what I’ve got for you today:

• 🎉 Some exciting news
• 📔 New covers update
• 🐟 A portrait of the artist as a fish
• 👽 Recommendations

Let’s dive in! 🌊

🎉 Some exciting news

I learned last week that Artificial Selection has reached the semi-finals of the SPSFC#5 competition! That means of the 118 books submitted, it’s through to the final 10! Crumbs, crikey, and holy moly!

This news is particularly meaningful for me because the competition, which stands for the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition, was co-founded by Hugh Howey, author of Wool. Before I encountered Howey’s work, I always intended to pursue a traditional publishing deal. However, his four-part blog post outlining his own experience of both routes, and his observations as a bookseller about the fate of most traditionally published novels and authors, was what finally persuaded me not to go in that direction and instead to create my own independent publishing imprint, Neon Mess Press.

I’m utterly delighted and so grateful to the judges for their careful reading of the book. The winner will be announced in September.

📔 New covers update

Back in February, I mentioned that I’m getting new covers. Not new duvet covers… although I did notice that Dunelm is selling a fetching mustard yellow duvet set teeming with hedgehogs, so perhaps I’ll invest in some of those, too. But for now, I’m talking about new book covers for the ArkTech series.

Although much of your feedback on the February draft was positive, you did legitimately raise your eyebrows over a few things. In particular, the designers had depicted the world as covered in overgrown plants. I’m still not entirely sure why. My best guess is they read about the Melt in the brief and decided the cover should signal “post-apocalypse”. In any case, the communication challenges were such that we’ve decided to go back to the drawing board.

It hasn’t been a straightforward process, not least because the books don’t fit neatly into an existing sub-genre, but we’re now working with a different company and I think they’re doing a better job of conveying the feel of the books. Here’s a teaser for now…

(The more I look at the dotted background, the more I’m hypnotised by it. Ben thinks it looks kind of like a disco ball, so he approves.)

🐟 I am a fish

The process of getting new covers has involved other types of work besides briefing the designers. To give a tiny example from this month, I had to confirm the text for the author bio that goes on the back flap of the hardback dust jacket. Considering I already had a draft to work with, it shouldn’t have been a difficult job.

But unfortunately, it triggered a mild-to-moderate existential crisis.

The thing is, summarising 40 years of life in about 100 words is no mean feat. (It’s arguably even harder than coming up with a 20-word “elevator pitch” to describe your 100,000 word novel.)

At one stage, I thought I’d try drafting it fresh from a blank page, but after about an hour, the only bit I hadn’t deleted was as follows:

“Marianne Pickles is.”

Now, technically speaking, that’s a true statement. It’s also rather pleasing from a philosophical perspective. And it has the benefit of being a grammatically correct sentence (and I would know… but I’ll come back to that later). However, it probably isn’t quite enough for an author bio.

At this point, in the manner of any sane person forced to write a tagline version of their own life, I started hearing the voice of Mr Sebastian from the Babylon 5 episode called “Comes the Inquisitor”. As you’ll doubtless remember, he repeatedly asks Delenn: “WHO ARE YOU?” (the favourite question of the Vorlons.)

But if I were to paraphrase Delenn’s reply, my author bio would become:

“Marianne Pickles is only a shell. You cannot touch her. You cannot harm her. She is not afraid.”

Memorable, perhaps. But I’m not a Minbari, so I can’t get away with saying things like that.

At this point, I needed some outside help, so I wrote to my brother about it. He suggested:

“Marianne Pickles is. So are you.”

I’m getting the t-shirts printed as we speak.

This whole experience brought to mind the Red Dwarf episode called “The End,” in which Lister explains how Rimmer panicked during his engineering exam and wrote “I am a fish” four hundred times, did a little dance, and fainted. (For the record, this is not considered effective exam technique. And I would know… but I’ll come back to that later, too).

“Marianne Pickles is a fish is a fish is a fish. [Thud].”

I can’t use that, sadly – I’m sure the Red Dwarf writers hold the copyright.

I was left with no option, but to adopt my default approach and do some research on the topic.

Publishing expert Jane Friedman explains that the short author bio will ideally convey three things:

• A broad picture of your experience and background
• External validators (publications, awards, etc.)
• A point of view or voice.

So, here’s what I came up with (which is extremely similar to what I started with).

“Marianne Pickles writes mysteries set in the near future. She won the Green Stories Novel Prize in 2023 and holds a first-class degree in English Literature and Classics.

She grew up in the northeast of Scotland, where working on offshore platforms was a normal thing to do. These days, she lives in the low-lying wetlands known as the Fens with her partner, David. Given the rapid rate of sea level rise, they’re contemplating learning to kayak.”

And I think that’s probably fine. However, it does omit the minor detail of my entire professional life.

So, as a special behind-the-scenes exclusive, prepare to be regaled with a few fun facts about the 18 years (and counting) that I’ve spent working in English language education and assessment!

No, don’t yawn! It’ll be interesting, I promise…

The short version is:

After I graduated, I worked as an English language teacher for six years (one in Munich, Germany; six in Logroño, Spain). Then, I went to work for Cambridge University Press & Assessment – I’ve been with them for twelve years. For the first few years, my job involved creating English language exams which had to be 100% error-free. Then I moved into the innovation team and worked on educational video game design for a while. These days, I’m the Head of Assessment Development and my job involves designing new digital exams.

Which means, I could say “Marianne Pickles is a word-wrangling pedant, who has been thoroughly trained in the finer points of grammar, proofreading, and the art of expressing things clearly and simply. (She also enjoys making bracketed asides.)”

I haven’t included any of that in my dust jacket bio. But it’s certainly true that what I’ve learned during my professional life has come in handy for writing novels. Learning English grammar to such an extent that I can explain the rules at the drop of a hat has proved extremely useful because I never have to wonder whether I should be using the past simple or the past perfect – at this point, I just know. And being able to proofread any document to within an inch of its life is equally helpful. But today I wanted to share a story about synonyms. Partly because it’s relevant to the topic so far, and partly because it gives me an excuse to quote from an episode of Friends.

Ben suggests I begin with an amusing aside, and I wouldn’t dream of disagreeing. In 2012, I attended a conference in Barcelona about English language teaching in which one of the speakers shared the following one-liner to illustrate through humour how it feels as a second language speaker when you don’t understand a key piece of vocabulary in a sentence:

“My cousin is pusillanimous. Would you like to meet him?”

As per tradition, I’ll hand over to Ben to explain why this is funny.

Ben: It’s important to note that this is amusing thanks to the high likelihood that the listener will not be familiar with the meaning of the word pusillanimous. As such, the question becomes impossible to answer. The humour arises from the combined impact of imagining being asked this question in conversation, the social discomfort of not knowing how to respond, and the speculation over the unfamiliar word’s potential meanings.

MP: Thanks, Ben. Could you give us the definition of pusillanimous while you’re here?

Ben: Certainly! The word derives from the Latin pusillus, meaning very small or weak, and animus, meaning spirit or courage. As such, the word is a synonym for cowardly.

Thanks, Ben!

Right, so the joke relies on the word being unfamiliar to the audience. But how did the presenter know this word was uncommon? Well, corpus data can tell us exactly how frequently pusillanimous is used in English. According the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English, this word crops up only once every 11.1 million words. It’s so rare that even proficient English speakers have a small chance of encountering it.

Understanding word frequency is helpful when teaching English because it helps with being able to explain things simply. In the case of exams, this is especially important when it comes to writing clear instructions. And it’s also useful when it comes to writing novels. 

Creative writing tutors often advise would-be authors not to use a thesaurus while writing. The implication is that we aren’t to be trusted when wielding such an arcane tome, and that we may deploy fancy words in inappropriate ways. This risk is taken to the extreme in season 10 of Friends – The One Where Rachel’s Sister Babysits, in which Joey is asked to write a recommendation letter for Chandler and Monica.

Here’s an excerpt from the transcript:

Chandler: [Looking at the letter.] I don’t, uh, understand.

Joey: Some of the words a little too sophisticated for ya?

Monica: It doesn’t make any sense.

Joey: Of course, it does! It’s smart! I used a thesaurus!

Chandler: On every word?

Joey: Yep.

Monica: All right. What was this sentence originally? [Points at the letter.]

Joey: Oh, “they’re warm, nice people with big hearts.”

Chandler: And that became “they are humid, prepossessing Homo sapiens with full sized aortic pumps.”

Joey: Yeah, yeah. And hey… I really mean it, dude.

In reality, I often look up synonyms while writing, just as I do at my day job. But in novel-writing, it’s a question of character voice. Charlotte didn’t receive a traditional education and she isn’t scholarly (unlike Ben, who literally knows all the words). As such, she’s unlikely to say, for example, disingenuous – she’s more likely to say two-faced or shady.

This variety and flexibility is something I love about language. We have so many ways of expressing similar concepts that we can all do so in our own unique, opulent, and majestic manner. 

Last month, I wrote about how the widespread use of generative AI for writing risks a homogenisation of language. These systems are known as Large Language Models and they’re similar to the concept of a linguistic corpus that I mentioned earlier. They refer to a big database of text written by real people. 

The thing is, LLMs work by selecting the most likely words based on their dataset. In other words, they give average answers.

I don’t think we want to be average. I think we all want to be ourselves. Choosing our own words helps us to do that. Sometimes, we’ll want words that are clear and common. Sometimes, we’ll want them to be rare and exotic. But we always want them to be ours.

👽 Recommendations

• 🍿Disclosure Day

Steven Spielberg has a new alien film out at the cinema, with music by John Williams. No, you haven’t stepped back into 1982. There’s actually a new one and it’s called Disclosure Day.

I was quite excited to see this one. It stars Emily Blunt, whose acting has been exceptional in everything I’ve ever seen her in, along with Colin Firth (aka the actual, real Mr Darcy). And I was ready for some Spielberg-based nostalgia.

The premise is that aliens have been visiting our planet for many years, but that truth was kept hidden by an evil corporation. But whistleblowers have stolen the proof and the film follows their attempt to tell the world. Meanwhile, Emily Blunt reads the weather for a Kansas-based TV station until she makes eye contact with a red bird that triggers her latent connection to the aliens, enabling her to spontaneously speak Korean and read people’s minds without realising she’s doing it. Cool, eh?

We went to see it on opening night. It was enjoyable. The acting was good, and I liked the way they told the story. There were a couple of chase scenes that were a bit silly (I, of course, would never write a silly chase scene), but I liked the overall message of the film, which was aspirational in its optimism while also being realistic about what humanity is like.

It wasn’t life-changing, but it was better than the average film that gets made these days. I certainly didn’t feel like I was wasting my life by being there, which is sadly so often the case. But if that’s not a sufficiently ringing endorsement, I’d suggest staying at home and watching a work of genius like District 9 instead (although, warning: some parts are hard to watch). Or, for something else with aliens starring Emily Blunt, I’d recommend Edge of Tomorrow.

• 🎮 Dredge

I’ve played a lot of video games in my time. In most of them, the playable character is a person. If not, it’s an animal. Sometimes you pilot a spaceship, so the ship effectively becomes the main character. But in Dredge, you play a boat – a very cute boat that has to avoid being eaten by sea monsters during the night.

Well, to be accurate, you play the fisherman. But most of the gameplay is spent zooming around on the ocean, so I feel like the boat is the real hero. Throughout the game, you upgrade its engines, its nets and the lights that help you ward off insanity after dark. My boat has bunting and a pirate flag.

The game offers a delightful mix of relaxing exploration and the evasion of pelagic nightmares. Definitely recommend.

Right… That’s all from me this month!

I hope all’s well in your own personal universes.

Walk in the sun,

Marianne