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1st February 2012 Click here for an interview with Rod Glenn talking writing and books. 10th January 2012 Rod is delighted to learn that Sinema has been nominated as a best read of 2011. Holiday of the Dead has also been nominated as the best horror anthology of 2011 in the This is Horror Awards. 21st December 2011 2011 has been a cracking year for Rod, seeing his readership skyrocket. Official sales figures are in and it is confimed that Rod's various titles have sold over 41,000 combined paperback and ebook sales this year (January-November). Rod would like to thank everyone for reading and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. 6th October 2011 Up and coming events that Rod will be appearing in: Saturday 29th October 6pm-9pm Holiday of the Dead multi-author book reading/signing at Waterstone's Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. Other authors attending include Matt Hilton, Tony Wright, Iain McKinnon, Iain Paton and John McCuaig. Saturday 26th November 12pm-3pm Newcastle Winter Book Festival, City Library, Newcastle including on the advisory panel for 'I'm a writer get me published'. 1st August 2011 Rave review of Sinema 2 in The Crack Magazine - "A fantastic and gruesome end to the Sinema story that will have you rooting for the bad guy." 27th July 2011 Rod will have a small part as a US soldier in the up and coming film adaption of World War Z that will start filming in Glasgow in August. 8th July 2011 Rod has started work on his next project, temporarily entitled The Fortress. It is said to be The Wild Geese meets Lord of the Rings. Seven mercenaries en route to assassinate a North African dictator suddenly find themselves transported to an alternate dimension and they unwittingly become the last line of defence for a medieval society threatened with extinction. Watch this space. 27th June 2011 There is now a comments section on the Profile page. Feel free to leave comments. 25th June 2011 6th June 2011 Rod has appeared in the Journal at the launch of Holiday of the Dead. 25th May 2011 Sinema 2 is currently riding high in the psychological thriller charts on Amazon, along with Sinema. Sinema has now recieved 43 five star reviews! And despite only being out a couple of weeks Sinema 2 has already received 4 five star reviews - "Highly recommended', "Hooked!", "Love it!" and "A five star performance!" 5th April 2011 Rod will be attending the official launch of Holiday of the Dead, an anthology of zombie short stories at the Lit & Phil, Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne 10am-1pm on Saturday 28th May 2011. The anthology features Rod's Seahouse Slaughterhouse short, along with an incredible line up of authors, including legendary Night of the Living Dead co-writer, John Russo, Pontypool writer, Tony Burgess, Matt Hilton and many more. It will also be a combined event to celebrate the launch of Sinema 2: Sympathy for the Devil. 18th March 2011 Here's the first look at the blurb for Sinema 2... After the Northumberland massacre, Han Whitman has returned to his normal life. But the carnage in Haydon has changed him. He is a haunted man, jaded by those bloody events. That is, until he realises that his original experiment is incomplete. The experiment must continue, but along a different path.
One survivor of Haydon teams up with the son of one of Han’s victims to hunt Whitman down.
As Han continues his experiment and also finds love in the most surprising of places, in the shadows someone else is watching the proceedings with keen, calculating interest.
The detective assigned to the vigilante killings becomes steadily more disillusioned until a chance coincidence leads her onto the killer’s trail.
The lives of these five individuals will collide with devastating consequences in the dramatic conclusion of the Sinema duology. 10th March 2011 Rod will be appearing at the launch of Byker Books' Radgepacket 5 at the Back Page, 55 St Andrews Street, Newcastle on Saturday 19th March 3-5pm as a guest speaker at the event. Ahead of the launch of Sinema 2: Sympathy for the Devil, Sinema: The Northumberland Massacre has seen an unprecidented surge in sales both in paperback and ebook. It is currently at number 5 in the Kindle Thriller chart. 28th February 2011 Rod Glenn is delighted to be a part of World Book Night and is distributing free copies of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. A free copy can be collected from The Computer Shop, 15 Hencotes, Hexham. Grab a copy of this stunning book while you can. 10th February 2011 The first draft of the long-awaited sequel to Sinema is finished! Rod is currently going through the fine-tuning process and a tentative release date has been given by his publisher as June/July. A short story featuring the infamous Han Whitman is also due to appear in the holiday-themed anthology, Wish You Were Undead. It is due out in May and features a host of talented authors including Matt Hilton, Shaun Jeffrey, Iain Mckinnon, Tony Wright, David Dunwoody, Joe Mckinney, Wayne Simmons and many more. 24th December 2010 Rod would like to wish everyone a magical Christmas and hope-filled New Year. Watch this space for the return of Han Whitman in 2011... 24th November 2010 Multi-author Book Event to be held at the Lit & Phil in Newcastle Sat 18th December 10am-12pm. Authors attending for readings and book-signing will be:
Rod Glenn, author of The King of America, Sinema and The Killing Moon
Kirsty Neary, author of The Stately Pantheon
A J Kirby, author of Bully
John Price, author of Suicide City
David Williams, author of 11:59 Ricki Thomas, author of Unlikely Killer and Hope's Vengence
Roz Glenn, compiler of P.O.W. Watime Log of F/Sgt T D Glenn
Tony Wright, author of The War of the Worlds: Aftermath The Lit & Phil is the largest independent library outside of London. 20th October 2010 The Killing Moon Kindle edition is now only 71p for a limited time only. Grab a bargain while you can! You can now follow Rod on  27th August 2010 Rod will be attending the Newcastle Book Festival (Books on Tyne) Saturday 6th November and Monday 8th November. He will be available on the Wild Wolf Publishing stand most of Saturday and will be attending reading and Q&A events 10.45am on Saturday and 5.30pm on Monday. He will also be available for book-signing. 11th August 2010 Rod Glenn will all be attending a book-signing/reading event at the Settle Down Cafe, 61-62 Thornton Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4AW Saturday 9th October 11am-3pm along with fellow north east authors, David Williams (11:59) and Jake Pattison (Suicide City). 6th August 2010 Kindle editions of Rod's books are being made available. The Killing Moon is a mere £2.21 - a bargain! Kindle editions are available through Amazon and can be read by all e-book readers including iPad, Sony etc and even on PCs or Laptops. 31st July 2010 The Killing Moon has made it into the top 100 psychological crime thriller novels list on Amazon! It's also currently got 15% off, so grab yourself a bargain! 3rd July 2010 Rod will be attending the Oxfam Bookfest Sunday (tomorrow) from 1pm till about 4pm. He will be signing copies of all three novels and might get roped into a reading or two! It's being held beside the Cumberland Arms, James Place Street, off Byker Bank, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear NE6 1LD. 27th May 2010 Anyone who missed Rod's radio interview on The Cultural Thing show can listen to the podcast here. Rod will also be attending Oxfam Bookfest on Sunday 4th July by the Cumberland Arms, Newcastle upon Tyne from 1pm-4pm. The Killing Moon has also started to pick up some excellent reviews over at LibraryThing -"Apocalyptic novels are in abundance and it takes a good plot and characters to be able to make a novel stand out from the crowd. This novel has both." 17th May 2010 Rod will feature on Lionheart Radio's The Cultural Thing show from 3pm on Thursday 20th May. Listen in to hear about his writing, inspirations and current and future projects. Click here for details on where and how to listen. 27th April 2010 The Killing Moon has received another great review here. There is also an interview with Rod. 2nd April 2010 Check out the new trailer for The Killing Moon on YouTube. 17th March 2010 We hope to have news of some Waterstone's book-signings soon after the Borders debacle. Also, Rod is now well under way with the much anticipated sequel to Sinema. 12th February 2010 The Killing Moon has been described as "A fast-paced thrill ride." by Gabriel M Cole, Editor of Orion's Child. Read the full review here. 22nd December 2009 Wishing all Rod's readers a merry Christmas and a happy New Year! 7th December 2009 Rod Glenn featured in 4th December edition of The Hexham Courant 1st December 2009 All signings with Borders Books have been suspended due to their current financial crisis. Rod hopes to resume events with Borders once the situation is resolved. 6th November 2009 Rod is delighted to announce that he has been accepted as a full member of the Society of Authors. The Society of Authors has been serving the interests of professional writers for more than a century. 4th November 2009 The first book-signings have been set for The Killing Moon... Borders Books, Team Valley, Gateshead - Saturday 28th November 12-3pm
Borders Books, Silverlink, Newcastle - Sunday 29th November 12-3pm Borders Books, Silverlink, Newcastle - Monday 21st December 1-5pm Borders Books, Silverlink, Newcastle - Saturday 2nd January 12-4pm
3rd November 2009 The Killing Moon is being released 20th November 2009 by Wild Wolf Publishing. It's a collaboration with good friend, Jamie Mitchell. It is being described as The Road meets Mad Max ... Beyond Northern England and it will be available in all good book shops and online. Rod will soon be embarking on a book-signing tour. 2nd October 2009 The Killing Moon is due for release end of October and is being publishing by Wild Wolf Publishing. It will be available to pre-order soon. 16th July 2009 The Killing Moon Rod's third novel, The Killing Moon is due for release October 2009. The Road meets Mad Max...Beyond Northern England. See The Killing Moon section of this website for further details and an extract. 7th May 2009 Book-signings Rod will be signing copies of The King of America and Sinema at the following venues: Saturday 13th June 2009 12-3pm Borders Books, Unit 7C, Retail World, Team Valley Retail Park, GATESHEAD, NE11 OBD
Telephone: (0191) 487 7803 Saturday 20th June 2009 12-3pm Borders Books, Silverlink Shopping Park, Coast Road, Wallsend, NEWCASTLE, NE28 9ND
Telephone: 0191 263 4503 7th May 2009 The King of America: Epic Edition The King of America: Epic Edition is now available to order from the usual online or instore outlets. A special personalised and signed copy can be ordered from this site through Paypal. 21st April 2009 The Killing Moon The first draft of Rod's third novel, The Killing Moon has been finished. It is now undergoing a rigerous editing process. Publishing date is expected to be around September. 4th March 2009 The King of America: Epic Edition Rod's debut novel which was originally self published in 2006 has been taken up by Wild Wolf Publishing. After several months of revamps, The King of America: Epic Edition will be hitting shops around May 2009. 9th February 2009 Summer '68 Rod is proud to support the release of the charity single Summer '68 (Brendan Perkins' fantastic cover of Rick Wright's Pink Floyd song) for Cancer Research. Click on the banner below to download now it from iTunes. 6th November 2008 Radgepacket Volume 1 Radgepacket Volume 1 is a collection of 13 urban tales and includes Rod's short, Paranoid. It is available to order through Byker Books for the bargain price of £5.99 including P&P. If that's not enough, it also includes details of a competition to win signed copies of Sinema. 'Byker Books have mustered a cabal of writers who write like people possessed about people possessed. Tales from the Inner Cities wades into the British underclass with tight clenched fists and eyes wide open. Pick it up if you’re hard enough – put it down if you can.’
~ Matt Nesbitt, Oxfordshire Press 27th October 2008 Article in The Spenny News Story appeared in the 25th October edition of The Spenny News. 9th October 2008 The Meadows School, Durham Rod had a wonderful time with the staff and students at The Meadows School in Spennymoor yesterday helping run a creative writing session for year 11. Rod, along with Head of English, Samantha Smith, ran sessions to create a murder mystery story, including character and plot development. The Northern Echo and Spennynews popped in to see what all the fuss was about. 26th June 2008 Hexham Courant story Rod’s tales cut to the bone (Thursday, 26 June 2008 edition)
BY DAY he’s a mild-mannered computer shop owner, helping people with dodgy hard drives and faulty applications.
Aiming to thrill: At night he becomes something altogether different, trawling the depths of pain and suffering, exploring the limits of human depravity.
For Rod Glenn is an author, and his latest book, about a serial killer, looks like it might win him some awards.
Rod (37), who lives in Benton, Newcastle, recently took over the popular Computer Shop on Hencotes, buying out the last owner, Mike, who is battling serious illness.
Having spent most of his working life in computers, including working at Sage Software in Newcastle, Rod knows his stuff.
He spent 15 years, on and off, working in computer sales and marketing.
Married, since 2004, to Vanessa, who works for the county council in the corporate planning department, they have no children, although he has a 22-year-old stepson, Jason, from a previous relationship whom he tries to see regularly, once a week if possible.
Since he was at school, Rod has written short stories and novels, a practice continued throughout his other career.
His second novel was released in December last year and he has enjoyed some success with it.
The first novel, King of America, published in 2006, was a science-fiction thriller set 500 years in the future, after a devastating civil war has decimated and splintered the population of the USA.
A leader emerges to unite the disparate tribes and become king, only to be betrayed by a friend, leading to another epic fight.
It’s a story about good and evil, but with shades of grey. Rod compares it to an amalgam of Mad Max and Lord of the Rings, and it took many years to write.
“It was a long time in gestation,” says Rod. “As I grew up and changed, the novel changed with me, so there was a lot of rewriting to do.”
The latest book, Sinema, is based much closer to home and was easier to pen.
It tells the tale of a serial killer who moves into a rural Northumbrian community, the fictional village of Haydon, with the aim, ultimately, of killing them all. All 392 of them.
The murderer, Hannibal Whitman (he chooses the pseudonym because Hannibal Lecter is his favourite film character), is a charming novelist and film buff, writing a crime thriller about a serial killer in a remote Northumberland hamlet.
So, how much of the novel is autobiographical?
Rod smiles at this question. “There are definitely elements, beyond the physical similarities, of me in him,” he says.
“Obviously I don’t go around slaughtering innocents, but I’ve seen the darker side of human nature in my life and experiences.”
This may seem unlikely for someone working in computers, but there’s more to this novelist than meets the eye.
Apart from working with computers and writing novels, Rod spent time as a close protection and surveillance specialist.
He learned from former SAS men and did a few jobs as a bodyguard, as well as a couple more in surveillance.
Now he mentions it, I can see Rod is no skinny nerd. There’s a muscular frame hiding behind the smart trousers and shirt.
He looks a little like a hard Simon Pegg, of Hot Fuzz, and Shaun of the Dead fame.
“I’ve experienced my share of emotional and physical pain in my life,” he says, without drama.
“My parents split up when I was very young, which was difficult, and I’ve had painful accidents and the like.”
His attempts to brush past this are futile. I want more detail about the painful accidents.
“Well, I had a climbing accident once, where my leg snapped. My buddy came down and was trying to push stray bits of bone back through the skin.
“Another time, in training, I simply refused to tap out in an exercise we were doing, refused to give in. My arm snapped.”
These stories are told without hysteria, matter-of-factly.
I wish I hadn’t asked.
He explains how drawing on his own experiences, combined with an extraordinarily vivid imagination and voracious appetite for reading, enable him to depict situations on the page.
“Hannibal, whose real name you never discover in the book, is that dark side of me, the dark side we all have.
“It’s just I have morals and a conscience, things he only pretends to have.”
Rod took over The Computer Shop in March and hopes in time it will give him more opportunities to write.
He writes quickly, reckoning to finish the first draft of a book in about three months.
However, that’s just the skeleton of the novel, and it takes longer to flesh it out, add descriptive passages and put meat on the bones.
“When you’re working for someone else, you’re always having to find time to write,” he says.
“Now I own this business, with its superb staff, who really are excellent at what they do, I hope slowly to be able to take a back seat, gradually to spend more of my time writing.”
Rod is 75,000 words into his third novel, and has “four or five” strong ideas for future books.
In the meantime, Sinema is up for the Portico Northern Literary Prize, and may be in the running for several national awards.
So next time your computer breaks, don’t assume the man who comes to your aid is just a sun-shy geek. He could be a lot more than that. Link to the online version of the newspaper - www.hexham-courant.co.uk/visitors_guide/arts_leisure/1.130704 7th May 2008 Borders Gateshead The date and venue for Rod's next book-signing - Borders Books, Team Valley, Gateshead Saturday 7th June 2008 (12 - 3pm) 8th April 2008 Borders Silverlink Rod's next book-signing will take him back to where he started the Sinema signing tour - Borders Books, Silverlink, Newcastle Saturday 19th April 2008 between 12 and 3pm. 7th April 2008 Smooth Radio If you missed Rod's interview on Smooth Radio you can listen to it HERE. 31st March 2008 Smooth Radio Rod's interview with Smooth Radio (97.5 and 107.7 FM) on Paul Wappat's Six at Six Show will be aired Thurs 3rd April 6.15pm - 7pm.
You can also listen online via the www.smoothradio.com website (click on North East region). 28th February 2008 Metro Centre Book-Signing and Radio Interview After the Newcastle book-signing Rod will be at WHSmith, Metro Centre, Gateshead between 12 and 3 on Saturday 5th April 2008. The date has also now been set for Rod's interview with Smooth Radio on Paul Wappat's Six at Six Show. He is going in to the studio on Friday 7th March to record the show. An update will follow as to when the show will be aired.
26th February 2008 Newcastle Book-Signing Rod's next book-signing will be at WHSmith, Northumberland Street, Newcastle upon Tyne between 12 and 2 on Saturday 15th March 2008. 10th February 2008 WHSmith Rod has struck a deal with WHSmith to stock Sinema on book shelves in stores and to run several book-signings across the region. 7th February 2008 News Post Leader Here's the link to the full story in the News Post Leader... 2nd February 2008 Tony Horne Rod appeared on the Tony Horne show on Metro Radio this morning, discussing Sinema and writing. There will also be an interview with Rod in the Blyth News Post Leader on 7th February. The York book-signing is also getting a mention in the York Literary Festival newsletter.
27th January 2008 Alan Robson's Nightowls Sinema was featureed over two nights on Alan Robson's award-winning Nightowls show on Metro Radio last week. Rod would like to thank Alan and the Metro team and he hopes that the lucky winners of the signed copies enjoy them. 18th January 2008 York Book-signing The forth book-signing has been arranged at the York branch of Borders on 16th February 2008 12-3. Borders Books 1-5 Davygate
York
YO1 8QR
Tel: 01904 653300 11th January 2008 Stockton book-signing The third book-signing has been arranged -
Sat 26th January 12-3pm
Stockton branch of Borders Books.
Unit 8A Goodwood Square
Teesside Retail Park
Thornaby
Stockton on Tees
TS17 7BW
Tel: 01642 608651 9th January 2008 Gateshead book-signing The second book-signing for Sinema is being held at Borders Books Gateshead branch on Saturday the 19th of January 12-3pm.
Full address and telephone number of branch is...
Unit 7
Team Valley Retail Park
Team Valley
Gateshead
Tyne & Wear
NE11 OBD
Tel: 0191 487 7803
Rod hopes to meet you there! | |
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