I'm delighted to have 'The Nicotine Solution' published today in The Write Launch. Not only is this my longest published piece of Creative Non-Fiction to date, but it relates to Latin America, where I have travelled dozens of times since childhood.

I generally write more fiction than non-fiction, but this trip to South America (incorporating Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela) ended with me locked up in a small hotel room in the Colombian Highlands, isolating with Covid-19, and I had time on my hands and fresh memories! My room boasted only one small window - and it had bars on it - but I'd come with pens and paper. Several days later, my original room reservation expiring, hotel management moved me to the end of a passage into a room with a less comfortable bed but access to a glorious table outside my door, in the fresh air, where I spent the remains of my isolation, writing and staring down at guests walking in the courtyard. I remain grateful to the Villa de Leyva Selina hotel / hostel team and have stayed at several other Selina properties since.

The names have been changed and the clothes have been washed. The photos are mine.

You can read the piece, which has nothing to do with Covid isolation and all to do with travelling in the great wiold outdoors of the Amazon, here: "The Nicotine Solution"