The Sudden Walk
On this page you will find two main things.
Original Short Stories.
A timeline of my personal road to getting published.
If you’re here strictly for my fiction writing, this glossary is a great starting point.
In saying that, if you navigate to The Sudden Walk home page you’ll find a few different categories that align with different series I’ve written - which I’ll explain below.
Seasonal Short Stories
Every year I publish free short stories in a seasonal format. You’ll see this on the navigation tab as season 1, 2, 3 etc.
For the sake of the documentary style of this page, I don’t retroactively edit the older stories I published on here (so if you want to make yourself feel like you’re better than me, go back to season one and see how far I’ve come).
For a more guided catalogue of my writing, you can find a mix of all three seasons broken down by genre in the following glossary.
Style wise, I write literary short stories, experimenting with the styles of authors I admire as I develop my own voice.
Among these names I include: Joseph Conrad, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Baldwin, Claire Keegan, Cormac McCarthy, John Cheever, Bao Ninh, Irvine Welsh, Antonio Lobo Antunes (this isn’t necessarily a comprehensive list of my favourite authors, these are simply writers whose style jumps out at me as something to be emulated and integrated).
In saying this, I’m not afraid to dip into genre.
My wheelhouse is character driven literary fiction that errs into absurdism and darker themes but is typically grounded in reality. i.e. space/hard fantasy don’t tend to crop up in my work, though I’ll include hallucinatory elements that may cross over these lines.
In twenty twenty one I moved from New Zealand to London pursuing my ambition to become a published author.
Though a dose of naivety helped me get started, this was never going to be an overnight pursuit. In this diary style series (which is still a work in progress ) I log my ups and downs in the journey towards publication. So far my work has featured in literary journals, a few print collections and my debut book, Hallucinations was published in November 2025. This last one was a major milestone for me and I’m extremely grateful to Dylan Bosworth for taking a chance on me.
My next goal is to find an agent and sign a main stream publishing deal for my novels.
I’m hopeful that eventually this page will serve as some type of road map (or cautionary tale) for future aspiring writers to look back on and perhaps save themselves a bit of time while chasing the same dream.
To make this section a bit easier to navigate, I’ve included headings such as “milestone” and “course correction” to signal points where I’ve deviated from my original plan. It’s all an experiment after all, so hopefully this helps those coming behind me straighten their path here and there.
These are book reviews, but more than that. Each text I write about comes with some biographical threading with my own life and relationship to that book or author. There are certain books I’ve had on my shelf for a decade plus that I’ve never tackled, yet shared psychological air with for whatever reason. Read this series for some examples of this strange dance.
Writers schooling other writers on how to write is a played out genre. I don’t profess to be any kind of expert and I don’t actively brainstorm how I might educate others on the craft. But if I come across an observation in the wild which strikes me as an original way to look at the craft of writing, I’ll write about it. Visit this series if you want an outside of the box collection of tech tips.
Why the Sudden Walk?
The name comes from a short story by Franz Kafka of the same title. The story--which reads as one long sentence--depicts a man who is sitting inside his cozy home on a rainy day. Although he is completely justified and even expected to stay at home, the man chooses to take a walk. Immediately the choice to go against instinct infuses him with an energy that he didn’t realize was there.
For me, starting this Substack page holds certain parallels with that story. A person from my background isn’t expected to write. Yet I’m compelled to head out and take that walk all the same. So here we go, the Sudden Walk.
Who am I?
My name is Hamish Kavanagh a New Zealand writer, raised in the back hills of Raetihi.
My first writing gig was a monthly column in the local newspaper at ten years old. I haven’t been able to find any relics from that era, but I’m sure all my articles were full of deep agricultural analysis and educated takes on local council affairs.
Like too many people I know, I receded into a cloud of naughty teenage years for a stint after that. The only thing I read during that stretch of mental hibernation were Rockstar biographies and snowboard magazines.
But my natural knack for writing got me by academically until I returned to the craft at university where I studied English Literature and History.
For the last decade I’ve been chasing the writing dream. I’ve been targeting publication seriously for the last five; making time for writing outside of my day jobs, doing my best to keep the vehicle that’s financing my work from getting in the way of it. A six year stint in the property industry was great for the bank account but not for the spare time. Following the pandemic, my partner and I left the country as soon as the borders opened up and moved to London.
With a small buffer of savings and a heavy dose of delusion, I planned to finish the novel I was working on and get it published before my money ran out.
The money ran out and so has the delusion. But I’m further along than I would have been if I’d never left.
Here we are
My credits to date:
I’ve completed two full length novels, the first of which I’m seeking agent representation for, the second of which I’m still in the editing stages.
My work has featured in four full length print publications:
Hallucinations (Nascent Night Press): My first published book. Twenty Psychedelic/Existential short stories in the tradition of Irvine Walsh, Ken Kesey, Joseph Conrad, to name a few. Buy it or review it. Every little thing helps.
Take a Breath Anthology (Xpress Publishing): a claustrophobic horror collection that features my story The Man in the Hat - the cautionary tale about a young man who takes twenty-four Benadryl pills off the back of an internet trend and sees things you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
Give Us this Day (Death Drek & Doom Publishing) a Thanksgiving horror collection that features my psychological horror story Negroni on Ice - A daughter moves back home with her mother, but she doesn’t tell her about the new profession she’s taken on and the things it makes her do.
My short story Colours of a Bruise featured in the Wells Street Journal. You can read that here.
My shorter work has been longlisted for in the Bridport Short Story prize and was a finalist in the NYC Midnight Short Story prize.
My poem World War Three was included in Blackmail Press’ 46th poetry collection. You can read that here. For more context on how I ended up writing a poem at all, you can find that here.
A prize winning story of mine also featured in The Vexed to Nightmare Anthology. You can read that here.
My story Before the Sun Comes Up was published in The Skip Jack Review. You can read it here.
Outside of all the above, I hold a Purple Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and am very passionate about music.
If this wasn’t detailed enough I’ve done a couple of interviews:
Here : Atmosphere Press
and
Here : Meet the Maniac
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