Mr Tumnal

Everyone has an idea of their ideal family. Not everyone’s become real

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T E Shepherd Official Author Photo - Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike BY+SA
About me

Derbyshire born. Suffolk bred. Lives in the shires.

T E Shepherd is an author/illustrator. He writes magic realism set in our, or closely-related, worlds. His debut novel, The End Of All Worlds, was released in 2012. His second novel, and the first in the Imaginary Friends trilogy, Mr Tumnal, was published in 2014. The second in the series, The Imaginary Wife, was published in 2018, and he's currently working on the final instalment, Forgotten Friends. He is also a landscape artist, and is currently working on a project with Erica Smith aka. the Bookshop Blogger to illustrate his way round the country to produce The Booklover's Guide to Bookshops. You can find out about upcoming releases by following on Twitter, liking on Facebook, or by joining the mailing list.

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  The Imaginary Wife

The Imaginary Wife

How would you feel if you discovered you were the imaginary creation of your best friend?

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journal

The Time Was When

08:37:56 has discovered the secret truth about No. 89, The Lawn… 16 08:39:56 has heard the samples; now I want! 🙂 RT @janerawson just listened to the new Muse album – delightfully eccentric and unabashedly full-on 🙂 09:17:04 : to…

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The Time Was When

08:37:56 has discovered the secret truth about No. 89, The Lawn… 16 08:39:56 has heard the samples; now I want! 🙂 RT @janerawson just listened to the new Muse album – delightfully eccentric and unabashedly full-on 🙂 09:17:04 : to…

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journal

The Shock and the Awe

I can’t quite get my head around this one, and what I really think. My brother pointed me in the direction of this via his twitterings: a shockingly awesome shocksome music video on the @RadarMusicVideo site. It scandalised Iceland! Warning:…

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Progress is progress

My lunchtime split of reading a book whilst eating my sandwiches and fruit, and then writing Mr Tumnal whilst eating my geobar is working well. Slow but steady, I am making progress in his curious and mixed up story! 🙂…

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Productively tired: so, so tired

~ After the more relaxing day of yesterday I have been busy, very busy. The garage needs a proper sort out; it keeps on getting out of control. And today I gave it the part one of that treatment. It…

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Dappled sunlight through leafy canopies

~ It’s been gorgeously sunny weather today. After a much-needed lay in we got up leisurely before heading out to Bicester town to buy vegetables from the market stall. There happened ot be an Italian market in the street too,…

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The Life and Times of Mr Tumnal…

imaginary /i’madʒin(ɘ)ri/ adjective & noun. lme.  [origin Latin imaginarius, from imagin-, imago: see image noun, -ary1.] ‣ A adjective. 1 Existing only in the imagination; not real or actual. lmE.

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The future is in print

Whilst I was busy having the mad day that was yesterday, Emma kindly went back over to the antique and junk shop in Waddesdon to buy the Adana presses that we saw on Tuesday. For a nice round tenner, I…

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My future as a Web Designer

Today has been quite a day; a really good day. Shortly after 9 o’clock I got a call on my mobile – private number. This is it, I thought. And it was; one of my interviewers from yesterday. I was…

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New Beginnings

I have just been been offered and accepted for a new permanent job. From 5th October I shall be a Web Designer for Oxford Brookes University. It’s a proper job with a modest pay rise, good holidays, sickness, a final…

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Missed 9/9/9 9:9:9…?

If you missed celebrating this moment in history, remember to put in your diary the following dates: Sunday 10 October 2010 10:10:10 Friday 11 November 2011 11:11:11 (surely one ought to do something extra-special by way of remembrance at this…

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Printing’r’Us

Have just seen in a little antique shop some of these Adana printing machines. Apparently there’s a ‘box of stuff’ that goes with them, and the whole lot could be mine for a tenner. I’m seriously considering it – although…

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The Unspoken Elephant

So, finally, the day for the long-awaited interview for a Web Designer job at Oxford Brookes has come. I applied for this job at the back-end of July, whilst still on on jobsworth seekers allowance, but it wasn’t for another…

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When Three Worlds Collide

Cycling into Oxford this morning was like entering a new city; a city that exists but once a year. It’s like a city within a city; a whole other world that has arrived overnight and taken over Oxford. The Fair…

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Pottering in one’s garden

Today we’ve been both lazy and not all lazy, both at the same time. By lazy, I mean that we didn’t go anywhere or do anything dramatic. By not-at-all lazy, I mean that we have cleaned out the chickens and…

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The life that is not your own

I’ve been making steady progress with Mr Tumnal’s story this week, and as I do the details of his curious life are firmed up in my mind. It has bothered me that I don’t know exactly how this story is…

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Equational

So I’ve been paid! Finally! That said, given that this was for two invoices of x×y where x is my hours and y in my hourly rate, how come: 2x(x×y > p after t has been deducted where p is…

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The nature of fantasy

posed the following question recently: Is magic the defining element of fantasy? Discuss. And in reply to this defined it thus: Impossibility-within-currently-known-laws-of-nature is the defining element of fantasy, and magic is the most prominent (but not the only) presentation of…

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