‘Gravity and Rust’ – a collection of entertaining stories by local author, Brian Quinn

A new collection of witty shorts by author Brian Quinn – a writer, journalist and publisher for many years in London. But for the past twenty five years or so in the Lambourn Valley from where ‘Penny Post‘ emerged to provide local news and information to the community of the greater Hungerford area. A journalist with words and stories in the soul never retires: the pen, pencil (or more likely nowadays) keyboard is never more than a moment away and this is so for Brian.

The Penny Post has been around since 2015, established initially by Brian’s wife Penny. “I soon realised that Penny Post gave me a platform for publishing stuff other than journalism,” Brian said. These divided into three separate piles: tales of personal mishap, humiliation and disaster; parodies of other writers; and fiction. each has its attractions… And so, alongside the ‘day job’, ‘Gravity and Rust‘ emerged.

We asked Brian about how he set out on this collection, not a series of anecdotes but a collection of new, original and observant tales. “With personal stories, you’ve obviously got the advantage of knowing what happened at the end. The question therefore is ‘how can I make this funny?” Regarding parodies, “Eighty percent of the trick here is getting the ‘voice’ right. Several writers like Wodehouse, Shakespeare, Chandler, Hunter S Thompson, Hemingway, AA Milne and Kipling have an utterly recognisable style – read a few sentences and you know where you are. if you can catch that, you’re away.”

As for the fiction, are these the most fun to write? “They’re all fun to write, and hopefully to read. They’re probably the most difficult. Unlike with the other two types, there’s nothing pre-existing in style or content to latch onto; no map to follow.”

‘Gravity and Rust‘ isn’t Brian’s first foray into the world of books. A few years ago it was ‘Unaccustomed as I am‘, an ‘entertaining set of anecdotes, short stories and parodies’.

Would you have written these without Penny Post as a platform? “Probably not. It’s true that writing is to some extent its own reward but any writer who says they don’t care if no one reads what they do is either very odd or lying. Words are there to be read.” So true……

Gravity and Rust (ISBN 978-1-8382580-1-6) was published in December 2025. The earlier volume, Unaccustomed as I Am (ISBN 978-1-8382580-0-9) was published in December 2020 and comprises a similar mixture of stories. Both are available from all bookshops, including the White Horse Bookshop in Marlborough.