A Portrait of the Artist as a Working-Class Antihero

Words captivated me from an early age. In the photograph, which was taken when I was only eight years old, I’m sitting at my cousin’s typewriter in Germany, staring intently at the page and wondering what to write next. Given my German heritage, I’m also an accomplished translator from that language.

 

I read English Language and Literature at Birmingham City University and graduated with an Upper Second Class BA Honours Degree in 1983. I obtained a Master of Arts Degree in Creative Writing (with Distinction) in 2015 from Teesside University.

 

I’ve written poetry and screenplays, and published a composite novel titled The Prison in January 2017.

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In November 2017 I published my second novel, a thriller called Black Art. Check out my Q&A.  In March 2019 I published Autumnal Elegies, a translation of the poetry of the Austrian Expressionist Georg Trakl, and in the same year Into the Silence, a collection of working-class life writing. My latest book is the metafictional novel Sonata Form, published in 2023. I am currently working on a sequel to Black Art.

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 Two pieces of life writing have appeared in Writing the Black Country and the Black Country Arts Foundry. I'm also an associate editor for the Marxist co-operative Culture Matters.

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Outside the realm of literature I enjoy listening to classical music and Krautrock, watching films, playing snooker badly, supporting Darlington FC, drinking the odd bottle of Chablis, eating my favourite dish of chicken Jalfrezi (ideally from The Spice Garden) and munching on Percy Pigs.