I was born in Cheltenham, and grew up sixth in a family of nine. I spent a lot of time reading, drawing, playing in orchestras, trying to be a jazz pianist, doing odd jobs on my father’s building sites, kicking around doing nothing in particular, and travelling in the family coach – a battered old 32-seater kitted out with bunk beds and a kitchen.
Leaving school with A levels in maths and science, I did odd jobs for a while and took some courses at the local tech where I discovered a talent for English. At the age of twenty I got a place at Keble College, Oxford.
As an English teacher, I kept up my interest in music and art, directed a lot of plays, and extended my range of writing and editing. I fitted in some traveling and teaching abroad. I spent a year in Los Angeles on an exchange, where I was lucky to meet Leni Wildflower. After some years living together in Wales, during which we got married, we moved back to LA just in time to see George W Bush awarded the presidency by the Supreme Court.
While teaching part time and fixing up Leni’s old house, I turned to writing fiction and journalism. I continued teaching, began mentoring other writers and attended more seriously to freelance editing. In 2004, we moved to London, so I could do an MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway — a new course directed and taught by Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate. Male Gaze began with a coursework deadline and some intense impressions of life in California. My second novel will be published by Picador in early 2010.