My first creative outlet was art. My mother worked as an artist, and so I guess it was natural for me to wish to paint as well. Before I'd turned ten years old my surrealist art had already been locally exhibited and won commendation awards. My interest in painting waned when, upon reaching High School, I found myself confronted with an art teacher with a strong distaste for surrealism. She would call me out in front of my classmates for not painting perfect photographic copies of the subject matter she'd set in front of us. I fell out of love with art for many years, only returning to painting fairly recently.

Becoming a poet by accident! 

I had toddled along to see a local poetry collective known as 4 Poets, at the end of their show one of the members quit and a call out was made for his replacement. I put my hand up! I ended up organizing their events and learned so much over the course of my eighteen months as part of 4 Poets about what works and more importantly what doesn't work in front of an audience. In due course I had my John Lennon moment and left 4 Poets to pursue a solo career. 

Fourteen years on my poetry has taken me across the UK to so many beautiful and iconic locations.  Pre-pandemic I was resident poet on That's Lancashire TV and presented my syndicated radio show Beyond Poetry, heard by quarter of a million listeners each week during the six years I hosted.

A novel new life

Published in 2021, The Kent Poems is my final poetry collection for now. Never say never I guess, but I feel I've said everything I set out to when I became a poet. So what's next for me?

Practically all my poetry was about telling stories, and usually this would be about people. Wishing to explore this avenue of creativity, and already having a short-story collection to my name, I decided to write a full-length novel, The Spirits at Jim's Bar. The first realisation to hit me was the sheer amount of research needed to make it authentic to contemporary life. Secondly, feeling liberated, I wrote in a way I never have before...literally commencing on page one with no idea what was about to happen next, to subsequently stop sixty thousands words later when I felt the story complete. This whole process was akin to some out-of-body experience with absolutely no idea what was coming next or indeed how each strand of the story would conclude until I wrote it. Thankfully in the end it all came together and better still made perfect sense!

What next?

I am in the early stages of planning a new book series set in the sixties...and that's all I can truthfully share for now as I have no clue until I finish writing what it's going to be about!