Look and Listen

Biography

I grew up in beautiful New Zealand amongst trees and birds, (and the occasional orc), and a veritable menagerie of animals, including my three older brothers. But I always somehow felt that England was my true home. When I turned five my brother and I were compelled by reason to abandon our plan to sail to England on an upside down table, so I decided to be a painter instead. After brief career stints as a poet, pianist, composer, marine biologist and secret agent, I turned fourteen and decided I was an athiest. I managed to drop out of my English Literature course at University just in time to give up my dreams of being a rock star and become a monk. After training as a yogi and meditation teacher in India I started playing music again, with a more spiritual flavour. I dabbled in writing for years, but it wasn't until I was trapped on the Island of Malta for two years around 2003 that I managed to finish my first book, and start three more. Now that I have the writing bug I hope and fear that it is a life long condition.

Inspiration

I've lived in many countries, but I've always loved books, and I always tended to read English writers, watch British TV comedy, and hoped to emerge from the pupa of youth as a gentleman embodying the finer qualities of Eric Clapton, James Bond and George Bernard Shaw (who was of course, like most great English writers, Irish). I love the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Spike Milligan, Lewis Carroll, John Cleese, Douglas Adams, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a host of other greats. Here's one you might not know - Irish surrealist Miles Na Gopaleen. Then I discovered Oriental mysticism, so you'd have to throw Rabindranath Tagore and Kabir into the mix, but now when I dream of paradise, it doesn't look so much like England any more. Rather it reminds me of New Zealand.