My first novel, SALT (Penguin, 2007), was set among the saltmarshes of North Norfolk, where I grew up, and the fens near the Wash. It’s about what forms you and the tidal nature of family history that can be passed from one generation to the next. I’m fascinated by the frontier between land and sea, and especially the East Anglian one, which is both eroding and resiliant. My second novel, THE WAKE (Penguin, 2009), explores this border further, set among the estuaries of East Anglia and an imagined journey across the Southern States of America. SALT was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Jelf Award and THE WAKE won the prize for fiction at the East Anglian book awards and was shortlisted for the New Angle Prize.

    My third novel, THE COLLECTOR OF LOST THINGS, was published by Little, Brown in 2013. It’s the story of a collector travelling to the Arctic in 1845, trying to find evidence of the Great Auk, that became extinct a year before. It’s about obsession, delusion and the environment in an age when the environment was not yet an issue. It was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Walter Scott Prize.

    My fourth book is also my first work of narrative non-fiction. NEW YORK TO CALIFORNIA is an eccentric journey across the East of England, looking for the not-quite visible. It’s rooted in region, but universal about its connections with stories and landscape. It’s been a passion project for me for several years, and includes some of my photographs. It won the 2020 prize for non-fiction at the East Anglian Book Awards.

 

I am currently writing two collections of short stories, one of which is a collection of modern supernatural fiction. My short story: DO IT NOW, JUMP THE TABLE was a finalist for the BBC National Short Story Award.

 

As well as writing novels, I have worked in the UK film and TV industry for twenty five years, as a script editor and consultant for the BBC, Channel 4 and Film Four, where I have worked across the best of British drama and film. Currently I am a script editor for BBC’s Scripted, working across several of their flagship schemes. I am also a scriptwriter, with a film made for Channel 4’s upcoming talent scheme, SCAPEGOAT, and other features and scripts in development.

    I have taught creative writing at the University of East Anglia on their MA course and undergraduate courses and as a residential writing Fellow, have taught creative writing at City University, Goldsmiths, for Arvon, and have been teaching screenwriting as a Module Leader and visiting lecturer at the London Film School for ten years.

    I live in London with my wife and three sons.  

 

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