Milkwood is not a nice place to be. With the passing of generations, it has curdled. At night it casts a buttery light on the moon. Fortunately, all the action in this book occurs elsewhere. It mostly happens in a warped version of the music industry or in an impossible tavern or in a future where everything is illegal. It sometimes even happens outside the narrative. But never in Milkwood. Never. Milkwood is barely even mentioned. For it is not a nice place to be.
I am a writer of Fantasy, Speculative Fiction and Magic Realism who often uses comedy and absurdism to examine philosophical issues. I am known for my original ideas, intricate plots and entertaining wordplay! I write short stories, novellas and novels.
I have been a writer from an early age. I completed my first proper short story when I was 14. It was called 'The Journey of Mountain Hawk' and I still remember what it was about, even though it no longer exists. None of my early work exists. My earliest surviving short story dates from 1989, and since that time I have embarked on an ambitious project of writing a story cycle consisting of exactly 1000 linked tales. Recently I decided to give this cycle an overall name -- PANDORA'S BLUFF.
My main influences are writers such as Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, Boris Vian, Flann O'Brien, Jack Vance and Jorge Luis Borges, all of whom have a very well-developed sense of irony and a powerful imagination. I love irony and satire, not only the 'negative' kind that seeks to undermine some form of injustice but also the 'positive' kind that takes sheer delight in its own playfulness. And yet I am also fully committed to engaging with serious themes. In fact, many years ago, I decided that I should find my own name for the style of writing I like best and the name I came up with was: "Romanti-Cynicism." The main idea behind this new genre is to combine humour and seriousness, to fuse the emotional with the intellectual, the profound with the lighthearted, the unfettered with the precise.
My first book was published in 1995 and sold slowly but it seemed to strike a chord with some people. My second, third, fourth, etc, books sold much more strongly as my reputation increased. I have been told that I am a "cult author" and I'm pleased with the description, but obviously I also want to reach out to a wider audience! My eighteenth book has just been published and I have many new books due to be released in the next two years.
