Writing Experience/credits:

Well, there’s not much…

1980- Present day – a stunning number of rejections from pretty much everyone and everything in media. Magazines, publishers, agents, interns, mail-boys, I’ve been refused by them all.

Highlight – Being rejected by an agent claiming to be a close friend of Jay McInerney.

Addition – That same agent saying my novel had already been written, and written better. He was probably right.

Hang on, there is that one thing…

2009 – Producing a magazine called ‘Gupter Puncher’, which I write, design, edit…in short, I do practically everything, including paying for it. It is distributed around Hong Kong, London, Sydney and Seattle, and features stories, reviews and other things which I would like to read but have never found. It has been called unique and pioneering, but it’s also been dumped on the street by drunks so let’s not carried away. I’m now on the fourth issue. The third issue was themed; five stories by different writers, each choosing an actor to chase Thomas Pynchon in order to get film rights for ‘V’.

2004-09 – Well, there have been four novels, one shocking, one passable, two decent. ‘Benny Platonov’ is one of the decent two.

Note: Since joining YEAR ZERO I have stopped submitting to agents and magazines. I’m sure they haven’t noticed.

Media experience:

Recently [August 2009] I had an interview with Ming Pao Weekly in Hong Kong. The interviewer said I seemed angry and didn’t make many notes. When, or if, it comes out it will be in Chinese. I have a suspicion the guy is gonna go to town on me, but we’ll see.

Other

I’ve done the University thing in Liverpool. Four years, and I managed a bachelors and a masters. Before you get too excited the masters was in Science Fiction and had five people on the course.

I won Junior Mastermind when I was ten. I was runner-up when I was nine, so I went away, read more books and came back stronger the next year. I think this shows I have a little fire and determination in me.

I lived in Japan for a couple of years, and now live in Hong Kong.

I can have a conversation in Japanese. Nothing too academic or complex, but I can make sentence strings.

My Cantonese is shocking. I just can’t seem to get the pronunciations right, although I do still try. My current teacher is the security guard who does the night shift in my apartment building.