About Martin

Let me introduce myself.

I’ve served 37 years and counting as a front-line, coal face mental nurse.

I tinkered with writing fiction for 25 + years before I clicked I would never know if I had what it takes unless I threw myself in the deep end and committed to it.

I was living in New Zealand at the time. Joseph Campbell wrote, (about risk-taking, living authentically, adventure, making no-going-back decisions) ‘Jump. It’s not as wide as you think.’ I bought a campervan, resigned my fulltime job (whew), went on the road. I finished novel 1, then novella 2. I knew I could do it after that. But I could have chickened out and spent the rest of my life wondering what might have been. Praise the Lord I didn’t.

The first novel is set in post-apocalyptic England. So are the second and third. And fifth. And probably half of my short stories too. Only a fraction are dystopian. The majority travel down a different track, passing stations I’d call hopeful, successful, marginal, better, sustainable, disastrous, unforeseeable, exploratory, rewarding and bittersweet, taking their characters on journeys that will challenge and change them for better, worse or ‘how the hell did that happen to me?’ I love a reluctant hero and seeing the self-righteous punctured.

I’ve learned that my stories are the canvas on which I explore these themes; true manhood and masculinity, true leadership, honour, integrity, the search for truth, the nature and exercise of power, how societies develop, work, don’t work, crumble and collapse, how economies really work, the battle of the sexes, mental illness and disorders — the list continues to grow. Until I read them back, I never knew most of these were in my stories.

Among my favourite authors are Ursula Le Guin, George Pelecanos, Robert Silverberg, Philip Jose Farmer, R.L. Stevenson, Jack London, Anton Chekhov, C.S. Lewis, Elmore Leonard, Bosch period Michael Connelly, Kurt Vonnegut, John D MacDonald’s Travis McGee series and Donald Westlake’s Parker series.

Best books or short stories ever – so far. A wizard of Earthsea, Majipoor Chronicles, Station Eleven, The Hobbit, Up the line, The Magus, To your scattered bodies go, The death of grass, Treasure Island, Tenth of December, Hawksbill Station, The thin man, A defenceless creature, Sacks, Escape from Spiderhead, Nine Lives, FUBAR, Kill Switch, ‘Now + n, Now – n’, Jenny, Girl Pool, The three strangers, The Road, On the high marshes, Four ways to forgiveness, The man who came early. I’d better stop listing now. One day I’ll review these on the website.

I’m hoping enough readers enjoy, are inspired by and support my work that one day I can go fulltime, hopefully before the ground floor of psych nursing is crushed. That will happen when the immense weight of floors and floors of managers, empire builders, frauds, parasites and assorted muppets above collapses on top of us.