January 7th this year marked the 50th anniversary of the day I started work as a trainee reporter on a local weekly newspaper, The Ilkeston Advertiser, in 1974, and my career as a writer began. After nearly three years, a freelance news agency that ran a radio service for BBC Radio Derby and Radio Sheffield gave me my first break into broadcasting at the age of 20. From there, I joined the BBC staff as a reporter and newsreader, before moving into commercial radio as a senior news presenter. |
My first piece of published fiction - a short sci-fi story called Malfunction - came out in ebook format for Kindles, Kobos, and online reading in 2012. A few more ebooks appeared, before that amazing day in August 2015, when I held my first paperback, In Shadows Waiting. I then managed the two writing careers of PR and a novelist, side by side, writing six books, all published as paperbacks and Kindle editions, with some in hardback, large print, pocketbooks, and Audible as well.
Also, in February 2013, I began writing my own column in a local magazine, moving it to The Big Red Magazine, in 2017. Eventually, I took early retirement from PR in 2021 to focus exclusively on my fiction, along with the column and customer editorials for the magazine.