about me

When it became apparent that Knight and Sorceror to the Queen were no longer valid career choices, I worked my way through 37 other jobs before arriving at writer. Along the way I sang in a speed metal band, looked after seals and bears at a zoo, taught small children how to stay on a horse, threw a sword around as an 'unofficial' viking, wrote competition scripts for radio stations and told tall tales to anyone who would listen. I now live outside London, England with a large collection of books and music guaranteed to weird out the neighbours and ensure they never stay long for coffee.

My email address is lioncell@aol.com

Avatar art is by Todd Lockwood

Book art is 'Much Ado About Nothing' by Kinuko Craft

Reads and Backing Policy

I count myself fairly well read in fantasy (think Feist, Lynch, Reddick not Rowling, Meyer etc) and crime so am happy for writers in these genres to let me know about their books. Requests outside these genres may be ignored largely due to lack of time and I apologise in advance that I can not be more active.

Reading policy: I will read what the average agent will – 3 to 5 chapters plus the pitch and will back if I like it. Just like the average screener, I stop reading as soon as I see something that I think would get you rejected (I suspect I am much more forgiving though). I’ll comment if I see something that’s not already been said or if I really have something inspirational to say.

If you haven’t already I strongly suggest you check out the online blogs of literary agent Miss Snark and Author Author by writer and editor Anne Mini. These I have found to be invaluable resources in terms of understanding the publishing industry and improving my writing and are far better fonts of pro-knowledge than I can ever aspire to be.

favourite books

Arghh - way too many to decide but here's the Top 10 that come to my mind at this precise moment - just to be a little contrary I shall announce the results in reverse order:

10. Snow Crash
9. Watership Down
8. American Gods
7. Long, Dark Tea Time of the Soul
6. The Stand
5. Lord of the Rings
4. Nicholas Nickelby
3. The Black Echo
2. The Elenium Series (David Eddings)
1. Altered Carbon

This will no doubt change but that was the snapshot on the afternoon of October 24th, 2009 just after lunchtime.

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