Where are you from?

A little rural village in Southern Ireland that had eleven pubs two Churches a Military Fort, a two teacher school and a small police station.

Why do you write?

I write because I love telling stories, in my mind I create characters, I leave them alone, then for some strange reason they begin to interact with one another. Then after a little while longer I begin to hear what they sound like and their personality is born and I take it from there.

What do you write about?

Basically anything that comes to mind,  love retelling old stories I have heard down through the years.

Do you have a specific writing style?

I want the written word to sound just like the spoken word I want the reader to see ‘word pictures. I want to create the broad brush strokes and let the reader fill in the finer detail to their own liking.

What’s the most memorable thing asked/said by a reader about your work?

 “Holy shit was that true”.

When did you first realize you wanted to become a writer?

I think I have wanted to be a writer for a long time but always thought that you had to have a special talent to do so. About five years ago I must have thought ‘what the heck’. Bounced a few ideas around with my wife Patricia (she has a very flexible mind) and with her encouragement I got started.

What is your work schedule like when you are writing?

Work schedule, don’t really have one, when ideas come to mind I write them down on sticky notes, write it later when it’s all settled in the mind.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I’m dyslexic, not up to speed on, comas, punctuation marks, apostrophises etc. So my solution write it as I hear it said in my own mind. Try my best to paint word pictures for my readers. After all we don’t use full stops and quotation marks when we speak.

Do you have suggestions on how to become a better writer?

I believe, to write a good story you must be able to hear it as the reader would see it.

What do you think makes a good story?

A good unbounded imagination is a good start, write as you would speak, and just like life itself there has to be dead ends, unpredicted twists,  happy surprises and ‘Oh shit I didn’t think he was going to do that’ moments

What does your family think of your writing?

What do my family think, basically it’s a case of ‘we never thought he could do that, to quote my daughter “Dad there is nothing stranger than sitting up in bed reading a sex scene written by you own father” need I say more.

Do you have anything specific you’d like to tell the readers?

Go with the flow walk with me a while and let me tell you a story and when you have heard it you can tell someone else, you can twist it, turn it, add to it, I’ve given it to you, it’s yours to do what you wish with it. After all a story told is a story shared, life is sharing.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I don’t consider myself a writer that would in my mind be presumptuous I’m just a dyslectic storyteller.