I grew up in a west London suburb and now live in Berkshire with my wife and two children. I'm passionate about music, sport and, most of all,  writing, on which I now concentrate full-time. As at 2014 I've written two novels and a collection of stories; my primary literary ambition is that you enjoy reading them while I'm hard at work on my next novel (but still finding time to play drums with The Red Sticks). My literary influences are pretty much all the books I've ever read where I've enjoyed the story, been entertained, been asked to think, learnt something, came to know characters that I wanted to meet in real life and tried to live my life differently in some way - however small. But if you're after specific names then William Goldman and John Irving spring to mind - though I don't know if their influence could be found obviously in my own work as I've tried to find my own style.