1. Why do you write novels?

Because they’re very hard to draw.

2. Who inspired you?

Loads and loads of different writers who everyone has probably already heard of. One writer who I always love the chance to bang on about though who people may not know is John Swartzwelder. He wrote many of the best episodes of The Simpsons and now writes comedic novels mostly spoof crime fiction. Imagine if Homer Simpson was a detective in a hard-boiled detective story and that’s pretty much it. They are brilliant and I would recommend them to everyone. If I could ever write anything as funny as the softball episode of The Simpsons I will die a happy man.

3. What’s the essence of your style? The part, if removed, is not your voice anymore?

People say my writing is dark comedy, I thought it was just comedy but there you go. So, I suppose it’s that dark element that makes it my own.

4. What was your dance-around-the-kitchen moment in writing?

I made a banging shepherd’s pie while I was working on the penultimate chapter.

5. What do you want to accomplish in your writing career?

I’ve already gone further than I thought I would with getting a book published so anything more is a lovely bonus.

6. Can you ever envisage not writing novels - running out of ideas or energy?

100%! I am, at heart, an incredibly lazy person and writing a novel is really hard and takes absolutely ages. The fact that I kept working at it despite all that probably means I will do it again though, unfortunately.

7. What advice would you give to your younger self?

Put that down.

8. Away from writing, what are your passions, and what do they mean to you?

I am a stand-up comedian on the side because being an author didn’t provide quite enough struggle and rejection for me so I had to find a supplementary source.

9. How would your best friend describe you?

Woof.

10. What’s a significant question to ask you, that no other interview has to date, and what’s the answer, only for New2theScene?

Q: Is your writing designed to, as Aristotle posited, simply imitate or reflect the world around us or does it have a deeper purpose to drive political and social change as Orwell claimed all writing should or conversely, perhaps you subscribe more to the aesthetic way of thinking and agree with writers such as Coleridge who would argue that writing’s only purpose is to entertain, that ‘art for the sake of art’ is reason enough to write in and of itself?

A: I don’t know.