I’ve written 4 novels in the hilarious LEE series, including the chart-topping Lee and the Consul Mutants. See below and elsewhere on this site.
What else?
I have 5 children; 4 are twins.
I live in East Kilbride, which is on a hill immediately south of Glasgow. To work out the East Kilbride temperate, look at the forecast for Glasgow and subtract 2C.
Having worked in business before (and after) becoming an author, I continue to make use of that experience: in a parallel life, I’m a non-executive board member of a public body.
Sometimes I have a beard, sometimes I don’t.
Outside of work, athletics is my passion. I compete over 800m-marathon, including cross country, so can sometimes be seen looking like this.
I also coach (mostly middle distance) and officiate (field events). Various venues (notably Grangemouth Stadium (outdoor) and Emirates Arena, Glasgow (indoor), feel like second homes.
The Lee series
Lee is not very good at listening to other people’s ideas.
For ‘not very good’ read ‘terrible‘. But hey, we all have our failings!
Lee (over-)compensates with bags of enthusiasm and energy. He gets things done. Not always the right things though.
The series seems to appeal to a wide age range (a bit like The Simpsons). Different ages seem to ‘get’ different jokes/references.
You can find details of my LEE books by clicking here.
Schools and festivals
I think of my sessions as ‘stand-up literature’ – part stand-up comedy, part literature. I don’t mind what size my audience is: from 8 (smallest school I’ve visited) to 800 (largest). Normally they are from P4-7/Years 3-6 because that’s the core age group my books are aimed at, but every school is different. (See here for school-visit details.)
My readers seem to particularly like the funny-disgusting sections of my books (who would’ve thought!), so I often include one of those in a session, along with writing tips and more.
