Let me introduce myself. Everyone addresses me as Chris, so if we meet, you’ll know what to call me. I’m a novelist and writer of short stories and articles, although I must confess I now concentrate more on writing books than anything else. I’m also a member of several professional writing organisations and I was a founder member of Angus Writers’ Circle.
I live in Montrose, a small seaside town with a nice beach, on the east coast of Scotland. I was actually born in Wiltshire in England, but I’ve been living in Montrose since the age of two, so I think I’m entitled to call myself a Scot.
My parents divorced when I was a child at a time when it was less common than it is now and as a result, I felt the odd one out at school and didn’t make friends easily. I sought my solace in books and formed a lifelong addiction to the written word. As a child, I dreamed of writing my own book, but it was a dream I never thought could come true because writers were magical people, not of this world. It was to be many years before I attempted to become part of this strange and fascinating world.
As a child, I lacked confidence and convinced myself I wasn’t clever like others in my school. So, I left school when I was fifteen with no qualifications. I didn’t think qualifications were important, and as a result, I hadn’t tried very hard to pass the leaving exams. Quite a few years passed before I convinced myself I might possibly have a brain and I pursued further education for several years before enrolling in the Open University and gaining a degree. Following this, I acquired a post-graduate degree from Dundee University and later on I added to this with a qualification in criminology. I had discovered my brain!
After I left school, I had a varied working life, quite a useful thing for a writer to draw on. To begin with, I worked in shops, offices, mills, factories, and was even a bus conductress for a time. After I gained my degree, I worked as a social worker initially in Dundee, where I learned all about the dark side of this city. Latterly I worked for Angus Council in a variety of social work posts including criminal justice, probation, and child care, as well as a secondment to implement a new software programme for the council. When I eventually took early retirement in order to concentrate on my writing, I was the Assistant Principal Officer responsible for adoption and fostering.
I started writing around about 1990, but I have to admit my first attempts were dire. But I’d caught the bug and my addiction to reading expanded to include writing. Initially, I wrote short stories and had my first one accepted by People’s Friend in 1991. After that, my stories appeared in My Weekly, Dark Horizons, and small press anthologies. I published my articles in The Leopard, Foster Care, Prism, Scottish Memories, and I was a regular contributor to a US magazine, The Highlander. I also wrote book reviews for various magazines, including Scottish Home and Country, Prism, The Leopard, and Scots Magazine. Other accomplishments include a monologue performed at The Meffan, Forfar. Street theatre written by me and performed in Forfar, as well as an Idiots’ Guide for a specialist computer database for Angus Council.
Around about 1997, I got the itch to write something longer than my articles and short stories, so I started to write my first novel. It wasn’t a crime one though; it was a historical saga, my Salt Splashed Cradle. But my timing was bad because shortly after I finished writing the book, historical sagas went out of fashion with publishers, so the book languished for several years before finally being published. Although I had intended this book to be the first in a trilogy, the other two books didn’t get written because at that time there was no market for them. There’s still time though and I may yet write the two follow up books.
After this knockback, my thoughts turned to historical crime, and I wrote The Death Game, featuring as the main character a policewoman who had formerly been a suffragette. This book was awarded second place in the SAW (Scottish Association of Writers) Pitlochry Trophy competition in 2000 and went on to become one of the twenty winners of the international Creme de la Crime competition for new, unpublished crime novels, however, this book also remained unpublished. I don’t easily give up though, and turned my attention to contemporary crime thrillers. I wrote Night Watcher, the first of my Dundee Crime Series. This book won the SAW’s Pitlochry Award for best crime novel in 2001 but also remained unpublished. My next attempt was Dead Wood, the second book in the Dundee Crime Series. This book also won the SAW’s Pitlochry Award in 2008. Later the same year, Dead Wood was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize (quite a prestigious award) and it was announced as the winner in 2009. This made Dead Wood my breakthrough book into publishing because, as well as a rather large cash prize it also brought a publishing deal. That is the reason that book two of The Dundee Crime series was published before book one.
Since winning the Dundee International Book Prize I’ve published four books in the Dundee Crime Series, and I’ve gone on to publish my Kirsty Campbell Mystery series, as well as the first book in a Suffragette Mystery series. A Salt Splashed Cradle has also achieved publication, as well as two non-fiction books, The Nuts & Bolts of Self-Publishing and Crime Fiction and the Indie Contribution.
I can’t quite believe I’ve now published eleven books. It’s a miracle.
