P.A. Baines

About me

I was conceived in the USA, born in England, raised in Africa and after a childhood spent travelling around the world, consider myself a nomad at heart. I love the smell of a harbour, and have never lived more than a few miles from the ocean. I love animals and if I could do it all again would choose a career as a big game warden in an African nature reserve.

I have done some interesting jobs through the years, including working as a waiter, a supermarket salesman and, for a number of years, as a fitness instructor (at one point winning a national aerobics title). I originally studied to be a psychologist but abandoned this to concentate on my fitness career.

At the age of twenty, I bought my first computer and discovered I had a knack for programming. For the past twenty years, I have worked as an IT professional, and am currently responsible for maintaining the biggest database of its type in the world. Married with two children, I live in a small farming community in Holland.

My writing

My first serious attempt at writing was a science-fiction thriller inspired by the book of Revelation. My plan was to write something that would appeal to both the Christian and secular markets. The Wire was accepted by a well-known secular agent in New York but was not quite ready for publication.

Three years ago I started a college degree in Creative Writing. The tutor and assessor both felt my writing was of a publishable standard and suggested I try to sell some of my work. I looked around to see if Christian speculative fiction was a viable option and found Marcher Lord Press ("MLP"). I wrote two stories and submitted them to MLP. Later they were entered in the Marcher Lord Select contest. The story I expected to do well was voted out of the first round. My second story, Alpha Redemption, which I almost did not enter, went through to the semi-finals and attracted quite a lot of interest. One of those interested people was Grace Bridges, who owns Splashdown Books. After I had made a few tweaks to the plot, Grace offered to publish Alpha Redemption.

In the period between the contest and Grace's publication offer, I submitted two short stories to online magazines, both of which have appeared in print.