Darren Powis

Hailing from the smoke and grit of the Gwent valleys, I was born in Newport in 1969. Descended from a line of coal miners, steelmen and railway workers, I stumbled into journalism (and later collapsed out of it through the other door).

I loved working on the papers; it got me out into the world more and out of my shell (crippling shyness afflicted my younger self). After a spell on several local papers in South Wales, including The Pontypool Free Press and Abergavenny Chronicle, a new path beckoned to me, fiction writing.

I’ve since co-written several humorous sci-fi novels with friend and former Free Press colleague, Richard Finlan. I’m now working on my first solo novel, Trevethin Junction, inspired by my dad’s time working as a porter at Pontypool Road Station in the 1960s. The story has a sci-fi twist and I hope it will arrive in good time sometime next year.

I’ve loved sci-fi since a young age and grew up watching classic TV series like Doctor Who, Star Trek and Blakes Seven. I’ve also always been a reader since a small age and love books.

Then, a long time ago, when I was eight, my dad took me to a cinema in Old Cwmbran to see the film that transformed everything – Star Wars. The timeless classic tale of good versus evil and Luke Skywalker’s hero’s journey, awakened in me the notion that my own stories I could one day write to.

Sci-fi, with its wide range and scope to investigate the human condition and how we deal with technological, political and social issues. What would happen if? That’s the great driving question. What if aliens invaded, or the world ended, or we could travel in time and space? The genre also has a great history of humour and the late Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame was also a major inspiration for my writing.

I’m now back in Cwmbran, where I grew up, with my wonderful wife Wendy, our two mad cats and a mostly harmless guinea pig.

Mine and Richard’s books are available on Amazon and also from our website www.dawenpublishing.co.uk