David P Smith

Dave is a recovering addict: After devoting a huge chunk of his life to playing Farmville on Facebook he realised he'd lost control and took the painful step of going cold turkey.

Writing has helped fill the void in his life and eased his transition back into normal society.

He's lucky enough to live in the beautiful South Hams of Devon in a small village in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Sadly he doesn't see much of the local farmland or woods, or the sweeping views of the English channel from the cliffs a few miles from his home as he's far too busy watching Star Trek (Only kidding! He much prefers Red Dwarf!)

He's married to the delightful Laura, who has a knack (and clearly enjoys) keeping Dave's feet on the ground. They share five adult children between them although they don't always admit to ownership. To be fair the children could say the same . . .

He devotes far too much time to reading the efforts of other authors, who are (to a man) far more successful than Dave ever expects to be.

Dave is desperately disappointed to never have met Terry Pratchett, and having missed out on that goal has set about building a fantasy world that the great man would approve of. Dave also missed out on meeting JRR Tolkien, Harry Harrison and Douglas Adams, who also died rather inconsiderately. Whilst not wishing to suggest that a pattern is in action, Rob Grant (one half of the creators of Red Dwarf), Jasper Fforde and Jodie Taylor had best keep their wits about them . . .

He spends what little time he has aside from these things at a sort of a job . . . thing. He's employed in the maintenance department of the local Naval Base, which tests his patience and sanity to the limits. On the positive side, the personnel of the Naval Base are well known for their . . . er . . . robust humour, and Dave hopes this is visible in his writing.

He has recently completed his second 'Nameless Land' novel, and has many ideas competing to make it into the next book in that series. The next thing to make it into print will be 'Down in the Tubestation at Midnight', which was originally going to be a standalone novel. However, the first third of the story topped out at close to 90,000 words, so it looks like this will probably end up as a trilogy.

It'll have to wait as in the meantime, there's an awful lot of stuff around the house that needs doing and DIY is a lot easier in the long days of summer.

The local pub has recently opened again, which is a great relief, but also a serious distraction. If his future books make less sense you can assume he's combined his two hobbies (writing and drinking!)

Dave aspires to one day earn enough from writing to balance out what he spends at the pub, but refuses to take the easy way out and cut down his drinking!