Johnny Gaunt
Released April 2027
Offcumden
Off-cum-den
(old Yorkshire dialect)
Off-comer; outsider;
One who doesn't belong
South Yorkshire, 1984...
In a community torn apart,
what evil can seep up through the cracks...?
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About
Born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, my early life was peppered with a number of high profile jobs: scrapyard worker; roofer; night-shift garage attendant; door-to-door salesman; call-centre operative; and, for two weeks (and this brevity is another story), member of a railway gang.Sometime during this dizzying period, I managed to pick up an English Literature and Philosophy degree from the University of Sheffield, moving to London in 2003 to find fame and fortune. Instead, I ended up training as a radiographer. In the early 2010s, the north called but straying off course I found myself in Aberystwyth where, in 2019, I was lucky enough to gain a distance-learning grant from the Welsh Government. I got my Masters in Creative Writing from Manchester Met in 2022, and soon after sent an early first chapter draft of Offcumden to The Literary Consultancy PEN Factor Writing Competition. Somehow, managed to win.After a year in Guernsey (yet another story), the north called again, only this time, overshooting, I landed way out in Western Scotland where I now live with a very courageous wife and two beautiful daughters. In between taking x-rays at the local hospital, I can be found in my cabin tapping away on my laptop and working on my second novel, convincing myself there's something wrong with the word count tool.