I blame my older brother for being a writer. We shared a room together when we were growing up, and he used to bully me into making up stories about the cats in the street. Obviously, the more disgusting and rude the tale, the more successful it was. Characters included Swear Word Cat, Poo Poo Cat and Wee Wee Cat, each having their own catchphrase and trademark move.

I never really grew out of all of that and have been writing with various degrees of success and vulgarity ever since.

I blame him for being a Weird Fiction writer too, or folk horror or whatever it is. He bullied me into watching and reading horror films and fiction far too early in my life. That’s probably on Dad too. That thrill-terror I got from Clive Barker, Wes Craven, John Carpenter and The Point Horror Book Series is, to use a Weird Fiction Metaphor, a parasitic worm that continues to act as a muse and homunculus - I am its lover and its feed. I never really grew out of all that.

So, much of my work has focused on abjection, the uncanny, sex and death, fear-fascination, and I’ve had some success in publishing several poetry pamphlets and placing work in journals and ezines. I always look for indie presses in my reading and for placing my work - kooky, odd, DIY types that suit my never-really-grew-out-of-that tastes.

That’s why Wild Pressed Books is home to my novella, Bella - what other press would welcome a piece of erotic folk horror come working-class fiction written in Black Country dialect and set in what many people consider the post-industrial armpit of England? Only the nomadic Wild Pressed Books and their eclectic list of superb writers would do.