tom_saunders

I'm 61 years old. I was raised on a council estate on London's not-so-wild western edge and I now live in Oxfordshire with my wife Jean who is an environmental activist and secretary of the Richard Jefferies Society. In my time I've been an engineering draughtsman, a school caretaker, a musician, a seller of guitars and records and a technician with a company importing Aria musical instruments into the UK from Japan. I began writing in my mid-thirties while taking a BA in English Literature as a mature student (I left school at sixteen) at Kingston Polytechnic. I went on to do an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in 1986. My tutors there were novelists Sir Malcolm Bradbury and the wonderful Angela Carter, both now sadly deceased. Pulitzer prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon was writer in residence at the time.

On the net, I've had stories published in Opium, SmokeLong Quarterly, Painted Moon Review, MindKites, In Posse Review and poetry and stories published in Literary Potpourri and Gator Springs Gazette. My story Brother, What Strange Place is This? was in Zoetrope All-Story Extra January 2000. I've had stories published in UK print magazines Bonfire, Panurge, Acclaim, Inkshed and Voyage. In 1995 I was an award winner in the Ian St James international short story competition and my story The Philosopher Nabel at the Kaffeehaus Eleganz was published in the anthology Pleasure Vessels (still available at Amazon on both sides of the Atlantic!). Three of my stories: The Seal Man, The Great House of Easement and Bonny Craigallen were published in the paperback anthology Voices From the Web. My story Blue Ragout was published in the anthology Voices 2 (available etc). My story Roof Whirl Away was published in the anthology Rebellion (available Amazon US), Award-Winning Finalist in the Fiction & Literature: Anthologies category of the Best Books 2006 Awards. My story Outer Space was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2005. My story Roof Whirl Away was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006.

My first collection of short stories, Brother, What Strange Place is This? is no longer in print but there are a few secondhand copies around. My second collection of stories, Roof Whirl Away, is now available at Amazon UK.