Hi there,

Throughout my life, I have been a keen writer and lover of Science Fiction. Raised on a diet of Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, I have always loved novels and films based in the claustrophobic confines of spaceships, submarines and even jury rooms.  I love the idea of groups of people secluded in a small environment, struggling to co-exist.  At school, I was forever conjuring stories, mainly based in space.  One school report comments on my fondness for “spaceworkers and aliens of varying hues.”

For over 20 years, I have been a teacher, mainly in Year 6, and am now a Headteacher. I balance this with being a husband and the father of two children.  I have fought for years with the self-defeating philosophy that I simply did not have the time required to dedicate myself to writing.  Increased responsibilities, however, have proved to me that whatever I want to accomplish needs only a sense of confident willingness on my part.  Therefore, when I had the idea for The Ardenna Crossing, I realised that if I really wanted to have a sense of creative fulfilment, I would just have to cease my procrastination and make it happen.  Over the past eight years, I have seized every opportunity to commit my ideas to paper and this has given me a lot of joy.

The Ardenna Crossing begins with Between Two Worlds – it tells the tale of Paul Armstrong, a seemingly unremarkable 13-year-old from Greater London who is selected from his school for a scholarship to a special residential centre in another part of the country. Living with his father, both still coming to terms with the loss of Paul’s mother two years ago, he accepts this challenge.  He forms part of a group of children from all over the world who are brought together and board a coach which will take them to their new school with the promise of a great future.

Paul, with the help of others including Temperance Finch (a straight-talking Texan) and Ashana Kaur (a mysterious Indian girl who hides deadly talents), discovers that their destination is somewhere quite different and that even this is a mere stepping stone on a much larger journey.

Book 2 is called A Thousand White Fragments, and it carries on the story from several points of view, including Paul’s father.

I am now working on Book 3, Like The Flapping of  Black Wing, which takes the characters even further into the unknown.

I’m also working on a children’s picture book called Curly Kale and the Case of the Cruel Cutlery. I write lots of haikus and never pass up an opportunity to get a pen to paper.

Hope you enjoy,

Richard