Ever since I wrote my first story aged five – an illustrated tale about a boy’s adventures in space – I wanted to do nothing other than write. In my early years this was an ambition fulfilled merely in fits and starts, and even then only in a minor way.
This changed at the turn of the twenty-first century when – having by that time spent nearly thirty years working in Information Technology – I landed contracts to write three non-fiction books focussing on IT strategy and management. It was an opportunity which proved I could string a few sentences together in a reasonably effective way, and so I began to take my writing a little more seriously.
Discovering the potential of Indie Publishing in 2012 (initially via Amazon Direct and then subsequently through Ingram Spark) proved the trigger which allowed the flood gates to open, and over the next few years I not only edited and published some previously-written work, but also embarked on something of a writing frenzy.
This frenzy unabated, by June 2023 I will have written and published eight novels, three novellas, three collections of short stories, nine volumes of poetry, and one further work of non-fiction – this time based upon my ‘writing life’. These books have been published under my own ‘Coverstory books’ imprint, a vehicle I have used to help many others get into print too; the twenty other volumes ‘Coverstory books’ has published in the last five years include collections of poetry and international anthologies of both poetry and prose. There have been around one hundred contributors.
The inspiration for Crash came from watching Ralph Fiennes’ stage performance of reading T.S.Eliot’s The Four Quartets. What began almost as vaguely nebulous word doodles soon gained form and shape, to finally coalesce into the dramatic poem I will read at the Ripon Theatre Festival in June. The end product is something entirely new and original for me. Over time, I hope to add two more ‘acts’ to Crash, and then turn the trio into a single multi-voice stage play.
I now write full-time, my ambition finally achieved!
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My May 2023 publications are two novels, Once Significant Others and Tilt, a collection of sonnets called not the Sonnets (and based on Shakespeare’s Sonnets), and a short story collection – An Irregular Piece of Sky – which contains the 2022 Swanwick Summer School prize-winning ‘Park’n’Ride’. Crash will be published as a pamphlet in June 2023 to coincide with the Ripon Theatre Festival performance.
I run two on-line poetry groups – Contextual and the Derby Stanza – am chair of Ripon Writers’ Group, a member of ‘Write-on Ripon’, Promoting Yorkshire Authors, and the North Yorkshire Stanza. I am also a creative writing mentor at retreats run by Writing Retreats UK.
Ian Gouge - Writer 