I am a professional photographer and writer based in the little town of Garstang in the beautiful English county of Lancashire. I've been a full-time freelance for over twelve years. In that time I've done all sorts of photographic assignments and have written for a wide range of publications, and I now have my name on sixteen books - for some I provided the photographs, for some the words, and for some I've done both.

I specialise in landscape and outdoor pursuits, and above all I'm passionate about bikes. I've toured and raced, I've ridden on the hallowed boards of the Manchester Velodrome and in complete contrast I am a relatively recent but besotted convert to mountain biking.

As well as all things bike, I'm keen on other outdoor pursuits, especially walking and climbing. Basically I can get fired up by almost anything that's powered by wind, water, gravity, or muscle, and doesn't mess up the great outdoors. In the last few years I've experienced ocean sailing, snorkelling, kayaking, canyoning and cross-country skiing. It's nice to slow down too, which is where the more reflective pursuit of pure landscape photography comes in.

Al this keeps me pretty busy, so the side of me that wants to write fiction, especially science fiction sometimes gets a bit frustrated.

My passion is ...

Mountain biking

I know too much about ...

Sitting in front of a computer

My parents always told me ...

Get a proper job

My childhood ambition ...

Funnily enough, to be a writer - but a rich and famous one!

My favorite memory ...

Meeting my partner!

Why I write ...

Don't know really, it doesn't seem like I have a choice.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Robert MacFarlane on Wilderness

My first job ...

General dogsbody in a university art gallery.

My best moment ...

Descending into the Marcadau valley in the Pyrenees with my beloved

My inspiration ...

The great outdoors

Creative Writing > Novel Excerpts Novel excerpts: Science fiction

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Under the circumstances, it was a good landing.

I read once that the old air pilots used to say, 'Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.' Though I wasn't walking: I was running for my life.

I flung myself out of the airlock, saw someone coming down the slope toward me, yelled "Get back!" and sprinted for the hilltop.

He reacted fast, turned as I came by, matched my adrenalin-boosted speed: a young man, I noted from half a glimpse. Even in my panic flight, a corner of my brain observed coolly that there should not, could not, be humans here.

We made it into the lee of ...

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