I was born in England in 1970. At the time, my father was a librarian and my mother was a teacher, so it was probably inevitable that I would grow up loving books. For much of my childhood, we lived in New Zealand, returning to England in 1981. I attended the University of York from 1989 to 1992, graduating with a bachelor's degree in computer science. What pays the bills is working as a software developer for a large IT company.
I made my first attempt at writing a story on my own (rather than because my English teacher told me to) when I was about nine. My early efforts were heavily influenced by whatever I'd seen on TV or read that week. They were about as good as you'd expect from someone of that age, and I'm pleased to say none of them survive.
I had several goes at a novel before managing to complete a short one when I was fifteen. It too was mostly unreadable, but it served as the backstory for The Barefoot Healer series.
I wrote sporadically for the next twenty years or so,
gradually coming round to the idea that writing fiction was
the thing I enjoyed most and the thing I did best. I
therefore decided to make a concerted effort to write
another complete novel and get it published. So here I am, with (so far) four five six seven quite a few of them plus a novella, a short story collection, and a children's book under my belt.
Among my influences and inspirations as a writer are (in no particular order) J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Ursula K Le Guin, David Eddings, Stephen Donaldson, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper, David Brin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Alastair Reynolds, Monty Python, Blackadder, The Goon Show, Doctor Who and Blake's Seven.
Apart from writing, my main claim to fame is that I
directed a short video that's had over two three million views on
YouTube. It's called Age-Activated
Attention Deficit Disorder, and is a comedy sketch
about one of the hazards of getting older. (If I'd known it was going to become so popular, I'd have picked a shorter title!) I also made a
film noir spoof about a writer who's stuck for ideas, called
The
Last Story. I think it's much funnier, but it's not
nearly as popular yet.
If you want to be the first to know when I release a new book or have a big announcement to make, please sign up for my newsletter. I don't have a regular schedule for this - I just post whenever I have something to say. Given my usual rate of writing, I'd expect no more than three or four posts a year. To thank you for joining, you'll get to read some free short stories, exclusively for subscribers. (Full disclosure - some of the stories have been published since they appeared in the newsletter, but were exclusive to subscribers when I wrote them.)
If you want to contact me, you can send email (how quaint!) to webmaster (at) pembers (dot) net or pester me on Facebook.
You can also follow me on AFKAT (App Formerly Known As Twitter), where I'm known as @sjpemb, see what I'm up to on Wattpad, check out my Amazon Author Central page or my author profile on Goodreads. I also have a blog there. Occasionally I write stuff in it.
You can ask me a question on Goodreads, if you don't mind the rest of the world seeing the answer. You'll need to be signed in to Goodreads to do this.
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Last update: 18/5/2024 16:37