About Me And My Writing

My name is Tom. I'm the author of fifteen books, including - most recently - the novels Villager, 1983 and Everything Will Swallow You. I was born in Nottinghamshire, UK, and now live five or six hours south west of there in Devon with my wife, three cats and a large, boisterous crow. For many years I wrote for national newspapers and magazines but in 2015 I decided to ban myself entirely from doing that and instead devote my time to books and writing the other stuff I really wanted to write, here, in my own online space. In a pre-Substack era, before subscription-powered newsletters had become an accepted part of digital culture, it felt like a scary move - "Why on earth would people actually pay to support my writing?" I asked myself - but I worked hard at it and I noticed that my work improved (and, most crucially of all, became more enjoyable for me) as a result of the choice I'd made. And here I am now, still at it.

More than ever, I believe in the power and importance of nuanced, long form writing in this distracted, noisy age we live in. In fact, I'd go further than that and say I see it as a protest against the surface level, unoriginal algorithmic drivel that now, from virtually every digital orifice, attempts to oppress us and ruin our brains. I am opting not to post on social media for the foreseeable future, nor am I any longer giving a sizeable portion of my income to venture capitalists on Substack, but I can be found here, writing on a wide variety of subjects which I hope will soon become wider. If you'd like to sign up for a subscription, for a price of your choice, beginning at £2 per month/£20 per year (one of my reasons for leaving Substack was that I wanted to make total access to my writing affordable for people who can't stretch to the full rate), you'll receive at least four stories or essays by me in your inbox every month, plus book, record and film recommendations, and have access to a massive archive of writing, amounting to hundreds of thousands of words.

I keep this post permanently free, as a sample of the kind of thing you'll be getting, here, if you subscribe, and in my books, if you decide to read them.

Thank you for reading.