I was born in 1967 in Norwich and apart from bouts of extended travelling have lived in this "fine city" for most of my life.
I began writing in 1987, with the assistance of the Government's Enterprise Allowance Scheme. Whilst during that year of assistance I wrote two novels, none of those are ever likely to see the light of day. What the scheme achieved, however, was to buy me the time to hone my writing skills. At the end of the year, I had written most of the crap out of me, and following another period of travelling from late 1990-1992 I returned to England afresh.
Most of my published fiction to date has been short stories. I prefer the short form, particularly since the long haul of novel writing has never really appealed to me. To date I've had over 60 short stories published, in a variety of genres, although slipstream is my default style and one which I think suits my thinking as well as the way in which the stories come.
As well as the short fiction, I continue to write the occasional novel, one of which was published in the States by an independent press. I'm currently looking for a publisher for two other novels. More about those can be found elsewhere on this site.
In November 2002, frustrated by the lack of short story collection publishers in the UK, I formed the independent publisher, Elastic Press, specialising in short fiction. In 2005 and 2009 Elastic Press won the British Fantasy Society's Best Small Press award. We also won another six seperate awards, including the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Whilst I recently closed the press, the legacy of what we achieved will always be a positive.
Andrew Hook
Biography
