Collection: Mike Pearson

I am 65 and retired last year from my job with a community mental health team in Nottinghamshire. This work inspired my first novel; ‘Ask Me Now’ published by Chipmunka in 2009. It takes a sideways look at the subject and one of the challenges was to get some humour into the story.

This has always been important to me and the writers I enjoy most, like Beryl Bainbridge or Kingsley Amis, have strong comedic roots. Another strain of modern literature that’s been inspiring is the Rupert Bear annual. I loved them as a child and when I read them with our daughter we used to enjoy putting alternative bits in. Usually casting Rupert in another light; bullying the Pelican or smoking in his Father’s shed with the naughty fairy.