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Current Projects
2007 has kicked off well. Brim Full of Passion, my ghosted autobiography of former Warwickshire batsman Wasim Khan (Breedon Books), is Wisden’s Cricket Book of the Year. Wasim and I always knew he had a great story, so it’s satisfying to have it recognised.
Last year’s trip to the States provided some great material on the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association (www.seniorrodeo.com) . These are a bunch of men and women, all over forty, some pushing eighty, who tour small towns in the West roping calves, wrestling steers and riding broncos. Bulls too, in some cases. I travelled with them for a few weeks, heard some fascinating stories, learned how the rodeo works, and now have sample chapters and a synopsis with my agent ready to do the rounds shortly. If that takes off I’ll be back in Montana and such places in the late summer to complete my research and interviews.
My latest project is a joint effort with former North Yorkshire policeman Mike Pannett who featured in BBC2’s documentary series Country Cops (2005). We’re hoping that this is the first of a series of books telling some of his life on a rural beat in the glorious countryside around the Vale of York and the Moors. He has some great anecdotes, some terrific characters, and a talent for self-promotion. Volume 1 should be out with Constable in 2008.
A smaller but hugely enjoyable project is the life of Doug Chaytor, born in a Durham pit village in the early 1940s. He went on to be an apprenticed electrician, set up his own contracting firm which is still run by his son, and now sits on the bench as a local magistrate. I enjoy these collaborative ventures: other people’s lives are so very interesting.
Lifelines Press (www.lifelinespress.co.uk) is starting to take off. We now have a number of clients and are extending our range of products as Rebecca learns more (and more) about book production. We are advertising in The Oldie and recently had coverage in The Author.
People assume that an established writer will command a stable and substantial income. Not true. In between projects the weather can be rough. But to me that is an opportunity to have a change – as last month, for example, when I spent a week in Scotland painting my fellow author Sara Maitland’s new house. She’s living the life of a hermit just now, writing a book on silence; she has no TV, nor a radio, so I spent six days applying white paint to her ceilings while listening to the wind, the sheep, and the haunting cry of the curlew.
I am still doing a few days a month for the Tote at race meetings around the North. It’s the perfect antidote to spending months alone with the keyboard: it’s colourful, exciting and utterly unpredictable. There’s a book to be written about it, but not just yet. I need to leave the racecourse scene before I dare `tell all` - and for the moment I’m having too much fun. Besides, I’m looking forward to my annual trip to Royal Ascot. As last year I’ll be staying at the home of Carolyn Cassady, widow of former Beat Legend Neal, the prototype for Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. A short memoir about our friendship, which started when I was Kerouac Writer in Residence (Florida, 2004) is with Granta.[Personal Biography]
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