Mike Stoner has had numerous jobs, ranging from ice-cream seller to policeman to salesman and finally to an English teacher. This gave him the opportunity to travel to Indonesia where the inspiration for his first book, Jalan Jalan, came from. In 2011, as mature student, he gained an MA with distinction in Creative Writing at the University of Kent. Before finding a publisher, his self-published version of Jalan Jalan was awarded The Guardian's Self-published Book of the Month in December 2014. Jalan Jalan was his first novel and is published by Tuttle Publishing. His second novel, I Am Book, is currently and confidently hunting an agent.