I was born in Ely, the heart of the Cambridgeshire fens, in 1973. I moved to Canterbury to study at the University of Kent, where I completed a combined BA hons in English Literature and Philosophy. After my MA I endured the usual rounds of unemployment, underpaid jobs, temping and griping, but I kept up with the writing, penning some more novellas and experimenting with dialogue. I took a job as a lowly bookseller in Waterstone's Canterbury. After a spell at various levels on the Waterstone's ladder I was taken on by my tireless agent Simon Trewin, and got a lucky break with the lovely Philip Gwyn Jones, then editor of Flamingo and now head of his own publishing house Portobello. A two-book deal followed, and A Likeness and The Realm of Shells were published under the new Fourth Estate / Harper Perennial banner. I married artist and lecturer James Frost in 2002, who I met in my bookseller days. We have a son, Rowan. Unable to escape the lure of East Kent, we now live in Sandwich.