Ian has thirty years of experience in further and higher education, having taught on a range of programmes including Creative Writing at Lancaster University and the University of Cumbria. He is also an experienced hillwalker and has a Mountain Leader's Award.
His first short story was published in 1998 and since then he's had a play performed professionally and won a poetry prize as part of his MA in Creative Writing at St Martin’s College.
He has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University which spawned (amongst other things) the Northumbrian Westerns - the first novel, Burnt Horizon came out in 2015. The second novel, Blighted Land, was published in 2016. He is a member of a select writers’ group in Kendal, who have all published stories and poems. He has recently had poems published in Streetcake Literary Magazine, The Broken Spine and Allegro and he has had several pieces in Dream Catcher Magazine.
When not drumming in a local samba band or walking in the fells, Ian eads some of his poetry at the Brewery Arts Centre.