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David is a novelist, screenwriter and comics writer. His highly imaginative fiction is for adults, young adults and older children. He tends to write speculative fiction that extrapolates certain trends into the future or past to see what might happen.
He has mild cerebral palsy. Some of his feelings about this informed the writing of YA novel Hybrids, in which a virus causes teenagers to merge with technology in a terror-filled near-future world. It’s also explicitly addressed in a new novel, close to publication, Perfect Girl.
Hybrids is “a stunningly clever novel” – The Times – and was winner of a HarperCollins-Saga Childrens Novelist competition.
His last published novel is the futuristic romantic tragedy/fantasy, Stormteller, which has been called climate fiction. It led to his presence on the Hay Literature Festival’s first ever climate fiction panel. Another panel followed to launch the short story collection Weatherfronts.
David’s also written the novella: Doc Chaos: the Chernobyl Effect, plus written and edited many graphic novels, comics and cartoon strips such as Marvel’s Captain Britain and Doc Chaos, commissioned originally as a tv series.
He has worked as commissioning editor for various book publishers, and continues to write journalism and teach creative writing.
This interview by Hannah Murray of Talk Radio Europe with David gives a good summary of is approach. He talks about working for Marvel Comics, Hybrids, Stormteller, and caring for the environment:
He also co-wrote The Fastest Forward for Comic Relief, a feature film starring Jerry Hall, and co-founded the London Screenwriters’ Workshop in the ’80s.
He writes from his own garden studio in Wales and is a member of the Society of Authors and Literature Wales. He lives in Wales.
Selected Credits:
- Stormteller (Cambria Books, 2014)
- Hybrids (HarperCollins, 2007)
- Doc Chaos tv series, 1984-8 (Limehouse Pictures), (co-writer) and comics series (Escape 1984-8, Vortex 1989)
- Captain Britain (Marvel Comics, 1981-3, 1995, 2009, 2010) (co-writer)
- Doc Chaos: the Chernobyl Effect novella (Hooligan Press, 1988 and Cambria Books 2012)
- Short stories in anthologies: For The Greater Good (in free e-book Weatherfronts). Perfection and Doc Chaos: Endgame (in Satirica); Ode to Elodie and Homecoming (in The Turnings of the Years); and the comics Doc Chaos: Science, Fun and Politics, and Mutant Love with artist Phil Elliott in ES*EF.
- Syndicated satirical and comic scripts and columns (Public Servants and Managing Hell, 2005-06)
- Plus the editor of about 90 graphic novels (for Marvel Comics, Fleetway, Titan Books, HarperCollins, Macdonald-Futura, 1987-2000).
Here’s an interview in Writing Magazine with David by Anita Rowe’s interview with David from from June ’09.
