Author
I have done so many jobs in my life, from deckchair attendant to flight dispatcher, foreign exchange dealer to television reporter but I have always known, deep down, that I am a storyteller.
When I was a boy I kept diaries, writing not just about my day but everyting that went on around me. At school, in Sixth Form I was part of a small editorial team that published a rag called The Bin Liner (which is probably where it belonged!) that was a cross between Viz and the Beano.
I started my first proper book quite late and it's still not finished. As a writer I have several projects on the go at the same time, testing my 'voice' and exploring different plot lines. Then I'll see something in the news or I'll meet someone who tells me a quirky story and I am off again.
My first novel is called The Shakespeare Diaries. I have been fascinated by Shakespeare since I was a teenager. I have acted in and directed dozens of his plays and while the language and stories are fundamentally brilliant, it is the man himself who draws me in. We know so little about his private life, there are so many possibilities about what he did, and with whom.
My second book at the time of wwriting this is already sixty percent written and it's completely different but writing it has been enormous fun.
I was born in England but live most of the time in Jersey, though I also have a base in Bristol, which is a fabulous, bohemian city just right for a creative mind. I have always written under the pen name Samuel Masters - it's an Anglicisation of my wife's name so I don't have to keep thanking her in the title pages! I have two grown up sons, I am a law graduate, print and broadcast journalist and specialist in crisis communications.
In my spare time, when I am not doing my day job in PR or trying to write, you'll find me on my motorbike, most often in France where they now how to lay a decent road...
