I was born in 1967 in Norwich and apart from bouts of extended travelling have lived in this "fine city" for most of my life.
I began writing in 1987, with the assistance of the Government's Enterprise Allowance Scheme. Whilst that wasn't particularly successful, it did buy me time to hone my writing and confirm it was what I wanted to do. After a period of travelling I continued writing in my spare time and my first published story was "Pussycat" in 1994.
Since then I have had over 170 separate short story sales, five novels and four novellas published, and ten short story collections. These are in a variety of genres, although slipstream is my default style and one which I think suits my thinking as well as the way in which the stories come.
In November 2002, frustrated by the lack of short story collection publishers in the UK, I formed the independent publisher, Elastic Press, specialising in short fiction. In 2005 and 2009 Elastic Press won the British Fantasy Society's Best Small Press award. We also won another six seperate awards, including the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Whilst I closed the press in 2008 to concentrate on my own writing again, the legacy of what we achieved will always be a positive
Not finished with publishing, however, in 2021 I set up Head Shot Press to reprint some of my crime novels and also to publish a few more. There'll be more to come with other authors as part of that press, so check the website.
Additionally, I've also edited a magazine for the British Fantasy Society, am a freelance proofreader and typesetter, was one of the 2011 judges for the World Fantasy Awards, was long-listed for the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and am currently co-editor at Salò Press with my partner, Sophie Essex.
Andrew Hook
Biography
