Richard Cheesman was born in 1975 in the far northern town of Birkenhead. He was whisked away to Hertfordshire before a fully-formed scouse accent could develop.

Reading fiction came naturally to him, as his mother was a librarian and father was well-read in various forms of English literature.

During his teenage years, he read many science fiction books from the golden era, including great authors like Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Joe Haldeman, and many more.

This left his mark on his writing - school essays were crafted using techniques and word phrases he would find in the books he read.

Sadly, after college the writing dropped away, falling on the wayside by other things in life. Apart from the odd foray into poetry, and the keeping of a hand written journal, he never exercised his imagination in writing fiction for many years.

Fortunately, that all changed approximately five years ago, when he started reading fiction again. He discovered a new wave of British science fiction talent, reading Peter F. Hamilton, Charles Stross, Alastair Reynolds, amongst others. This experience inspired him to sit at a keyboard and start writing.

Many false starts later, and almost at the point of frustration, the idea came about for a short story called 'Wanderer'. This story would fuse spiritual thinking into an apocalyptic wasteland similar to that explored in videogames like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout 3.

The story was well-received on Smashwords, gaining a 4 to 5-star rating, and this was the encouragement he needed to keep writing.

Now into his second year of writing as an amateur, he is hoping the new stories and experience learnt from the early writings will help him further his skills, creating for more immersive and engaging stories.

Richard writes using yWriter from Spacejock software, lives in deepest south wales, is married, has a dog and a motorbike. Time spent writing is also spent listening to ambient and electronic music, which he has listened to since he was ten.

Last updated 06/02/2012