So, to get the formalities out of the way: I’m a nineteen-year-old, second-year English student at the University of Leicester, a published poet (British Fantasy Society Journal [Winter 2010 and Autumn 2011]; Unspoken Water, vol. 2), self-published author of Fractured Light (a collection of dark and experimental poetry), and totally amateur guitarist/songwriter. Still, I have a long climb up that literary ladder ahead of me. Nowadays I’m focusing more on prose, purely because, as challenging as writing poetry is, there’s something profoundly rewarding about telling a story. My major influences are dystopian and science fiction, from Orwell to McCarthy, Asimov to Crichton. But my favourite author remains Stephen King, since he is one of the few writers I’ve ever read who are quite willing, and indeed seem to make it their mission, to forsake the literary weight of ‘classics’ in favour of simply telling a story. After all, isn’t that what writing should be about?