Richard J. Watts is a happily married father of three, who has lived in the north of England for aeons, but still regrets that he wasn’t actually born in God’s Own County.He did have a very rewarding job once, entertaining other people's children as a teacher of Science, but prefers to be called a Biologist – because of all the three sciences, he feels biologists are quite possibly the rudest, and they most definitely have the most fun. Which also goes a significant way to explain much of the writing, analogies and words used in Pickled Magic.He likes a good red wine, but is more than happy with the cheap (glugging) stuff at a pinch – or a beer or three if he’s run out of strangled grape juice.For fun and as a hobby, he once wrote for a music magazine, reviewing new rock, metal and blues albums and – far better, he firmly believes – live rock gigs, but thought it was probably time to retire from doing all of this when the best thing he could find to say about a new release was that it came through the post in a very nice envelope . . .Currently, he prefers to spend time with his family, or perhaps doing DIY for his family. He once enquired why one of his children in particular consistently refused to buy any tools with which to do their own DIY, the explanation he received was: “Why should I buy that? I not only know someone who already owns one of those, but this person also knows how to use it without losing too many fingers!” Does this go some way to explain why he has such a dark and warped sense of humour? He’s convinced it does.That and the fact that humour sadly became an essential protective shield – or was it an edged weapon? – beneath, or behind which he was forced to take refuge for many, many difficult years of his younger life.He understands that it’s a well-used, possibly frayed expression that everyone has a book inside them, but he also believes that there’s at least another book inside a movie of a book too; which may explain why the telly’s always on?Having said all of this, he does insist he’s most definitely normal, whatever that is, and does not – will not – ever again conform to what others want him to be – whatever the typecast is supposed to be for an author (first time, long time, successful or breadline) a father, male, or a husband; although the latter is still up for debate . . . apparently.He vehemently believes in protecting the sanctity of one’s privacy; which includes his own current, fragile anonymity.But will he write more books, or even follow Pickled Magic up with the sequels he’s been considering? He truly has no idea. He sincerely hopes so, but in reality he doesn’t find writing particularly easy, due in part to him being shocked to discover that it requires him having to think, but also because he is seriously namelexic, which makes remembering absolutely anyone’s name – even those of the characters he’s invented – incredibly problematic. He’s constantly having to work out the name of the person he’s currently talking to, or even those he’s reading or writing about. Parent's evenings were interesting excursions into the unknown, to say the least.Generally, he finds writing difficult, not only because he’s never had any formal training in the gentle art of viciously stabbing a piece of lined paper with a fountain pen, but also because he has a scientist’s inbred attention to detail and facts; which has him constantly re-visiting and re-checking that everything he’s written is empirically correct. This also results in the feeling that what he’s done may not be the best that can be done, and so it’s back to re-checking, re-writing and re-vising; and then finally asking the question: “What year is this?”So keep your electronic reading devices internet-connected, since there will undoubtedly be updates . . .Read more about this authorRead less about this author